Wadstock Music Festival, Wadham College
Glastonbury has David Bowie and Travis. Reading/Leeds has Pulp and Oasis. But Wadstock 2000 had The Incredible Fuck Wits and several barbershop quartets. Yes indeed, the undisputed king of the music festivals on offer this 'Summer' took place last Saturday and the proverbial good time was had by all.
Unlike last year, this time around we even go to stay outside a bit before the rains came. The already mentioned Incredible Fuck Wits got things off to a lively start before Jared Red launched into a crowd-pleasing medley of rock classics, including the delightful sound of Purple Haze segueing seamlessly into 20th Century Boy into Whole Lotta Love into Alright Now and so on. A version of the Chilli Peppers' cover of Higher Grond rounded their set off and allowed their superb bassist's skills to come to the fore.
A barbershop quartet looked unlikely candidates to follow such extravagance, but four anonymous blokes singing Blue Moon and Hooked On A Feeling went down excellently with a crowd already well into their afternoon drinking. Later in the day the apparently indie-schmindie Venus redeemed themselves with a superb cover of, um, Venus In Furs, some excellent original material and a singer with a fantastic, Jim Morrisson-influenced voice; this lot are worth keeping an eye on. The Red Boys only got as far as the Jack Williams-penned History Finals Blues before the inevitable rain forced the festival to fragment. From now on the rival factions in the bar and the JCR vied for supremacy. The former boasted a pub quiz and an accomplished and very enjoyable acoustic set from the OxStu's very own Christian Barby.
The JCR became the event's main focus as the evening drew on - the well-established Oxford thrash outfit Prophylactic Burns did exactly what it says on the tin and actually managed to force some headbanging from an otherwise largely motionless crowd. Highlights of the day's latter stages included some extremely groovy instrumental funk from The Funkycoldcats and a well-received set of vaguely jazz-inflected indie from rising stars Domain.
'Better than last year' was the general consensus, although how much this opinion had to do with the weather rather than the music is unclear. Either way, Wadstock is now firmly established as a major (and majorly enjoyable) fixture on the Oxford music scene. Along with the current Battle of the Bands competition at the Point, it should also help dispel the popular conception of student music as entirely gloomy indie wankery. Above all, the most impressive aspect of the event was the diversity of styles on offer. Who knows, next year they may even be able to stay outside all day.
18th May 2000