Having never been much of a fan of squalor, mud, or chlamydia I like to watch music festivals from the comfort of my armchair. So with Glastonbury taking a break this year I thought I'd tune in to SKY Arts 1's coverage of the Isle of Wight Festival. There's a lot less going on at IOW than Glastonbury so I thought they could get in a lot of music in their six hours of coverage. Oh dear was I wrong, because it soon became evident this was Presenter Fest 2012.
First off we had the ghost of Glastonbury past Jo Wiley and just in case you couldn't get enough of Jo Wiley we had the very similar Zoe Ball, a real buy one get one free if ever I saw it. But they were the professional end of the market as their three companions in crime looked like they had just been shipped in from the Job Club. First off was someone who thought he was Mark Radcliffe and was obviously brought in to be Mark Radcliffe and as Mark Radcliffe's go he was a passable Mark Radcliffe. So he'd chip in with the odd comment, that is when he remembered to switch his microphone on. Next up was a bloke who looked, and acted, like Brian Dowling, only Brian Dowling on Tamazapan. He was about as perky as a graveyard at midnight. I've saved the best until last, someone I think was called A J. I presume she was drafted in so SKY Arts could be 'down with the kids' and dilute the faded rock chick chic of Zoe and Jo. But I felt sorry for AJ, she could barely string three words together and I found myself finishing her sentences for her, mainly because they all ended in 'Amazing'. But, then again everything was Amazing, and emotional, according to Zoe and Jo. Apparently during Elbow's Lippy Kids Zoe and Mark Radcliffe 2 were getting teary and swapping photos of their children. SKY should have been issuing sick bags. Also no performer was bad, everyone was brilliant. If The Cheeky Girls had done a three hour set Jo Wiley would have said it was brilliant. "I don't know about you, but I got very emotional after they did It's A Cheeky Holiday."
We were constantly being updated on the tweets (and trending, whatever the hell that is) coming in, the vast majority of which, I assume, was being supplied by the production staff. One person said they were watching with a bottle of champagne, let's hope they wasn't saving it for the headliners Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers because we got precious little of their set. Also if you have to show only a handful of songs, shouldn't we at least get American Girl and Free Falling?
Well I'm not holding out much hope for Bruce Springsteen, we'll probably see more of the lethargic Brian Dowling clone than the Boss. Last year I moaned about the BBC's Glastonbury coverage, well never again. Come back Zane Lowe all is forgiven.
Over
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