Dark Jubilee, Hackney Ocean, London, 2^nd-3^rd June 2002

Day 1:

I spent the first few hours of each day doing interviews, so I missed the first few bands. First band I managed to catch most of was, unfortunately, the irritatingly OTT DUST in the smaller Ocean 2 venue. Musically competent, mixing loud guitars, techno backing and indie vocals, the lead singer's in-your-face shouting and toddler on speed stage presence was laughable. And what they did to 'White Rabbit' is unforgivable. If I really want to stand and have someone shout obscenities at me, there's a drunk who'll do it every night of the week down the road. Next up was In Strict Confidence in the cavernous Ocean 1, a band whose material I'm not all that familiar with. Alas, their techno-tinged EBM sound with F242-esque vocals just wasn't enough to make a real impact on a new listener and did come across very samey. More familiarity with their material would probably improve matters, but that means they're not really the best thing for a festival like this.

I caught Killing Miranda next, though didn't stay around too long to listen to the awful barrage of metallic sounds with a blippy electro backing, preferring to see how Man(i)kin's new singer was fitting in with the band in the smaller venue. The gig was really the launch of Monosect and the band kicked off with a thumping beat driven techno piece, with their two drummers making a strange, but cool, scene beating the crap out of their drum machines. Expectation built as it turned out to be an instrumental, with no sign of the new vocalist until they launched into the second track. Then the shock, the new singer's a girl! She couldn't be more different to Seth with a style somewhere between Siouxsie Sioux, Toyah and the singer from X-Ray Spex and a look close to Saffron from Republica. The band's obviously only getting used to how the vocals fit with their banging futurepop sound and it hasn't quite jelled, but it promises some interesting stuff in the future. They finished with a great version of the Sisters' 'Alice' that faded out into a nu-electro sound sampled from Zombie Nation's 'Kernkraft 400'.

Back at the larger stage, L'âme Immortelle suffered from the same kind of problem as ISC, lack of familiarity with their stuff makes them seem really samey. Their techno-influence electro backing isn't strong enough to get the crowd dancing like crazy and, to tell the truth, Thomas' vocals are excessively hoarse and shouty live. Sonja, on the other hand, sounded great and looked fabulous in her black rubber dress (if a little like a trussed up turkey). A quick visit upstairs in the gap before VNV treated us to the hilarious sight of the Eurovision entry for Greece, sorry, SPOCK in their silly outfits dancing ridiculously as they pumped out their awful retro synthpop. The joke wore off pretty quickly tho', so it was back downstairs for the long-awaited VNV Nation.

Much has been made of VNV live, the two-man band with most of their stuff on DAT. Realistically, though, most of VNV's stuff can't be played live, if you want live guitars, bass and drums, go see a metal band. VNV live are like a dance band, live mixes of the tracks with live vocals on top and, boy, do they kick ass doing it! Ronan's voice was a bit hoarse at first, but it soon warmed up, and while he looked a bit like Mark Thomas on stage (to think I called Stefan Groth chunky!), he soon got the crowd very seriously going, by 'Dark Angel' arms were pumping in the air and euphoria was building. It really did explode as Ronan called for the crowd to go wild to the magnificent 'Fearless'. Much of the rest of the set has become a blur and my hands were in the air far too much of the time to take notes! Encore time and the intensity level reached new heights with new single 'Beloved' and the classic 'Standing'. Encore two was designed to keep us dancing with Ronan leaving the mike and taking up position behind a keyboard to pound out a live mix of the powerhouse dance track 'Electronaut'. Euphoria doesn't seem enough to cover the feeling once it was finally over, arms tired, skin tingling - it's indescribable.

Almost went on to the aftershow party in the Slimelight venue, but after an hour faffing about trying to find how to get there from Hackney, I gave up and went home. I did have five interviews to do the next morning after all.

by Girl the Bourgeois Individualist