O2 Wireless 2008: Day Four

United Kingdom | by Nick Bruce | 10 July 2008

Sunday has sold out despite the Formula One down the road at Silverstone and another Brit-less final taking place at Wimbledon. But sports and crap television will have to wait as Goo Goo Dolls, Powderfinger and Ben Harper have all pitched up in Hyde Park.

The final day's music is stark contrast to festival opening three with hip hop on Thursday (Jay-Z, Cool Kids), British indie (Morrissey) on Friday and dance (Fatboy Slim, Underworld) last night. Instead it's the turn of reinvigorated rock acts from the US and Australia who have firmly established themselves over the last three decades.

Contrary to the rock-vibe of today's proceedings Eddy Grant, a man who has been at the forefront of commercial reggae since the late seventies, is getting the sizeable audience dancing to hits 'I Don't Wanna Dance' and 'Electric Avenue' – a track now synonymous with an annoying advert, which is fitting for the abundance of them around the site.

Goo Goo Dolls kick off with 'Dizzy' looking surprisingly old, not that they are ready to claim their pension. Forever remembered within the context of their own songs, the Dolls seem forever young through timeless classics like 'Slide'. Cue girls on shoulders and blokes with their t-shirts off for the anthemic choruses of 'Black Balloon' and the gorgeous 'Name' as the hidden Antipodeans appear with Australian flags among the crowd. 'Iris' is their inevitable encore and it is every bit as beautiful and satisfying as a signature tune should be. Rzeznik takes the opportunity to jump from the stage and allow the crowd to sing the chorus. It's an emotional end to what has been a truly uplifting set; maybe they’re not that old after all.

Aussie outfit Powderfinger carry on where the Goo Goo Dolls left off with leadsinger Bernard Fanning's voice as powerful as his stage presence. His falsetto is a mixture of Free's Paul Rodgers and Robert Plant which is backed by a powerhouse sound that reverberates around the festival site as loudly as the thunderclouds overhead. They dedicate a song to the Spanish football team as the sun fittingly breaks through the clouds. But like the song, the moment passes and it rains like July and October are on some sort of exchange trip.

He may not look cool, but Ben Harper certainly sounds it - his drab Chicago Bears woollen hat and Bruce Springsteen shirt combo won't be on a Paris runway any time soon. His band, the Innocent Criminals are a collection of the best old-school session musicians on the planet. It's all slick-percussion and heavy bass (Warren Parsons is about two hundred pounds of bass-playing magic) so Harper airs songs from his latest album as well as his genre-breaking work he produced with the Blind Boys Of Alabama. The set is very nice, very clean and very clinical. And that's its biggest criticism - it all seems very well produced. It lacks the off-the-cuff onstage unpredictability, which can turn good gigs into great ones. Harper doesn't speak to his audience except to introduce the members of his band and there is no on-stage banter between musicians, despite the stage holding around 20 of them. Harper's and Co are very into their music and it's as if they've forgotten they're playing a festival rather than recording in a studio. Still, Harper's set is a fantastic pre-cursor to tonight's headliners – Counting Crows.

Adam Duritz enters the stage all wild dreads and shaggy beard as the band plough into some brand new songs. Their latest material lacks the depth of their earlier material, but they make up for it with stronger bodies of work like 'See Me Lately', 'Anna Begins' and mega-hit 'Mr Jones'.

On paper Counting Crow should not work: Duritz's voice has been likened to a whiney schoolgirl and the band play some random instruments, yet tonight's performance feels emotionally intense. Speaking in monologue Duritz weaves his lyrics in and around the music, which obviously get to him during 'Colourblind' when he begins to cry. The hybrid of instruments tessellate to form a sumptuous blanket of sound which flow through layered album tracks like 'Perfect Blue Buildings' and 'Rain King', before Duritz changes the lyrics of 'Round Here' to "There's a girl on a car in the parking lot / Saying man you should take a shot / Can't you see my world is crumbling."

Tonight it feels as if there are two acts onstage: Counting Crows the band, the tight rock-country outfit, and poet Duritz, a man who is able to go off on lyrical tangents whilst never losing sight of the power behind his songs. Their low-point is the cover of Joni Mitchell's 'Big Yellow Taxi', produced for the Hugh Grant and Sandra Bullock vehicle 'Two Weeks Notice', with many taking the opportunity to skip over to the toilet. On their return, they are greeted by 'Long December' and a Duritz who is singing as if it’s his last night on Earth.

The set is finishes with a sublime cover of Fairport Convention's 'Meet On The Ledge'. As the band leave, Duritz stands centre stage, bathed in white light, whilst the Mama and the Papa's 'California Dreamin'' is played to the crowd. If California isn't, then this crowd must certainly feel as if they are.