No, it's not a joke!

The Wireless Festival, 21 June 2006

Watching self-declared 'gypsy punks' Gogol Bordello at the Wireless Festival this year made me think all sorts of strange things:

1. Maybe I should stop straightening my hair, and let it cascade unfettered, like someone half my age
2. Maybe I should give up my soul-defacing job in the City and go live in a caravan, embrace life on the road, learn to play the fiddle
4. Maybe I should start wearing bells around my ankle
5. At the very least I should wear purple more, and velvet waistcoats, with covered buttons
6. And consider dating men with artistically coiffered hair and indecipherable East European accents (where I should find these men, I have no idea, there must be a special club or something)

Yes, that would be fun.

As for the rest of the festival this year, and I hesitate to say this as it featured cute and sexy bands like Dirty Pretty Things (working the black look so so well), The Raconteurs, and The Strokes (love that Casablancas guy), but it was rather lacklustre. Julian Casablancas did his best to reach out to the crowd during their headlining set, ‘because this stage is just too far away’ but the sound was all wrong or something, I’m not sure exactly what. The Pimms bus (yes, bus) was chic and visually right up my street (the product they were selling won multiple brownie points too), and I liked the sound sticks or whatever they were meant to be (but not the strange men on stilts, there's something decidedly creepy about that), but I really didn’t get to the whole ‘let loose and forgot what country you come from’ state of mind which has featured in previous jaunts to places of iniquity such as the Reading festival (2004-05). I know I’m getting older and I really shouldn’t expect this any more, but you can’t help remembering…

Oh, and lets make it clear, I do love the Strokes. Did I say that? But not the Pigeon Detectives. They so need an identity check. Are we Hot Hot Heat? or the Kooks? Will someone tell us who we are? It's always a bad sign when you leave the tent and straightaway can't remember a single song. GSG.