Only Rufus Wainwright singing Leonard Cohen’s “Halleluja” could make you feel warm and cosy during a monsoon in Kent. My Morning Jacket’s silken amalgamation of Crosby, Stills and Nash with Lynryd Skynryd was well up to following Rufus, and ideal for this audience. Jim James finished the show as a demented, caped falsetto vampire.
Flatteringly introduced by Steve Lamacq as “a national institution,” Supergrass (who, like everyone else, sacrificed much of their sound to the wind) was its usual selves: tuneful but unexciting. By this time, a serious chill was setting in, so the cockle-warming rock and roll of the ever-reliable Primal Scream was spot-on. They may be old-school but they’ll be cool forever.
Uniquely brilliant and worshipped by all, Neil Young’s lengthy set included a pleasing number of favourites like “Needle and the Damage Done” and “Heart of Gold.” One moment, he’s wrenching out astonishing guitar effects, the next he’s sitting at a pipe organ like a cross between Rick Wakeman and the local parish organist. The jaw-dropping climax consisted of a 25 minute version of “No Hidden Path” with an endless coda that you genuinely didn’t want to stop, followed by a truly mind-blowing take on the Beatles’ “A Day In The Life.”
Apart from the car parking fiasco (organisational incompetence, basically), this was a great day out.
--Oliver Gray [July 9, 2008]
