All in all the day was a bit of a mixed bag and as a result I do rather fear for this fledgling festivals future. On the music side of things it was a pleasant and enjoyable day with the highlights being the main stage’s final two acts; Patrick Wolf and The Rakes.

The day started out in a rather shambolic nature as many bands scheduled to play appeared to simply vanish from the line up with the only info to be found about this a hastily scrawled piece of A4 piece paper left on the press desk backstage. As a result the, luckily free, programme was largely defunct as the bands appearing and the times they were due to take the stage seemed completely out of sink. The line up chaos also seemed to result in some very short sets with most bands only taking to the stage for fifteen minutes at a time. There was also a rather noticeable lack of introductions for the days earlier acts, or at least if there was it was whispered into a microphone by, what one must assume was, a very nervous compare suffering from stage-fright. This resulted in the first half of the day spent listening to enjoyable but anonymous bands, which as you can guess is a bit disappointing as there’s a good chance I would’ve brought myself some new albums the following day. Asking the rather sparse crowd unfortunately didn’t help as they were just as confused as me!

Initially I settled in the middle of the field in front of the main stage but due to the close proximity of the second stage and the electronic tent this proved to be a mistake as I was essentially listening to three stages at once. Moving closer to the front I found the first couple of bands to be good lively opening acts, sadly I still have only a slight idea as to who these bands were which is a shame as I really enjoyed them and they tried their hardest to get the modest crowd going.

After giving the opening couple of bands a listen too I thought a quick tour of the facilities in order. A quick lap of the field revealed just three food stalls, a single bar, a rather meagre merchandise stall selling comic-book based t-shirts rather than band merchandise and fairground favourite ‘hook a duck’. The toilets were located just behind the bar and despite the rather small crowd I still managed to spend over forty minutes queuing for the standard festival port-a-loo. The forty minutes weren’t entirely wasted due to the closeness to the electronic stage which was pumping out some rather energetic and bass laden tunes, so inciting was this I almost abandoned my space in the queue to investigate, sadly nature won and I remained in the queue.

Having boogied my way through the toilet line it only seemed proper that I pay a visit to the electronic tent, which was pretty rammed full of folk all of whom dancing like maniacs. The reason for this was King Charles who was in the midst of a very entertaining set, playing a livelier drum and bass twist to his normally folk-indie style. His energy was infectious, and certainly having an effect on the crowd who were loving his antics, which included climbing the tents inside and swinging from the rafters.

From here it was over to the second stage where I was lucky enough to catch Kasms, an alternative punk outfit with a lot of energy to burn. Lead singer Rachel-Mary Callaghan has the makings of a great front woman. She oozed stage presence and hardly let up for the duration of their, albeit slightly short set. This is definitely a band worth keeping an eye on.

Time was getting on a bit now and so not wanting to miss the festivals main acts I made my way back to the main stage where Polly Scattergood was just taking to the stage. Listening to Polly Scattergood’s quirky sounds I was reminded of a more accessible Bjork and the crowd, which was starting to grow by this point, seemed to take kindly to her. Due up next had been the Warlocks, a fairly notorious band, that I had been looking forward to checking out. Alas it turned out that they were the festivals main casualty.

My disappointment didn’t last long as next up was Patrick Wolf,who gave a storming set, proving why he is one of the most highly regarded young singer song writers around at the moment. At one point someone not appreciating Patrick’s flamboyant style and outlandish dressed sense decided it would be a good idea to lob a beer can at the young star. This obviously was a bad idea earning the idiotic can thrower a tongue lashing from the singer, much to the amusement of the crowd. A very enjoyable set with the haunting love song Damaris a highlight.

And so we came to the headline act, The Rakes. A brilliant mix of punk and indie The Rakes had the crowd, which by this point had grown to much larger proportions, on their feet and dancing franticly from the start. The crowd clearly loved them, as did I and I soon found myself thrashing around in a mini mosh pit with several other over excited festival goers. It was a strong set that along with that of Patrick Wolf went along way to making up for the earlier confusion and line-up chaos of earlier in the day.

So the music was good and well worth going for. The size of the crowd this year compared to that of last year must be a worry for the organisers but with any luck the kinks will get ironed out and the 1234 Shoreditch festival will return stronger next year.

Graham Venables