Lovebox Weekender

Lovebox has been held annually for around seven years now and before going I’d heard both good and bad feedback about the event, so I was keen to check out this well-known London day-festival. 

Lovebox’s three days of music over the weekend draws crowds of Londoners who love a festival, but are just a tube ride home.Very convenient.

We arrived at around 3pm, queued to enter, were sniffed in places we wouldn’t like to mention by an attentive police dog and let in to play. We were greeted by a guy in a backpack filled with Gaymers cider, so we lightened his load and went off to explore, cider in hand. 

Friday saw the likes of Dizzee Rascal headlining with legends Chase & Status supporting. The line-up for Saturday was underwhelming, in my opinion, for a festival held in such high regard. Barring a couple of well-known classics such as Let’s Stick Together and Love Is The Drug, the back catalogue of Roxy Music was largely unknown to the Lovebox masses. With the unhappy reality of going into work the next day niggling in the back of my mind, Sunday offered the chance to shake down to some great tunes from Hot Chip. I wasn’t too disheartened though. The sun was shining and Mark Ronson held promise.

In addition to the music, Lovebox offers good alternative entertainment. We let ourselves go and had a ride on the waltzers and Helter Skelter. Set designers Block 9 were there too with their legendary NYC Downlow street scene complete with transvestite fantasy characters. Elsewhere in the festival was a helicopter with serenely flapping, and strangely small, wings. There also were giant flowers strewn about the site, with the wasters transfixed as the sun went down behind the glowing petals. 

At the main stage everyone donned their enormous sunglasses. Some were dancing to the beat, others were caught in deep conversation. The only problem was the sound. It was at that annoying level that when someone sang along to a tune, all you could hear was their voice. The sun, however, was still warming our backs.

Then Mark Ronson came on. His tunes were hard to make out over the background chatter, as he attempted Oh My God with a Lily Allen stand-in. Lily’s London tones make that song so great it was a shame he played it without her.

We sneaked off to check out Grandmaster Flash scratching White Lines on the decks. We had a dance and when the sun had set we knew it was time to weave our way back to the main stage to catch the headline act.

When Roxy Music entered the stage the crowd started to thin out. Bryan Ferry’s performance wasn’t particularly energetic and, starting with the slow songs, failed to unify the crowd. The band would probably have been better in a smaller venue such as Ronnie Scotts or The Jazz Café but their talent was lost at the main stage. Then the faint tones of Bryan Ferry and Roxy Music drove us, along with other park dwellers, away from Lovebox to something more exhilarating elsewhere in the big smoke.