Victoria Park, London
East London's boutique music festival Lovebox is now in its ninth year, but this relative longevity can't safeguard it from the ongoing pressures of the UK's saturated summer festival circuit. Clashing with both Latitude and Guilfest, last weekend's event failed to secure a major-name opening-night headliner for the notably under-attended Friday, leading to the main stage staying silent all day, and suffered a further blow when crowd-control problems closed one of the main dance tents two hours early. The sparse crowd found some solace in Ed Sheeran's twitchily intense folk-rap, Metronomy's mildly funky art pop and some colon-juddering dubstep beats from Skream, but as nominal headliners, tiresomely jaunty Liverpool indie rock trio the Wombats were woefully inadequate.
Saturday featured a far more impressive bill and brought out the fans in their thousands. Katy B is an evangelist for sunny, Ibiza-friendly euphoric dance beats, so it was unfortunate that her spirited set coincided with a biblical deluge. Visceral Welsh power rock trio The Joy Formidable fared far better from the elements, as did self-consciously arty Swedish chanteuse Lykke Li, but it must cross the mind of flamboyant club-pop diva Santigold that her thunder has been comprehensively stolen by Lady Gaga.
Lovebox's Saturday-night coup was securing Snoop Dogg to perform songs from his 1993 debut album Doggystyle, and he eased through the motions while remaining supremely charismatic. Clutching a microphone bearing his name in faux diamonds the size of his head, Snoop drawled his raps of gratuitous violence and virulent misogyny over his trademark lithe beats with the thin smile that has always undercut his lyrical excesses. It's fitting that he now spends his time appearing on US TV reality shows: as he orchestrated Hackney in the call-and-response of Who Am I (What's My Name)? it was clearer than ever that Snoop Dogg is, and always has been, a cartoon character.
Sundays at Lovebox have an out-and-proud gay theme, and further torrential downpours failed to dampen the spirits of the costume-sporting crowd. They enjoyed the reliably engaging Beth Ditto, although the Gossip singer gyrating in her bra and knickers and vamping it up to Madonna's Vogue could only partly compensate for her chronic lack of catchy material. This deficit was thrown into stark relief both by Blondie, who have the luxury of cherry picking from three decades of immaculate, angular new-wave anthems, and by Kelis's sultry rave-pop.
Scissor Sisters should have been a triumph as headliners of a gay-focused festival bill, but the New York band are not the force they were when their debut album was the best-selling record of 2004, and too much of their set was merely anonymous hi-NRG disco, hindered by muddy, muted sound levels. By the time they closed with I Don't Feel Like Dancin', hundreds of fans had deserted their stage to seek out Robyn's sleek yet yearning Europop noir, which provided an enjoyably classy ending to a Lovebox that had got off to an unpromising start.
Source: http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2011/jul/18/lovebox-review-snoop-dogg-robyn
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