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Saturday 14th June
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Source: Official Facebook / J Spicer
Mothership – 3.5/5
Mothership are our new find of the weekend. Playing the Hard Rock Rising stage alongside other up and coming artists, they really stood out and feel like a true rock’n’roll band, which you don’t see much these days; particularly at festivals like this. With big hair and shredding guitar solos, they are a great listen, and their stage prescence and ability to engage an audience who are just sitting around and relaxing proves their live talent. Ones to watch!
The Pretty Reckless – 3/5
The Pretty Reckless start as they mean to go on, entering to highly sexual moans from front woman Taylor Momsen, and all probably a little bit inappropriate given the amount of kids around at the festival. After this first impression, Taylorseems like a rather dull vocalist, standing firm by her mic stand and occasionally bobbing her head.
As the set progresses however, she finally becomes the front woman that we expect her to be and she starts to move around the stage and address the audience. She also takes every possible opportunity to show off her risque dance moves; it’s definitely a good job she put shorts on under the oversized t-shirt/miniscule dress she was wearing.
Taylor tries her best to get the crowd singing along, asking the audience to help out during ‘Heaven Knows‘. Unfortunately, the crowd don’t seem to know the song and she has neglected to tell us what we are meant to be singing. She has more luck with ‘Going To Hell‘ and doesn’t even have to ask for help in ‘Make Me Wanna Die‘ with the crowd sings pretty much the entire thing.
The band then make a strange choice, and instead of ending on their big hit they decide to play their upcoming single that hasn’t even been released and therefore no one knows, called ‘Fucked Up World‘. It is an anti-climatic ending to a set that had been getting better and better. – 3/5
The 1975 – 4.5/5
No sooner had the intro to The 1975‘s set started, the audience is already dancing and it’s clear that this is going to be a great set. And it is. You really can’t fault the bands playing ability, which is impressive considering between songs, we’re pretty sure Matt Healy is high, drunk, or both; especially given the bottle of wine he is swigging from on stage. This does give him a very rock’n’roll stage presence though, and he still interacts with the crowd. With Matt asking the crowd to put their hands up in the air , within seconds everyone is clapping. From then on it is an automatic response from the audience, and he doesn’t have to ask again.
There were a lot of unprompted sing alongs, particularly to ‘Girls‘, ‘Chocolate‘ and the closing song ‘Sex‘, and as they left the stage there were even people cheering for more. The 1975 have definitely proved they are one of the crowd favourites today, and most of the people surrounding the main stage leave with the band.
Source: Official FacebookThe Specials – 4/5
Just to show the true variety at the Isle Of Wight Festival, they place The Specials (a 2-tone ska band) between The 1975 and Red Hot Chili Peppers. While plenty of people had left after The 1975, the area does start to fill up again with festival goers eager to dance and have a good time.
As the band themselves point out, “a lot of you are too young to remember us“, but nonetheless everyone seems to be enjoying themseves and there are plenty who know them well enough to sing-a-long to some of the more well know tracks, ‘Monkey Man‘, ‘A Message To You, Rudy‘ and the set closer ‘Too Much Too Young‘.
The great reaction to The Specials just shows how diverse festivals can still draw a huge crowd for all acts, and that in this environment people just want to have fun, no matter the music. – 4/5
Source: Official Promo / Clara BalzaryRed Hot Chili Peppers – 2/5
There is a buzz around the main stage as everyone waits for Red hot Chili Peppers, who are 15 minutes late to stage. As they arrive there is a long introduction as three quarters of the band jam on stage building up to the arrival of front man Anthony Kiedis. As the first song, ‘Can’t Stop‘ kicks in, fans eagerly sing-a-long to even the instrumentals.
Unfortunately, there are also a lot of people who head home early tonight, as the Chili‘s fail to capture the audience. There is very little talking on the bands part, and where you would normally expect some between song chat, there is instead stretched out instrumentals. The songs seem to merge together until the next hit is played and the crowd wake up again.
Tracks such as ‘Californication‘ and ‘By The Way‘ (both played right at the end of the set before the encore) really bring up the energy and Anthony announces, in one of the very few times he speaks, that they will come back and play an encore.
Their chosen closing track is ‘Give It Away‘, a track the band seem to enjoy more than fans. While it’s clearly a great track, and one of the bands most well known, we feel it maybe should have swapped with ‘By The Way‘ who’s rise and falls in energy and great sing-a-long choruses would have made a perfect end to an otherwise dragged out set.
