Since, with a fairly grim inevitability, I'm the first of the Uncut massive to be up and about, the first highlights top ten of the festival falls to me, it seems.
There’s something vaguely ironic about a group from a predominantly arid country like Mali attracting a massive crowd because it starts raining. But Amadou & Mariam deserve nothing less. Over on the main stage, Franz Ferdinand are battling on as the rain gets steadily heavier.
I must admit, I find it hard to throw myself willingly into the arms of Martha Wainwright. This isn't necessarily anything to do with her song craft -- which is sleek, consummate, and delivered with commendable laser precision. She is, I guess, part of a lineage of perfectly respectable quality singer-songwriters who can find an equilibrium between a more benign, FM Radio 2 friendly audiences and those searching, perhaps, for something that's clearly in tune to profound emotional feelings.
Who’s that playing,” said one male member of the packed crowd at one point. “Crystal Castles,” said his friend. “But there’s nobody on the stage,” the first objected.
Let’s start at the end. Julian Cope is standing onstage in the Uncut Arena. The power has just been pulled on him for over-running. He has started half an hour late after a doomed attempt at soundchecking, played two newish songs and a bizarre medley of some old songs, sacrificed a guitar to the goddess, challenged God, Jehovah and Allah to a fight, and ended by announcing, “Children, tell your grandchildren that people like me once walked the earth.” No wonder, I suppose, that he hasn’t played a festival in years.
