We discover the delights of the bank holiday weekend.
London – the greatest city on Earth, the planet's most visited metropolis, home to the world's largest financial centre, and for one late summer weekend, host to three days of wholesale partying. If you're looking to have a good time this weekend the hardest thing is deciding which festival/night/carnival you want to go to. Festival-wise there's a choice between LED, the fledgling Victoria park shindig, or veteran SW4. As darkness falls even more decisions need to be made as endless Bank Holiday specials tempt you with outstanding line-ups. From techno to dnb, reggae to garage, our mother city provides. As if all this isn't enough, on Sunday and Monday the world's biggest street party outside Rio floods the borough of Notting Hill – humanity, music and colour spilling through the nineteenth century streets.
Greedy, I want to do it all and decide to cherry pick festival days and leave Monday for Carnival revelry. First stop of the weekend is Saturday at LED, the newest London festival on the block. Arriving in hot, oversized and unnecessary wellies we flap over to the Annie Mac presents tent, drawn by the aggressive sounds of Sub Focus' 'Rock it' and leave an hour later after an entertaining but messy set from the Ram Records representative. Scoping out the site doesn't take long as it consists of only two stages and the obligatory spinny ride thing – we are soon back in the Annie Mac tent for Shy FX. Although the majority of the tunes that the Digital Soundboy plays are quality jungle, with a smattering of his own album thrown in, he ruins the consistency of the set by dropping some fairly average funky house.
Returning to the main stage in a seemingly endless back and forth march we catch the electro pop group Goldfrapp, splendid in their silver leggings and dazzling jumpsuits. Alison Goldfrapp is turned into a human pom-pom by her dress but this doesn't seem to hinder her performance as her beautiful throaty voice floats comfortably over the band's poppy synths and electro beats. What happens next is a bit of a mystery, not due to any excess drink intake but because of a journey into the insane world of Aphex Twin.
Standing at the back of the tent, transfixed by the music and extraordinary light show for an hour and a half, is one of the most confusing yet exhilarating musical experiences of my life. I have no idea what is going on – there seems to be no structure to the songs or set, or anything I could pinpoint as liking, yet it's utterly mesmerising. Wandering, dazed, back to the main stage again, we're treated to a less confusing but no less impressive set from Leftfield, who remind us why they're so respected in the dance music world. There seem to have been very fluctuating sound levels throughout the day and the volume is low at the beginning. But soon it's cranked up and the nineties legends get on with pumping out uplifting, pulsing ambience, finishing off with the massive 'Phat Planet'.
Waking up to a beautiful Sunday morning leads to the decision that wellies won't be needed, no way – it wasn't even a little bit muddy at LED. As we arrive on to Clapham Common, guess what happens? Yup, massive downpour. But nothing can dampen our spirits and after some hefty dubstep and grime from Plastician and a special appearance from Katy B with Skream and Benga the sun comes out. Basking in the warmth we're drawn to the main stage and find ourselves raving to a mash-up selection of quality tunes on the main stage. Losing it to Darude's 'Sandstorm' and 'It's bigger than hip hop' by Dead Prez in the same set is not something I thought I would ever do. We batter our way in to the centre trying to work out who this killer DJ is. Is it? No. It cant be? Yes, it's Zane Lowe, a Radio One DJ who I've always had an unexplained dislike for. Oh well, I'm always up for being pleasantly surprised! Headlining is Mr Norman Cook, AKA Fatboy Slim, a man whose production is legendary but whose DJing is sadly no longer anything to write home about, an average end to an otherwise superb day.
The perfect end to the weekend is Carnival – being bashed around in a massive crowd all day doesn't exactly sound fun but throw in a massive sound system on every corner, Red Stripe in shopping trolleys of ice and the unbelievable vibrancy of the parades and you have one of the most exciting places to be in the world.
What a weekend – where else but London?
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