Monday 16 February 2009

getting it out


Listening to Marina and the Diamonds has made me think again about the lovely Regina Spektor. I started listening to her music a few summers a go and then later that summer I went to V festival. The festival itself was fairly rubbish. My only previous festivals had been Glastonbury and Reading. Since the moment I walked into Glastonbury I knew this was the best festival, incredible line up and for five days you are completely lost in a different world with 100,000 different people, all on the same page. Reading, I enjoyed but wasn’t as taken with it. Like V Festival you’re forced to camp outside the arena and have to queue to get in and out. But at least it had its own identity and a great line up. The line up for this V Festival was pretty good, Radiohead headlined, and I saw Divine Comedy, Richard Hawley, Jim Noir, Morrissey, Son of Dave. But it just lacked atmosphere, the bands sets were short and not only could you not take alcohol into the arena, you had to pay for everything. You even had to pay for the programme, even the one you hang around your neck, so unless you wanted to splash out a tenner on one of those you had no way of knowing the times of when the bands were on. There was also a constant smell of poppers following you around everywhere you went. (I can neither confirm nor deny these were Richard Branson branded poppers but I wouldn’t put it past them).

But on one of the afternoons we all went to a packed tent to see Regina Spektor. She came on shyly announcing that she found all of this terrifying and to be honest, she had already won me over then. But what followed was the most intense, captivating, beautiful, awe inspiring set that I have probably ever seen. Everyone in the crowd was transfixed. In one of her songs she had this long build up and the second time she came round to it the crowd was going so wild she had to pause for a moment to let everyone settle down a bit before continuing. I have never experienced anything like it. As she was coming towards the end of the set she was playing her song Samson. Everyone was quiet, soaking in every last note, every last word, every last smile, every last gesture, all in the knowledge that soon this moment will be gone. Never again would you be in the same place, with the same friends surrounded by the same people listening to the same music and when it's over all you will be left with is memories and the knowledge that you had just witnessed something very special. The crowd was at this point was so quite, no one was talking, everyone’s eyes transfixed to the stage. ‘You are my sweetest downfall, I loved you first, I loved you first’ and then in the middle of this moment of pure transcendent beauty came this thick northern voice from behind us, ‘Get your rat out!’ Unbelievable. I mean, still to this day I can’t imagine what was going through his mind. This sweet, shy woman was pouring her soul out at the piano, giving it her all for us lucky few and all that could come into his mind was to shout ‘Get your rat out.’


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