Vintage at Goodwood 2010: Rated!

Goodwood, West Sussex - 13-15 August

United Kingdom | 17 August 2010

Oliver Osborne headed down to West Sussex to sample the delights of the first Vintage at Goodwood, with performances from Noisettes, Earth Wind and Fire, and The Wailers.

Overall - 9/10

Set in acres of quintessentially English countryside, the resplendent parallel universe of Vintage at Goodwood celebrates five decades of British cool under what are, for the most part, decent weather conditions.

The crowds that have gathered are hands down the best dressed and most friendly people ever to grace a (only very slightly muddy) field. But the appeal of the festival doesn’t just come from the glamorous attendees, or the vintage vehicles parked all around the site, but also from a very classy line-up.

The Site – 10/10

The site is a visual treat. There is a high street welcoming ticket-holders into the main site, with everything you would expect from an English high street: a pub, Indian restaurant, beauty parlour.

All the stages and tents are set around the high street. Nothing is more than a ten minutes walk from anything else, and with plenty of interest to enjoy along the way.

The toilets are clean, made of real porcelain, and have real running water, with real soap and everything. They are the best a festival can offer, but queues for the ladies suggest they could do with a few more.

Getting there and back – 9/10

The train from London Victoria is not too full that anyone has to stand. From Chichester station there are a number of options: a taxi rank in the car park outside the station or catch The Vintage Bus from right outside the station.

Coming back the roads were fairly clear given their tiny size. There isn’t any gridlock that many festivals suffer from when it is time for everyone to go.

Music – 9/10

This score could have been lower if the good acts had not been so spectacular. The soaring highs of acts like the Noisettes and Earth, Wind and Fire more than make up for the mind-numbing boredom induced by The Faces and various others.

The number and size of the stages is great and with the exception of the main stage, everything feels intimate. The Warehouse area, delivering its strict diet of dance music, means that if the live music isn’t hitting your musical sweet spot than you have a place to go.

Another aspect of the music, that could be both a positive and a negative, is that the crowds to see acts are never so large that people can’t get a decent look at the stage.

Uppers

The best act of the festival has to be the Noisettes (9/10). Their set is dynamic and diverse, and they really give the impression that they are having a great time performing. One of the highlights of the set is a cover of The Buzzcocks’ ‘Ever Fallen in Love?’. Backstage Shingai, the band’s front woman, speaks enthusiastically about the festival: “I love the concept […] it’s a celebration of everything beautiful.”

A very close second is Kid Creole and the Coconuts (9/10). The energy is spectacular, especially as they played very early in the afternoon on the Sunday. However with the sun beating down, everyone seems to be getting into it.

Earth, Wind and Fire (9/10) are the last act to play on the main stage on Saturday night, and they go off with a bang and a half. At points the set is a bit slow and muzo in the middle, but they start and finish strong with the kind of strutting funk that used to dominate the clubs of the 70’s.

Beans on Toast (8/10) playing off the back of Mick Jones’ Rock and Roll Public Library wi one of the festival’s most glorious hidden gems. Hilarious and unrepentantly un-PC lyrics, and some solid banter with the crowd make this one of the weekend’s greatest moments.

The Wailers (7/10) don’t bring any surprises to their set whatsoever, but they play with such a healthy dose of swagger, charm and the sense that they are really enjoying it, that is a pleasure to watch. Apart from when they jam out the end of ‘Exodus’ for what seems like a lifetime.

Norman Jay’s (8/10) soul-funk set in the Soul Casino tore the roof off. The atmosphere is charged, and there are people talking about it all of the following day. His set at the Warehouse proves worth listening to as well.

Downers

The Faces (2/10) are turbo-pants! Expertly farting out predictable, safe rock and roll for the nostalgia mob.

Alvin Startdust (2/10) is much the same. They almost seem a little tired of it themselves.

The Beatles Symphony (1/10) manage not only to pick some of the Beatles most boring numbers, but also manage to destroy some of the great ones. Avoid this like the plague.

A Guy Called Gerald (5/10), though by no means in the same league as the acts mentioned above, plays a set that was a little too self indulgent for the crowd.

Aswad (3/10) are even more train-wreck now than they were back in the day.

Random Events

A very cocky power couple trying to pull off some gutsy jive move before stacking it in a massive way to the sounds of Gaz’s Rockin Blues on Friday night. It is a colossally funny tumble in front of a significant crowd.

A man dressed head to foot in what looks like thick netting, with a selection of cow bells around his neck, playing an instrument that looks like a rudimentary oboe, and sounds like a demented didgeridoo. Behind him is a man sweeping the ground at his feet with a butterfly net. Everyone is way too stunned/sun-baked/pissed to ask what on earth they are doing.