Parklife Weekender 2014

The truth of course is that It was always bound to outgrow the relative niche that it had carved out close to the universities in its fledgling years and in doing so require a larger geographical space. The summer festival offering by the minds behind the Warehouse Project (the ‘superclub’ that attracts world-class DJs and idiotic revellers in apparently equal measure), Parklife rather fittingly finds an endless sea of fluorescent paint spattered patrons who likely couldn’t be less appropriately dressed for the occasion if they’d tried - particularly because of the torrential downpours that delayed the start of play on Saturday. That, in itself, is less to do with Parklife itself though and more to do with the way in which festival culture has evolved these past few years; sadly, they are largely no longer intended for the discerning music fan.

Saturday

In fairness to the organisers, though, the two-day lineup they’ve booked here is both impressively diverse and comfortably up to the consistently high standards set by the Warehouse Project’s September - January season. Particularly sensible, this year, is the decision to expand to allow for two outdoor stages; the new Temple/Wildlife arena, with its wooden design, is far more striking than the standard main stage, too.

As usual, a collaboration with Now Wave - far and away the finest promoters in Manchester - proves key. On the Saturday their tent plays host to an incendiary early set from Factory Floor, who rip through re-worked versions of cuts from their debut full-length at frankly vicious pace whilst a little later, and on similarly formidable form, Mount Kimbie continue to strike the delicate balance between live instrumentation and computer-based electronics with real poise; an extended rendition of “Made to Stray” the set standout.

Kendrick Lamar was originally at the top of the tent’s billing and the prospect of seeing the good kid, m.A.A.d. city man backed by a live band was bound to prove one of the biggest draws of the weekend. He pulled out late on, though, citing unfathomable scheduling issues with his own U.S. tour; your guess is as good as mine as to how he was booked to play a festival thousands of miles away at the same time. Despite managing to secure a heavyweight replacement in A$AP Rocky, there’s a sense that Chromeo’s Now Wave slot was elevated to greater prominence as a result of Lamar’s withdrawal and they rose to the occasion magnificently. Taking the stage behind leg-shaped keyboard stands - a possible nod to their recent collaboration with Chuck Inglish - they tear through a set heavy on their superb new White Women LP whilst packing in a fair slice of Fancy Footwork-era material too. In many ways, they sum up the dichotomy that the lineup aims for; this is dance music, with just enough of an experimental bent to entice those who fell for dance-punk’s charms a decade or so ago.

Snoop Dogg headlines the main stage, and it’s a booking that doesn’t convince on closer inspection; his brand is certainly heavyweight enough, but we are also talking about a man who has made nothing whatsoever of any artistic worth since “Drop It Like It’s Hot”. These days, his appeal is based firmly on Snoop Dogg the character, rather than Snoop Dogg the musician; if that sounds cynical, my one previous experience of his live show was three years ago, when he suddenly interrupted the advertised start-to-finish play-through of Doggystyle to perform a couple of his horrendous recent David Guetta collaborations. He plays it safe tonight, aiming to crowd-please and tempering the Snoop Lion persona that apparently served no other purpose than to prove that you really can smoke too much weed. He works a slew of Tupac and Biggie cuts in alongside his own classics - claiming that he’s “feeling old-school” - and whilst nobody there really wanted to hear his verse from Katy Perry’s “California Gurls”, he’s likely delivered plenty of sets far more uneven than this one.

Sunday

Today’s stages have been rebranded in confusing fashion - the Now Wave tent is now ‘Sounds from the Near Future’, apparently in line with its more dance-oriented schedule. Early on, Cape Town’s John Wizards bring a fabulously eclectic energy to what, given how many sore heads there are bound to be amongst those with tickets, is a graveyard slot. Their superb self-titled debut, both sonically and thematically based around mastermind John Withers’ travels around the African continent, is brought joyously to life by an impressive live setup. If anything, they place the bar perhaps a little too high; East India Youth’s early-afternoon set seems positively dour by way of comparison.

