Fatboy Slim inspires 'dance off' at Pohoda

Slovakia | | 19 July 2008

The superstar DJ, real name Norman Cook, played an almost identical set to his O2 Wireless performance with airings of Arcade Fire's 'No Cars Go', a mash-up of The Rolling Stones' '(I Can’t Get No) Satisfaction' with his own "The Rockefeller Skank' and the Herve reworking of Michael Jackson's 'Thriller'.

Drawing the biggest crowd of the day, the DJ performed in front of a big screen that flashed images of mouths, Charlie and the Chocolate Factory and Fatboy himself. Cook also debuted a track from his latest project, Brighton Port Authority, called 'He's Frank', which included Iggy Pop on vocals.

Before he took to the stage scores of fans performed the dance from the Spike Lee video of 'Praise You'. The troupe had been practising the choreographed performance for hours in the Nay Tanecny Dom tent before being picked to dance onstage.

UNKLE wowed a packed O2 Arena with their Britpop-fuelled breaks with their biggest hit 'Be There' receiving the loudest cheer. Before them The Tigerpicks celebrated their first show of the festival calendar with re-workings of Estelle's 'American Boy' and Kate Bush's 'Running Up That Hill (A Deal With God)'. The trio then invited fans onstage for finale 'Pow Pow Pow' before littering the masses with sweets and badges.

Earlier on The Gossip previewed un-named new tracks on the Bazant Stage, but the crowd saved their energy for 'Listen Up' and aural assault 'Standing In The Way Of Control'. Check back for our full interview with Beth Ditto.

Elsewhere the Metoo Stage crowd was treated to a world music extravaganza with Mali's Tinariwen before Japan's magical drummers Gocoo stole the show. Despite the sound cutting several times, the Tokyo eleven-piece thumped their way through a 50-minute set that combined traditional Taiko rhythms with techno troughs and ploughs, all loud enough to be heard without speakers.

In the afternoon The Subways were on brilliant pantomime form on the Bazant Stage as lead singer Billy Lunn got the crowd going "fucking crazy". Starting with a rather sparse crowd, the English trio soon drew people in as they thundered out hits from both of their albums. A gushing and smiling Lunn even admitted that he was, "falling in love with Slovakia," and later adding, "seriously, you're giving me the horn."

During the set the intense audience pogo-ed and moshed hypnotically with 'Oh Yeah' and 'Mary' proving crowd-pleasers, but a nine-minute rendition of 'Rock N Roll Queen' was the stand-alone highlight with Lunn launching himself into the audience to crowd surf before finishing the song in Slovakian.

Other notable performances include Slovakia's Tomas Sloboda Sounds Like This who covered T-Rex's 'Children Of The Revolution' and Mr Oizo's two-hour French house set in the O2 Arena.

Slovakia's Pohoda Festival continues today (19 July) with The Streets, Editors, The Cribs and Audio Bullys.

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