urban sounds are a hit in the country

Sunday 8 July 2012

There's been a lot of talk about music that isn't "proper" summer festival fare seeping into T In The Park this year; that a young woman in her mid-twenties whose records top the charts has no place in among the guitar-obsessed indie-rock hordes of Balado.

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REVIEWS by Alan Morrison

Well, enough about Nicola Benedetti and her Radio 3 concertos – what about Jessie J?

Joking apart, there are those in the press who, at a push, would rather take the urbane over the urban if it came to broadening the genres at Scotland's biggest music festival. The people on the muddy ground, however, beg to differ, if their reaction to Jessie J – and Example, Labrinth, Professor Green, Tinie Tempah, to name but a few – is anything to go by.

T in the Park has its older muso loyalists, but it has always been a festival for the young, a rites-of-passage affair for teens who want to hear the music of their generation in the great outdoors. For those who were submerged in the rain that plagued Saturday in particular, the trench-warfare trek from one stage to another (and any intelligent appreciation of the music) was nigh-on impossible. However, the fact that the 2012 line-up allowed just about every major chart hit from the past three years to be played live over a three-day spread simply proves that T in the Park is doing its job.So while the headline slot remains the indie-rock staple of Kasabian, Snow Patrol and The Stone Roses, Jessie J (who was booked for the Main Stage in a post-teatime slot that mirrors her primetime telly scheduling), can bring contemporary celebrity bling to the affair. And that, for many of the fans here, really does seem to be a major part of the appeal. There's a download-culture reaction to sets like Jessie J's that means the length and breadth of the audience really only comes alive when a household name plays the singles. Such was the case on Friday, when the slight stage presence of Cher Lloyd was swallowed by the sheer size of the King Tut's Tent. And when a song's guest male rapper is nothing but a backing tape, you've got to wonder what other tricks are being used to fill out the performance.Friday was the day the London scene came to Kinross in force. In terms of programming, though, the main players weren't ghettoised: a point was being made by the organisers in that this music is now threaded right across the festival fields.And so while Labrinth's Express Yourself couldn't expand on its classic samples in the King Tut's Tent, Professor Green's East End Eminem rapping over bits of INXS and Beats International on the Radio 1/NME Stage was evidence of a post-millennium music that begs, steals and borrows its identity from here, there and everywhere. Best of all was Example, whose early evening Main Stage set mixed soul, pop, rap, reggae, ravey synth swashes and, during Playing In The Shadows, even a bit of moshpit mayhem.What Example and Professor Green proved was that the genre doesn't really matter at an outdoor festival: you need a frontman (or woman) who can command the crowd. These guys are the real deal but so, too, is The Darkness's Justin Hawkins (who opened the Main Stage) in his rainbow tattoos and blue Hawaiian bare-chest catsuit. It's this showmanship that helps Ricky Wilson bring some much-needed buzz to the Kaiser Chiefs' slightly tired greatest hits set and gives even more of a goosebump chill to Gary Lightbody's emotional rendition of Chasing Cars, which diverts us from T in the Park déjà entendu when Snow Patrol fill the Friday headline slot.It also what makes Florence Welch turn Florence And The Machine's set into a fully realised art-house production, supported by stage pirouettes, an operatic voice and a gorgeous art-nouveau triptych screen for film projections. For the best voice during the first two days, she was matched only by Brittany Howard of Alabama Shakes, whose soulful rock'n'roll took on a punkier edge live but needed a bit more one-on-one interaction with the audience.Maybe it's a value-for-money thing, but almost everyone on the big stages had either a resplendent backdrop with their name on it or a much heftier multimedia light show. Sometimes, as when New Order – the Friday headliners in the King Tut's tent – played with perfect synchronicity in front of projected music videos and clips from Amos Poe's film works, it was distracting. The music – strengthened by Phil Cunningham's guitar and original member Gillian Gilbert's keyboards – was all that mattered, and their versions of True Faith, Blue Monday and an anthemic Love Will Tear Us Apart were the highlights of the first day.Despite the so-called urban invasion, getting the likes of New Order and Saturday headliners The Stone Roses onto the T in the Park bill is essential because, for the complete all-round effect, the festival needs their iconic status. In other words, it doesn't matter how off-pitch Ian Brown's voice is as long as you can actually see John Squire play the guitar part of I Am The Resurrection in the flesh.At the other end of the scale, T in the Park continues to feed the grassroots scene with T Break and BBC Introducing. Saturday had a silver-lining-in-the-rainclouds start on both stages with the ska-toned brass of Randolph's Leap (T Break) and mariachi-coloured brass of Woodentop (BBC Introducing) adding to the indie-folk sounds.T in the Park 2012 will be remembered for the rain more than the music – but only because when the former is so unrepentant, the latter barely stands a chance. Still, everyone will have their moment. Mine? Thank you, Swedish synth-pop maestros Miike Snow. You made my weekend.

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