hove festival part two

However (cue clichéd sound of a record being scratched), we are plainly here to ignore all that, drink, mess up the house the organisers naively let us stay in (someone actually tried to boil a plastic kettle on an electric stove today), and, most importantly… watch bands. Today is a mixture of disappointment and screaming absurdity. AVENGED SEVENFOLD are here to provide the latter. Full of toe-curling between-song banter like, “We love your beer, Norway!” and… “We love you, Norway,” and the more precise, “We love each and every one of you!” they happily slip into every nu-metal stereotype in the holy book of hard riffs. Unfortunately, the audience’s unified fist-pumping is strangely reminiscent of a fascist rally. PANIC AT THE DISCO later reveal their “interesting” new look: Beatles-esque mop-tops and psychedelic shirts. Now, Artrocker may be a bit cynical at times (although we prefer the term “sceptical”), but we have our suspicions that there may be more personnel than the band involved in this curious image-shift. Doesn’t improve the music, though. Later still, CRYSTAL CASTLES fail to show for their live set, but somehow manage to DJ til the (very) early dawn in the middle of the woods. Meanwhile, VAMPIRE WEEKEND manage to get people dancing manically – in fact, punters arrive at their impromptu party by the minute, leading to some rather embarrassing shapes being thrown by rival music mag hacks. But then again, surely it’s easy to get people moving when you’re playing cheerfully-inviting “world music”? Oh dear, there’s that scepticism again…