Review: Saturday at Wireless

When: Saturday 2nd July

Where: Hyde Park

Reviewed by: Will Marlow

Wireless isn’t a festival in the true sense of the term. It doesn’t become your second home for the duration; you just go home at the end of the day. But it certainly makes a pretty good stab at recreating the atmosphere of its countryside counterparts, slap bang in the middle of the capital city.

Historically Saturday has always been dance day at Wireless, and this year was no different. Warmed up by a fantastically frenetic Janelle Monae, the crowd at the main stage are treated to the first big act of the day in the form of Katy B – on curiously early in the middle of the afternoon.

Like her vocal style, the Katy B live show is restrained but confident. It’s been a good year for Katy B and here in her home town she has no qualms in kicking off her set with 'Louder', the B-side to 'On A Mission' which charted in its own right thanks to download sales.

What follows is a satisfying and unshowy performance. Katy only occasionally shows a bit of the mischievous personality responsible for those lyrics – teasing the boys in the crowd before 'Easy Please Me', and starting a call and response war between genders (the girls won, naturally). Show over, you realise it’s perfect for the middle of the afternoon.

After Katy B there was a hangover from Friday’s pop line-up in the form of Ke$ha, but the dance flag was kept flying at the Unwind stage where British DJ Alex Metric spun a pleasingly bouncy house set that drew an enthusiastic response from the equally bouncy crowd packed into the small tent. Even Metric was surprised, commenting that he’d not expected people to be so lively this early in the day.

Back on the main stage Chromeo took Wireless back to the 80s with their curious concoction of ironic synth-pop R&B. They had no trouble drumming up an up-for-it crowd, surprisingly many of whom were shouting along to the likes of 'Bonafied Lovin’'.

The soon-to-be-retired The Streets, aka Mike Skinner, quickly set out his role as warm-up man for the two main events. Skinner seemed to be revelling in the idea that he was soon to be ‘one of us’ again, promising to be out in the crowd “off his pickle” later. The performance was almost too relaxed though, a mere run-through of the hits. Skinner seemed more concerned with showing off his new fit-but-he-knows-it body than pulling a consummate farewell Streets show out the bag.

Chase & Status upped the ante somewhat with their heady mix of rave, drum’n’bass, dubstep and any other dance genre they find lying around. They kept most of the crowd none the wiser as to what they look like, sending out various singers to front the show, including the exquisitely voiced Liam Bailey.

The Chemical Brothers pulled a similar trick, with only Ed coming out from behind the keyboards occasionally to fire up the audience. To compensate they provided not only a visual feast but an aural one as well. Pleasingly, the duo is not afraid to play around with its material, taking the hits – 'Galvanise', 'Block Rockin’ Beats', 'Do It Again', the list is epic – and creating new, exciting, visceral soundscapes with them. Whether you watch the imaginative and sometimes disturbing visuals or not, the Chemical Brothers live experience allows you to enjoy their arsenal of tunes in such an absorbing and explosive manner that you hardly think about whether you’ve clapped eyes on Tom or Ed.

Exhausting and energising at once, the duo are a good way to end a day at a festival, and an even better way to begin the rest of the night.

Photo: Derek Bremner