Lovebox 2012: Review

Friday 15th – Sunday 17th June 2012 – Lovebox @ Victoria Park, London Words: George Allonby

A coming together of totally different niche styles and sounds, Lovebox returned to London’s Victoria Park for a tenth triumphant year. Packed with innovative artists, a carnival-esque atmosphere and plenty of good-time vibes, Lovebox 2012 was always going to be a weekend to remember.

! FRIDAY As crowds assembled by the gates for the first day of Lovebox fun, we were wondering how much longer it’d be until we were finally let in. The crowds of hipsters who had descended on East London were eager for the fun to start, with a few England chants piping up ahead of the international football game against Sweden. The mood was bubbling.

Dubstep and grime seemed to be the order of the day, but it was by no means the only music on offer. Headliners like Crystal Castles brought a fantastic edge to the day led by their charismatic singer Alice Glass who sauntered about on stage like a woman possessed.

A variety of smaller stages meant something was going on all the time. Scottish referee John Anderson of Gladiators fame adjudicated an exciting battle of different musical acts of varying abilities, and the carnival spirited Gato Preto got feet moving with their percussive dance sound.

In the afternoon sun the aptly named Heatwave brought** basement beats to the open-topped second stage. They worked the compact but committed crowd well. Digital Soundboy kept the fun vibes flowing with his bass heavy electro, before bringing it down with a little dubstep- dropping Skream’s** classic ‘Midnight Request Line’ which everyone went duly mad for.

N-Type with SP:MC spun out a seasoned set which set the Big Top Tent ablaze. Tribal beats broke out into darker dubstep, with the Joker featuring Newham Generals track ‘You Should Know’ getting a well deserved rewind before mosh pits erupted.

Dagenham’s Devlin brought his anthemic** **mainstream grime to the main stage playing tunes from his free E.P like ‘London City 2’ before being joined by his band. His performance shows how far he’s evolved as an artist. Some criticise him for this, but he’s not lost his east-end charm, declaring “It wouldn’t be a set if something didn’t go wrong!” But nothing actually did. Before he left the stage he delivered a massive 64 bars acapella in the cuttingly raw style that got him to where he is today. He looks like he’s got a lot of life in him too.

The Boy Better Know collective crowded onto the Big Top stage that evening, with the likes of Skepta, Shorty, Jme, Jammer and a number of others bringing their bars to the table. They kicked it out hard, opening with ‘Doin It Again’, but perhaps repeating the ‘Too Many Man’ rhythm a few too many times. It seemed to lose focus during the second half of the set.

Following up was the pioneer DJ Skream blending the crossover in acts nicely. The crowd justifiably went mad for him, especially when he saluted on top of a speaker. Every Skream show’s an event, but this one was carnage. One MC called for a stage invasion, as ‘Teenage Kicks’ by The Undertones played out, before security stepped in. I think this was Skream’s response to the set being cut short, as most of the sets were that day. But the rock star end to a wholly electronic evening whetted my appetite for the next couple of days.

! SATURDAY Saturday seemed to take the tempo down slightly, while keeping the good vibes going strong.

The whole site was awash with different characters doing different styles and wearing different colours, from East-London vintage-rockers to new ravers and macced-out indie kids. As the festival featured so much innovative and different music, unsurprisingly the fashion followed suit, which made it a great place to just sit down and observe as well as getting up and grooving.

Delilah characterised Saturday with a soulful and passionate vocal style that touched on a number of genres. A lot of the crowd were chilling out on the grass, drinking wine and like us, enjoying her play out her latest singles like ‘Breathe’ with a minimal but tight live band.

Choosing a bite to eat between stages was not easy with such a worldly selection of (typically overpriced) offerings. We even pondered splashing out a fiver to get thrown around on an intimidating looking fairground ride, but thought we’d save the money (and our stomachs) by sidestepping past it while dodging the falling sunglasses and jewellery.

