On Blackheath Sunday

My last festival of the year, but the one with with the best weather. Couldn't really have asked for a nicer day - weather, company or music.

Now lets get this straight. This is a very middle-class family oriented festival. The line up is designed to appeal to folk my age- Edwyn Collins, St Etienne, Squeeze, James, Belle & Sebastian. All for indie kids who have grown up and now have families. At V Festival the crowd was full of sweating lads trying to get their girlfriends on their shoulders. Here it was dads with their under-10s. And its sponsored by John Lewis, so not very rock and roll. But ok, I admit it. I am over 50 too and this is aimed at me. And I enjoyed it.

I had a relay of friends at this, starting with my last trainee whose fiancee was part of the opening act - the Greenwich & Lewisham NHS Choir. They had managed to get a Christmas No1 with a cover/mash-up of Simon & Garfunkel's Bridge Over Troubled Waters and Coldplay's Fix You. It was interesting listening to the various arrangements of familiar songs, and nicely eased one into the festival. Bridge Over Troubled Waters was better in Art Garfunkel's dulcet tones, but Fix You was rather better here than sung by Chris Martin. In my opinion. But that's half the fun of listening to these things - it makes you think of what you like and why one version works better than another.

  

 Liz getting into her solo.

 And the choirmaster

 Well after that, Alex and I retired for food, drink and an ice cream, seeking a bit of shade from the September sun. I have to confess that with that and a bit of a walk around we neglected the next two acts. But then having hooked up with a second set of friends, James and Roma, we were ready to head back to the business end to see venerable rockers Squeeze. They also hauled on stage the NHS choir to back them on a few numbers, including Cool for Cats.

This was probably the oldest act of the day, but went down very well. Glenn Tilbrook has an excellent voice, and a varied repertoire from some things you can imagine being sung in a pub to standards like Take Me I'm Yours (on which they finished ) and Pulling Mussels from a Shell.

Next up were James. One of the better performances from them over the several I have seen. And the first time they didn't play Sit Down. I can understand this as they are a band who feel they are vastly more important to music than they are, so playing their one really big hit rather overemphasises that they were one hit wonders with one other popular album to back it up. Their new numbers weren't received with any great enthusiasm.

By th final act I had swapped over friends again with James and Roma departing and Kate joining me with her partner for Belle and Sebastian. What can I say? Charming set. Kate's partner remarked on how shambolic they were as a live act when starting out, and how tight they are now. 20 plus years of practice I guess. This set was perfectly judged in terms of audience rapport and mix of old and new songs. Helped by the fact that their most recent album is one of their best. In my humble opinion they produce a really good album every 10 years.

On stage, Stuart Murdoch just exudes charm  His slightly fey Glaswegian accent works ever so well. Their fan base may not be enormous but it is justly devoted.

  

Visually the highlight was Boy with the Arab Strap for which Stuart called up random members of the audience to dance. Just dance joyously, not professionally, or well. This is not Strictly Come Dancing. No votes for good, just for seeming to have fun.