For the past three Septembers, the Virgin Festival has done its best to import all the hallmarks of a British music festival — multi-stage line-ups headlined by top UK rock acts and, in the case of early Sunday afternoon, torrential downpours that turned the festival grounds into Sludge City — but one crucial aspect is still missing: a pervasive sense of fun and abandonment. While V Fest continues to attract healthy crowds of 15,000-plus per day, Sunday’s closing chapter still found the festival struggling to overcome logistics that prevent it transcending the realm of a branding exercise into that of a can’t-miss tradition. In the hopes of enhancing the experience for future years — because any opportunity to enjoy a late-summer weekend of music on our city’s islands should be cherished — I present the positive aspects of V Fest that earn two thumbs up, and the persisting, decidely un-festive elements that deserve two fingers.
THE SOUND
In stark contrast to most mega-festival PAs, where mixing takes a backseat to master volume, V Fest’s main-stage sound system provided a crystal-clear mix, allowing Weakerthans fans to savour every last dangling participle in John K. Samson’s prairie-rock poetry. And, arguably, Paul Weller has never sounded better than in Sunday night’s penultimate set — knowing full well that his revered modfather status in the UK only translates to a handful of small pockets of over-30 devotees on these shores, he figured what’s the point in rolling out the “hits” if no one here even knows ’em. So instead, he treated the die-hards to a deep, career-spanning set that leaned heavily on the rockier elements of his eclectic new double album 22 Dreams to start, before revisiting his Style Council classic “Shout to the Top” and the heavy soul of his mid-‘90s solo output (peaking with a dub-accented reading of “Wild Wood”), before shutting 'er down with Jam standards “A Town Called Malice” and a righteous “Eton Rifles.”
BACARDI B-LIVE TENT & OH HENRY! STAGE
Where most major international festivals make a virtue of electicism, V-Fest’s two biggest stages operate under the belief that the only thing better than guitar rock is more guitar rock. But the rowdy reception inside the Bacardi B-Live tent — V-Fest’s electronica outpost — for rising Toronto electro-house wunderkind Deadmau5 suggested that the big stages could afford to import some big-beat bounce, if only to discourage those people hacky-sacking to the Stereophonics. And arguably the most diverse line-ups at the festival could be found on all CanCon Oh Henry! Stage, which on Sunday hosted everyone from Polaris-nominated MC Shad to carnivalistic indie folkestra Rock Plaza Central to the I-can't-believe-it's-not-Constantines working-class rock of The Arkells.
OASIS
Really, you could argue that V Fest’s two-day, 52-act procession was really just a run-up for the return of the brothers Gallagher — whatever you think of their proudly anti-modernist brand of rock 'n' roll, you can’t deny that they were the only main-stage act on Sunday to truly ignite the crowd and get everyone’s ass off the grass. Of course, Liam and Noel respond to this mass adulation with the polar opposite thereof — benign disinterest — but then Oasis have always operated under the belief that rock stars should not act like monkeys that jump around to entertain a crowd, but rather should behave as royalty do: sit around and do nothing while the commoners worship at your feet. But where the prospect of a crazy stage-rusher rudely interrupting “Morning Glory” by body-checking Noel would’ve once sent the Gallaghers off the stage for good, the fact that they returned to do “Wonderwall” and “Don’t Look Back In Anger” shows the brothers understand that in order to maintain your exalted status, you must keep your public happy. (Side note to crazy guy: couldn’t you have saved your stage invasion for one of the new songs?)
SECURITY
At V-Fest, there seems to be either too much of it or, if you’re Noel Gallagher, not enough of it. It’s a yearly complaint and one that, thanks to our province’s draconian liquor licensing laws, is mostly beyond the control of the event organizers, but until the Alcohol and Gaming Commission of Ontario is abolished, V Fest will continue to be a somewhat miserable experience for attendees who happen to enjoy a beer while watching a show (what a concept!). It’s bad enough that the beer gardens were situated several football fields away from the main-stage action (from that faraway vantage, L.A. fuzz-popsters Silversun Pickups really could have been the Smashing Pumpkins), but to make attendees wait in long lines for an ID check every time they want to re-enter is a preposterous waste of everyone's time. You people ever heard of hand stamps?
FOR THE LAST FREAKIN’ TIME: BUILD ANOTHER FOOT BRIDGE
Like lager lout on the third day of Glastonbury, V Fest unfortunately suffers from hazy memory. After heeding complaints following the festival’s first edition about pedestrian traffic-jams on Olympic Island’s narrow footbridge (located at the back of the main-stage grounds, making it the only convenient access point between festival stages and to ferries), last year, organizers wisely built a temporary second bridge to improve the flow. However, this year’s organizational team — headed up by Californian concert producers Goldenvoice — decided to revert back to the single-bridge plan, resulting once again in a traffic clusterfuck that ultimately deterred attendees from checking out acts on the TD Music Stages and Oh Henry! Stages (where, with few exceptions, bands could probably count off the number of audience members by hand). And to top it off, the bridge was then barricaded during Oasis’ set, meaning attendees had to walk the length of the main-stage grounds to the stage-side bridge, and then double-back the same length again to the ferry docks.
Next year, for the love of god, just ask Branson to open up one of his pillowcases of cash to spring for a new bridge — you could even name it after him.