Volvic Lovebox Weekender 2006, Festival Review

Victoria Park, Hackney, played host again to LoveBox , which after this weekend has become one of Londons top weekends out, as you walk through the gates you can see how big it has become with plenty of different arenas playing varying music for all tastes, also the mainstage has grown since last year and with that so has the sound, which was a must as you struggled to hear anything from the stage.

With mainly a dance feel to proceedings on Saturday, I found myself walking from tent to tent , mainly switching between the Secret Sundaze tent and the Bacardi B Live bar, both having various house tunes which got the crowds moving.
The mainstage saw DJ Marky and Patlife bring the sounds of Brazil to East London, with there lighter/happier style of drum and base, still with the deep rolling base lines but with a more melodic feel about it. The Saturday headliners, Groove Armada, made up for last years showing, as mentioned earlier the sound didnt help them last year but having being able to hear them this year they certainly got the crowd going, I See You Baby getting the crowd really worked up and then finishing on there anthem, Superstylin.
Sunday saw a few bands added to the line up with Larrikin Love and Gogol Bordello taking the Rumbleteaser by storm, Larrikin Love bring what I would describe as a happy sounding Libertines, with the added bonus of a fiddle, the lead singer is no Barat or Doherty but certainly is as entertaining, bouncing around the stage playing the cow bell. The rumbleteaser filled out when Gogol Bordello eventually got onto stage, I only caught a tiny bit of there set but the gypsy punks sounded equally as good.
Jimmy Cliff gets the crowd in the mood for the finale, belting out hes hits such as I Can See Clearly Now and now we come to the last act of the weekend, Jamiroquai, Jay Kay comes bouncing on the stage with his funky dancing and extremely large statue of liberty style hat, and with a huge back catalogue of hits including space cowboy, virtual insanity and deeper underground, which was the final song, they sounded on top of there game and are a must see act, they certainly finished the festival off on a high.
So the end of another festival weekend and if Lovebox can carry this over to next year this should be first in everybodys calendars.