“Is it true the only way is Essex?” chortled Killers singer Brandon Flowers during the 19th V Festival headliners’ set. For one sunny, rain-free Sunday, the answer was a resounding “yes”.
A good-natured festival where it was possible to purchase a day’s pass to deluxe toilet facilities for £15, V is unafraid to push the populist poppy button, overwhelmingly without succumbing to pap. Ever-reliable, The Killers charged through their hits, Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Bad Moon Rising Van Morrison’s Brown Eyed Girl (very slowly) and, as drummer Ronnie Vannucci Jr danced, Iggy Azalea’s Fancy. For all that their early material remains their strongest, they were as sparkly as Flowers’s pink jacket.
V Festival 2014
As Professor Green and wife Millie Mackintosh looked on, Lily Allen wore a silver jump suit last seen on Space 1999, dedicated As Long As I Got You to “my husband who I love very much” and skanked her way through 22 and Smile. Meanwhile, Rita Ora fired water pistols, Tinie Tempah rapped in shorts and Katy B seemed overwhelmed by the scale of it all.
More successful were Chic, whose romp through their hits and leader Nile Rodgers’s production successes (Like A Virgin, David Bowie’s Let’s Dance) was perfect for summer basking, Rudimental and Paolo Nutini.
With brass, keyboards, three backing singers who also sang leads, Rudimental captured the moment and understood that running about on stage always makes things better.
Swigging Red Stripe from cans, admitting “I feel a bit drunk”, Nutini exuded the latent menace of a man keen to pick a pub fight or Malcolm Tucker in The Thick Of It and he’s upped his live game beyond measure. He and his nine piece band covered fellow Scots Chvrches’ Recover, but they added drama, pathos and uplift to his own material. This was the moment Nutini transformed himself into a jaw-droppingly absorbing performer.
