Críticas de Love Music Hate Racism Carnival no Victoria Park

Love Music Hate Racism @ Victoria Park, London [UK], 27/04/08

Abr 29 2008, 9h06 por citrusmantis

Sun 27 Apr – Love Music Hate Racism Carnival

To combat the post-Prosumer blues, we spent some of Sunday at the Love Music Hate Racism festival, which turned out to be one of the least friendly events I've been to, and one of the most racially segregated. The actual message of the festival was lost amid fanatical 'DESTROY THE BNP' speeches and 'NO FASCISTS IN OUR SCHOOLS' and 'SAY NO TO BORIS' slogans. Uh...not very helpful.

We spent most of our time in the dance tent, where Benga and Skream were laying down a pretty mean set of dubstep and UK garage. Even within dubstep, which to me always sounds forward-thinking, Skream and Benga (especially Benga) sound like they're beaming back from even further into the future. Top stuff.

Unfortunately for us, the police hate music and love racism. They shut down the tent about an hour early just as DJ Hype was getting warmed up. Telling everyone to MOVE BACK, they cut the music for about 20 minutes, leading to most of the crowd slowly emerging from the tent, despondent. Then, just as we were leaving too, they reopened the doors and allowed a whole load of people from outside in - all the people who'd been there for 2 hours enjoying themselves were just replaced for no reason. Useless.

A quick blast of Patrick Wolf (whose anti-racism speech was somewhat counteracted by his hilarious Union Jack suit, which I'm sure the BNP would have loved) we made the trip to Stratford for a quick Burger King (of which I ate approximately three chips) and then on to the IndigO2.

Victoria Park, 27th April

Abr 28 2008, 16h07 por buntyvsbeano

Sun 27 Apr – Love Music Hate Racism Carnival

Yesterday I went to the Love Music, Hate Racism Carnival & I can say the majority of it was really good.

I saw Jimmy Pursey (Sham 69). He sang White Riot. You would think he'd do a Sham69 song like If The Kids are United, or Borstal Breakout, but it was still fun to dance and sing along too.

I was really looking forward to seeing Poly Styrene (X-Ray Spex) She sang

Oh Bondage Up Yours! which I thought was fun to watch, although I think it would've been even better if she'd done more than one x-ray spex song.

Akala was really good, better than I expected him to be live. I loved how it was pouring down with rain as he said a line from a song of his called

Bullshit that went 'the motherfucking weather in Britain, now that's bullshit'.

I saw literally one or two songs by Natty, the only reason I didn't stay to watch more was because of the unorganised programme. I had to keep switching stages so I didn't miss other people I went there to see. I didn't see much of him, but I liked what I did manage to see.

Pretty much the only reason I watched Roll Deep was because me & the friend I was with find the man with the bun amusing.

When I was in the dance tent, a lady called Lauren Mason came on stage, who I'd never heard of. It was grime/dance type music, I thought she was okay, but nothing special. I only watched her perform a couple of her songs and wandered to the other stages to see who else was on.

And the last artist I saw was also my favourite. I had been worrying that I'd missed Patrick Wolf seeing as the programme didn't actually show what times the bands were on, just which stage they were on. But fortunately I walked over to the other stage just as he came out. As you can see from the picture, he was looking pretty in his Union Jack suit. Although I adore Patrick Wolf, I was a little bit disappointed.. a few of the songs didn't sound alot like the records, and they weren't particuarly a better version. Saying this, he was still fun to watch, prancing around, throwing beer everywhere.

The only bad points of the day were, I hadn't really prepared myself for the weather & got soaked and had my view blocked on many occasions by people with huge umbrellas. Also where people were dancing with their umbrellas, I nearly had my eye taken out on a couple occasions. The only other bad thing that happend that day was on my way out of the park after it had finished.
Everyone was walking towards the gates to leave, and as I looked to my right, I could see about 5 or 6 boys kicking this other boy that was on the floor. There were police around all day at Victoria Park, and the one time the police were actually really needed they were nowhere to be seen. It was a really bad way to end the day. If you ignore those two things, the day in general was fun, the lineup was good, and speakers got their message across to hundreds of people. (I mean the people who actually had something to say instead of 'Fuck the BNP')