July 13, 2000

London Hyde Park

The weather, has nothing to do with anyone having lied when they were 17. Most people here are 11.

"Why does it always rain on me?" ask Travis, the biggest band in Britain, bill-openers in this parallel galaxy. The weather, though, has nothing to do with anyone having lied when they were 17. Most people here are 11.

Welcome to P In The Park - as in Party, as in Princes Trust but also as in rain Pissing rain, and, yes, Pop. In this universe, there is only success. And so the 40-plus stars of stage school and video screen wiggling before 100,000 of us over nine hours make do with just one or two songs. No messing, just The Hits. It's a terrific way to run a festival. Especially if we adopt a channel-zapping mindset, forget Steps exist, and hustle straight to DESTINY'S CHILD. 'Say My Name', then 'Bills, Bills Bills': all the sass, sultriness and pop R&Bing you could want, and wearing bandannas as tops without incident. The sleekness continues with VICTORIA B, officially propping up TRUESTEPPERS, but really here to show MEL C up with her very now UK garage tune. It peaks with CRAIG DAVID, who gets the loudest shrieks every time some DJ/compere exhorts us to rate upcoming attractions. SISQO also incites a mass howl, with his bared chest, sequinned dragon clobber and loose talk of thongs. Really, though: Arab Strap songs have nothing on this unseemliness.

With such artistic heavyweights deployed early, things can only get flimsier, even by pop standards. RONAN KEATING wears faded denim and airs his Gregg Alexander-penned single, 'Life Is A Rollercoaster'. But not even the magic of the New Radicals can halt Ro's decline to light-entertainment celebrity, more at home hosting these things than playing them. SEXBILLIE's next: just the one raunchy hit from the teen fun fiend, presumably still taking things easy. Her re-branding as the domestic CHRISTINA AGUILERA is brutally shown up by the merciless grind of the real deal: 'What A Girl Wants' and 'Genie In A Bottle' emoted with industrial efficiency. They do such a good job of hiding the wires.

A little-known fact: BON JOVI market-tested the tracklist of at least one of their albums. So they fit in here just fine, rocking some 20th-century nostalgia (what, already?) just before the ghastly WESTLIFE suck up all matter into their grey void of insipidness. Prince Charles waves an umbrella. Isn't this nice? No it fucking isn't, because the next 15 minutes sees DAVID GRAY strumming and ELTON JOHN and the BACKSTREET BOYS tinkling and harmonising and actually worsening humanity's lot - a villainy only topped by LIONEL RICHIE, MARTINE McCUTCHEON, SUGGS, MARTI PELLOW and QUEEN's grand finale of 'With A Little Help From My Friends'. This ghoulish carnival of has-beens and old farts is mercifully broken up by NIC ALL SAINT forgetting the words to 'Never Ever', SONIQUE's 'It Feels So Good' drying out the soul, the sight of MEL C backpedalling on those rumours with a girlie re-style, and everyone in UK garage doing a medley. No, really, that last bit was awesome.