Lovebox 2005

Victoria Park, London. Saturday 23 July

The extra space available in Victoria Park, compared to the event's former home in Clapham Common, has not only allowed for more arenas, it's also meant that Lovebox is now capable of attracting bigger names - Plantlife and Milo the best examples.

But before getting stuck into the main dance arenas, there's the gauntlet of crazed street performers surrounding one of those new arenas, Lost Vagueness, to endure - colouful characters who, if you're not alert enough, come and attack you and force you into doing the can-can or conducting strange acts with tampons. Personal reservations as to how Glastonbury's Lost Vagueness attraction could work outside its usual surroundings are quickly set aside. Although recreated on a much smaller the scale (there's only the main cabaret tent, the garden shed that is the Little Opera House and the street performers), the same level of Lost Vagueness bizarreness is wonderfully recreated in east London..

The Lovebox Arena, where only a pair of decks and their current orchestrators grace the stage, provides the main alternative dance area besides the main stage. With Bugz In The Attic the heat resembles that of a Turkish bath brought on by the sheer movement of the bodies packed inside this rather sizable tent. The cause of this temperature surge? Insignificant Others, although if the reception and response by the crowd is anything to go by, the DJs' name is a little inappropriate, as they flawlessly mix pure electro dance clash with more recognisable tunes. The climax of their set sees the Apache theme mixed in with a heavy synth backdrop - awesome!

Plantlife are the first of the three big heavyweights on offer tonight at the main stage, and visually the band look amazing. The full eleven piece band fill the stage, and despite the gloomy clouds gathering above, you cannot help but feel they've brought a little of the LA sunshine with their deep, funkified hip-hop soul they deliver. Enigmatic lead singer, Jack Splash who in tight white trousers and scruffy t-shirt writhes his hips around to the DJ mixing, shouts "Some critics put Plantlife in a hip-hop box, other a funk box. However today we are in the Lovebox!" With that declaration, the crowd erupts into mass applause as a deep and heavy bass-line kicks down and the crowd, which up until this point has been rather motionless and uninterested show teh first signs of movement. The audience, despite the downpour midway through the band's set, are loving this and you cannot help but feel the love when latest single, 'When She Smiles, She Lights The Sky', is soulfully played out. Umbrellas move in unison to the beat and for those without, the water soaked bodies add a little raunch to the already sex-fuelled funk music played.

With the audience now warmed up, if a little soaked, the main arena's crowd swells up in anticipation for the next act - the event's currators Groove Armada. Now, logic would reason that at a festival the band's set should predominantly consist of the dancier and more well known tracks from their back catalogue to keep the crowd maintaining their groove. Yet as the chilled-out soulful dig that is 'My Friend' is played early in the set, followed by the even more blissfully mellow 'Inside My Mind (Blue Skies)', you soon realise that this is not going to be some all out mad dance assault on the crowd. This is a little disappointing considering that this is a dance festival and you are here to, well dance. It's as though Groove Armada are performing a set that either doesn't detract from todays' main headliner or they're expecting that the crowd attending the Lovebox are here because they really know their Groove Armada back catalogue. As lesser known track 'Frogma', taken from album 'Goodbye Country (Hello Nightclub)' is performed, you get the feeling that it is the latter explanation.