Music review: T in the Park

Published on 10/07/2010 00:19

T IN THE PARK ****

EARLY main stage hit Editors ran through a typically rousing set, which included fan favourites Smokers Outside the Hospital Doors and Papillon. In King Tut's Wah Wah Tent, electro songstress Ellie Jackson, aka La Roux, was a hit largely for the sake of her two most recognisable songs, In For the Kill and Bulletproof, and a procession of ever more incredible gold jackets.

The prize for most shameless attempt to snare the affections of a partisan crowd was surely destined for Maxi Jazz, rapper and vocalist with the main stage's Faithless. "T in the Park, I can't believe we left it so long," he declared, and his nouveau Highland dress outfit of blue kilt and lace-up shirt declared his intention to get into the traditional T spirit. Yet, while his band's set was lent the energy of live musicianship and the slew of well-known hooks needed to justify such a billing, broad daylight isn't their natural habitat.

In the absence of any Slam Tent action last night, anyone with an urge to dance to something more contemporary were forced to get out and search for it.

One highlight was Stockport's Delphic. Their stage set was an impressive array of three silver parasols lit by flaring strobes, and their music combines the knack for club-orientated pop songwriting of their predecessors, New Order, with a contemporary house sheen on tracks such asHalcyon and Counterpoint. There was dancing, and there'll be even more when they've graduated from the Futures Stage.

While Florence Welch and her Machine played ethereal pop on the Radio 1/NME stage, Friday's big draw for real scenesters was Hot Chip, back in the Tut's tent.

While the electronic pop collective's set wasn't all as rousing they laid early claim to a few of the weekend's most memorable and unifying moments in tracks like Over and Over, Ready for the Floor and I Feel Better.

As Calvin Harris, Black Eyed Peas and Echo and the Bunnymen headed up the other stages, and French Wives topped off a strong line-up in the T-Break tent, Muse made an impressive if somewhat hammy main-stage headliner. Accompanied by an impressive laser lightshow and a backdrop of hexagonal segments seemingly inspired by Eighties quiz show Blockbusters, tracks like Hysteria and Supermassive Black Hole provided a mounting tide of muscular guitar riffs.

DAVID POLLOCK

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