Sitting incongruously amongst an overly radio friendly main stage lineup - Bastille, London Grammar, Sam Smith - are Warpaint. Given that they’re playing to a relatively sparse crowd, plenty amongst whom are at least initially disinterested, it’s almost impossible to envision how they can possibly summon the atmosphere that characterises their live shows beneath grey skies and with some distance between themselves and the audience. That they manage it, and with some aplomb, makes this far and away the standout set of the weekend; if they can be quite this hypnotic here, they can surely manage it anywhere. The brooding guitars of “Keep It Healthy” set the tone for a forty-five minute slot that sees all four members come to the fore; the rhythm section of Jenny Lee Lindberg and Stella Mozgawa often dominate proceedings, so vital is their interplay to the live show.

Emily Kokal and Theresa Wayman lay claim to their share of the limelight, though, from incendiary overlapping guitar work on “Elephants” to a roughly fifty-fifty split of vocal duties. An extended version of The Fool’s lead single, “Undertow”, is an early highlight, but it’s the closing one-two of the as-yet-unreleased “No Way Out” and “Disco/Very” that really seals this position just as a torrential downpour begins. The former track is but a microcosm of Warpaint at large - dark, menacing and irrepressibly fun at the same time. Finishing up on “the danciest song we have” proves a masterstroke too; “Disco//Very”’s chanted vocals, offbeat drumming and gurgling bass serve as compelling evidence that Warpaint don’t take themselves anything like too seriously.

Over on the David Rodigan-curated Ram Jam stage - easily the best-located of the festival, sitting in front of the beautiful Colonnade monument - Public Enemy arrive ten minutes late, and initially without Flavor Flav. When he finally joins (trademark clock in tow) halfway through the second song, the hip hop legends treat the relatively modest throng to a masterclass in aggressive, abrasive rap, with an experimental set that often has Chuck D riffing A capella in between songs.

There’s a serious blip at the midpoint - the speakers blow just as they launch into “Don’t Believe the Hype” - but the group play on regardless, blissfully unaware, for nearly ten minutes before the problem is resolved; they must have wondered why a good two-thirds of the crowd departed just as they dropped one of their best-known tracks, as well as what provoked those who did stick around to burst into cheers when the sound did finally return. A rap group more closely tied to rock music than most, it’d be nothing short of a travesty of they were to perform without a band so it’s a thrill to see them prove the importance of it that when it comes to live hip hop too, with their drummer in particular matching D’s belligerence and Flav’s sheer energy all the way.

Foals arrive fifteen minutes late for their main stage headline slot, perhaps hoping that the crowd might swell a little in that time but with Disclosure attracting an enormous audience to the Wildlife stage, the Oxford outfit play to a field that’s modestly attended by headliner standards. The cynic in me might try to suggest that it’s as much to do with the sheer rigidity of the band’s setlist - they play a show that’s almost identical to their appearance at the Apollo back in February, the only real difference being the relative brevity here that sees the extended jams often appended to the likes of “Providence” lopped off. They certainly tick all of the right boxes thought. Rowdy singalong? “My Number”. Lighters-in-the-air moment? “Spanish Sahara”. Increasingly frenetic, stage-setting opener? “Prelude” meets the case nicely.

The real highlights, though, lie with the deeper cuts, the tracks less suited to this environment. The fabulously sparse “Red Socks Pugie” remains their single greatest achievement, and the intimate, claustrophobic “Late Night” plays like “Spanish Sahara”’s subtler, more nuanced cousin. Foals deserve to be where they are now - there’s no question they can pull off these slots with real flair - but you can’t help but feel that, on album number four, they’re going to need to mix things up a bit; “Two Steps, Twice”, and Yannis Phillipakis’ accompanying, crowd-invading antics feel as though they’ve have been done to death.

For what my own experiences were worth, this year’s Parklife was musically excellent; it’s just a shame that in order to be privy to such a well-considered lineup you’re forced to share the space with a crowd that seems, overwhelmingly, to be concerned with a day out first and the actual performances second. There is an unsettling sense of an ever-increasing disconnect between the organisers and those so long considered their core fan base. On paper, bigger is much better, but in practice, it’s clear that some of what made Platt Fields so special has been lost in translation.