Maverick Sabre got the main stage moving with his dose of Irish soul over his accomplished live band. Although he didn’t exactly get the crowd going mental, as most of us were just happy to stand and sway absorbing the sounds, at a couple of points he had decent crowd participation with hands in the air. Notably for ‘I Used to Have It All’ and the song that got him his first radio playout ‘Sometimes’.** **

But Saturday was not without its required dose of frantic drum and bass as Danny Byrd tore into classics towards the end of his set satisfying the large amount of ravers stretching out to the back of the Big Top tent. When he played the jungle classic ‘Wolf’ by Shy FX it got hundreds dropping their drinks and skanking out.

There was a little bit for everyone at the festival, wherever you walked you’d find yourself at a stage with banging beats or a great live band. There was also a number of photo stops where you could get snapped for free in a black cab by festival sponsors Time Out.

After perusing a surreal section of expertly painted old cars awash with icons of animals, shapes and even tabloid newspapers we went to witness the almighty Groove Armada. Their set alternated vocalists from one singer to the next, with a cover of ‘You Got the Love’ lifting everyone up. They alternated singers regularly for classics like ‘Paper Romance’ before ending on ‘Superstylin’ with their MC whipping the crowd up nicely.

Friendly Fires got a fantastic reception on Saturday too with beaming red lights covering the vocalist as swaying crowds sung along to disco-bangers like ‘Paris’. They opened with ‘Lovesick’, and had the whole crowd clapping along with hands in the air to ‘Skeleton Boy’, which went down a storm. When they left the stage we all wanted more, and the boys delivered with an encore hammering out ‘Hawaiian Air’ which saw a second drummer take to the stage against the stunning visual backdrop.

! SUNDAY Sunday was definitely a spectacle, drawing in outrageously glamorous crowds dressed to impress. It was a totally mixed crowd on the final day, with families camping out on the grass sipping wine and couples camping it out together in front of one of the many stages on offer.

Grace Jones was without a doubt the highlight of the day, as would always be expected from the 64 year old veteran performer. She glammed it up for her die-hard fans, changing outfits in between nearly every song. She wore a feathered coat for ‘Jamaican Guy’ changing to a sexy top hat number which she wore as she sipped wine singing ‘La Vie En Rose’. Grace ended Lovebox in incredible fashion performing ‘Slave to the Rhythm’ while hula-hooping from beginning to end, which only dropped to the floor as she left the stage, signalling the end of the weekend.

During the day however there was a hell of a lot of fun to be had at the Downlow stage in the Horsemeat Disco. Set up to look like a red light district in New York, glammed-up transgender and transvestite performers swanned around the queue of people curiously waiting to get in, posing for pictures and dancing provocatively.

After paying the £2 entrance fee (which goes to charity) you can forget the sunshine outside and groove it up in the dark and seductively smoky fantastic atmosphere to disco and techno tunes. The atmosphere was brilliant and entirely good-natured inside, with everyone sporting their free stick-on moustaches (perhaps as a disguise) you got upon entry. It was an outrageous laugh.

The variety of acts at Lovebox made it really memorable as a festival. Even if you’re unsure of which acts to see, it’s impossible you won’t run into something right up your street. For example at the Floripa stage the time flew by as we skanked it out to the local Hackney Colliery Band’s brass tributes to Amy Winehouse songs and classic soul numbers. When they covered The Prodigy’s ‘Out of Space’ the compact crowd was bouncing with real feeling.

Classic acts from the past came back to move East London on the Sunday. Chic’s ‘Good Times’ had everyone beaming and singing along, watching the stage which was filled with her many band members. The song summed up the mood at Lovebox.

Chaka Khan really delivered, especially to the older members of the audience during the early evening. She dedicated songs to all the women of the world, before wishing a happy father’s day to all the dads and ending on a climatic ‘I’m Every Woman’- at which point couples could be seen spinning each other around by the hands.

Lovebox has got a little bit of everything, with a line-up packed full of smaller but incredibly impressive acts and fun times to be found around every corner. It’s a deceptively big festival too with three main stages and six smaller ones. There’s a lot of smaller local acts which go a long way in keeping the atmosphere charged and different crowds entertained. I’ve come away from the festival as a fan of much more music than when I entered. Everyone was in great spirits and it was nice to see such a mix of ages across the three days too. It’s a festival I would definitely recommend if you’d enjoy a weekend where anything goes with lashings of style, and most importantly, banging sounds.