BLUE DOT FESTIVAL 2019 – DAY 2 – Saturday

Day 2 and I can’t remember anything much right now so I will refer to my phone and try to figure out who and what I saw when. My initial memeory was that the bed was uncomfortable and that it was freezing cold in the tent, my second initial memory, if there can be such a thing, is that there was a bloody baby crying in the next tent, which set of another one in another tent.

So it looks like we went to see Tony Njoku first, in one of the tents. This is he:

It wa sa little odd as we both liked him, as a person if you like, but found the music a little disjointed and the vocals often in to high a range for his voice, live at least, where he dropped the key down and sang a little deeper it seemed to us to sound much better. There were a couple of tracks where it felt they were building to something and then didn’t, which only ever really leaves the listener with a sense of dissapointment. Don’t let this put you off though, we listened to the song below and a couple of others before deciding to pop in and watch, it’s good:

I saw a little bit of EASY STAR ALL-STARS: DUB SIDE OF THE MOON, of which I approve having listened to it years ago, however, I was never very keen on the Radiohead stuff they did and seeing people waving their hands back and forth to Karma Police just seemed a little strange to me.

The next thing I remember seeing was KoKoKo!, who I spoke about HERE. I enjoyed their set.

Then came a bit of a dissapointment to me, which was Omar Sullyman. I have his last album and really rather like it, it’s loud and busy and vibrant, unlike the perfomance on the main stage. 1 Guy with Keyboard, 1 Guy singing, not much movement, not much fun. At least I didn’t think so. I left before the end to go and get a coffee, or charge my phone, or something equally banal. As you can see from the video below, that’s as animated as it got, I was genuinely bored, which is a shame as I had high expectations, perhaps that was the problem.

Next up was JARVIS COCKER [INTRODUCING JARV IS]. He is a great frontman, wonderful personality and knows how to manage a crowd, however, in my opinion, playing almost all new material or songs nobody knows is almost always a mistake. I gave this a good go, lasting almost half an hour before getting bored with it all and wandering off. Just one song I knew and I probabaly would have lasted until the end. Actually, it may have been that we received a message to say that the Kraftwerk 3D glasses were now available to collect, so that may have been when we went to get them. As we approached the tent at the back of the soundbooth we could see the guy handing them out, as we arrived we heard him tell somebody there were none left. We’d missed our chance by a matter of seconds.

This was a major dissapointment and, when I discovered they only had 3000 to give out to a crowd that was 3 times that, I was also quite annoyed. Your basic 3D glasses cost almost nothing, I have a pair in a drawer at home somewhere which I wish I’d brought, and to watch a 3D show without them would diminish its impact so much. We hung around for a while but there weren’t any more forthcoming and we headed back to the tent for a bloody good sulk about it.

As we passed the main stage my lad noticed a guy leaning over the barrier handing a few more out, he legged it over and got a couple, sorted! Although I did feel sorry for those that didn’t have any, particulalry as there were a few people rubbing it in, shouting “Glsses for Sale 100 quid” and laughing uproriously at their brilliant joke. One guy was really mean, literaly holding his glasses up in peoples faces and saying “Got Mine”.

The above is the only picture I took of Kraftwerk, who aren’t there yet. I was so enthralled by the whole thing that I didn’t take and try another picture while they were playing, that and the fact that I could barely move my arms. I had forgotten that if people want to get past you make them go behind you, otherwise they will make out they are passing through and just stop in the space you’ve created and stay there, then call their mates in. I was actually much closer myself when the gig started, but I moved forward nicely and politely.

It was a fabulous show and despite my previous moaning about Omar Souleyman not being very animated, Kraftwerk were even less so, but that was exactly as expected. Once the £D got going it was extremely cool, with arms and musical notes and satellites all coming right towards you as though they were going to take your head off.

Set List:

Numbers / Computer World
It’s More Fun to Compute / Home Computer
Computer Love
The Man-Machine
Spacelab
The Model
Autobahn
Geiger Counter / Radioactivity
Tour de France / Prologue / Étape 1 / Chrono / Étape 2
Trans-Europe Express / Abzug / Metal on Metal
The Robots
Boing Boom Tschak / Techno Pop / Musique Non Stop

While I was deliberatly trying to look like a goofy idiot in the following picture, I have no idea why my eye looks so bloody massive.

All in all it was a decent day, topped by finally getting to see Kraftwerk for the first time.