LIVE WIDE AWAKE FESTIVAL
” Back in 1991, Primal Scream captured the utopian spirit of the times with an album that magically dissolved genre boundaries to suggest that maybe we could all put aside our differences, get high and get along. It goes without saying that such utopianism is at a premium right now; even as the band take to the stage in Brockwell Park to play in its entirety, pictures are popping up on our phones of Liverpool football fans being tear-gassed by French police. At least Wide Awake is a festival that honours ’s spirit of musical openness, showcasing the vitality and diversity of what organisers, and are among a whole tranche of bands partying like it’s 2002 – or 1982 – by combining scratchy guitars with four-to-the-floor beats and deadpan vocals. expand the formula by adding a violin and sing-talking in several different languages, but their joy still feels a tad restricted.
