Woodstock, SE3

Picture: OnBlackheath 

When it comes to outdoor music festivals, I’m of the fair weather variety. That is, if it ain’t got a roof, I'll remain under my own. Thus, over the years I’ve focused my festival experience exclusively in Montreux, chiefly as some years you can spend an entire week’s holiday on the shores of Lake Geneva, stay in a nice hotel, eat in nice restaurants and, each night, take the free bus down to the Stravinsky Auditorium to see that evening's A-list line-up. Forget glamping at Glastonbury, this one - even with torrential Alpine summer storms - is mud-free and stress free. And you get to mingle with the artists over the road at Harry’s Bar. It’s not cheap, mind (and I don’t just mean Harry’s), but you are at least conscious of the fact you’re paying a premium for it all and not requiring tetanus injections, going down with Trench Foot, eating overpriced rubber vegan food and being stung by all the other hipster indulgences that have proudly kept me away from Worthy Farm. My luxury yurt has, happily, been the living room, BBC Four’s coverage, a short walk to the fridge and to my own bed.

On his doorstep: Danny Baker
© Simon Poulter 2018

Last weekend, however, I caved in to festival fear to attend OnBlackheath, a two-day, does-what-it-says-on-the tin event in south-east London, and absolutely tremendous event it was, too. I was chiefly drawn by headliners Squeeze, playing literally on their home turf, but also The Divine Comedy, Paloma Faith and the prospect of De La Soul whipping up this profoundly white and middle class enclave into a frenzy of arthritic good times. Sorry to bring up class, by the way, but despite Danny Baker (who lives a matter of yards across the heath from the festival venue) hosting Day 1, and proudly boasting his lifelong connection to this part of London (Deptford-born, raised and schooled, Blackheath dwelling via Bermondsey), the clientele is decidedly white, middle class and middle aged. You know this by the carafes - carafes!!! - of rosé being consumed, and the number of men with floppy grey hair wearing age-defying T-shirts, who clearly work in the creative industries, pushing high-end child transportation around the field. 

But don't be thinking that I'm being sneery about OnBlackheath being, in 80s parlance, a yuppie affair: a safer, family orientated festival you could not find, even with Baker jokingly dubbing it "Woodstock, SE3". Before you've even heard a note of music, your senses are assaulted by the aromas of Caribbean, Vietnamese and Korean food wafting from craft food vans, while children are well taken care of by the obligatory face painting and glitter concessions. This little green enclave of south-east London spans two stages, with a main arena devoted to the two days' major acts, while a tented second hosts groovy acts, such as the venerable and still brilliant James Taylor Quartet, Dirty Vegas (featuring local boy - schooled in Eltham - Steve Smith) and even Steve Davis - yes, that Steve Davis - doing a DJ set. Throughout the show hours, a disco tent pumps out groovy choons for wine-fuelled mums to dance around their handbags. I kid you not.

But it is to the main stage where the big draws are assembled, and the build up to Squeeze on Day 1 is appropriately filled with a theme of British songwriting at its best, albeit with a contrast. First up is dear old Billy Bragg, the 'Big Nosed Bastard from Barking', as the NME used to call him. Still as agit-prop as he was when I last saw him, over 30 years ago on a Red Wedge bill on the South Bank, his punk-meets-folk is probably a little raw for some of the more refined tastes in this audience, but, given the rancid mess that is, currently, the state of British politics, he is brilliantly and fittingly abrasive. Now, grey of beard, Bragg can afford to make light of his resemblance to Jeremy Corbyn (“except that I’m the one with the fucking guitar,” he quips to an already uncomfortable crowd possibly hearing their first swear of the day).

Picture: OnBlackheath

Next up, The Divine Comedy, and a 12-song set including pleasers like Becoming More Like Alfie, Generation Sex, Something For The Weekend, At The Indie Disco, National Express and Tonight We Fly, as well as the brilliant How Can You Leave Me On My Own from their stunning last album, Foreverland. Neil Hannon remains one of Britain's most unsung musical heroes - I suspect he likes it like that - and the hour his sharp-dressed outfit are on stage for provides a reminder - if it was needed - of just how clever a writer he is. It's still impossible to pigeonhole The Divine Comedy: are they rock? Pop? Vaudeville? Anthony Newley incarnate? I'd simply leave it as "genius".

Somewhere much earlier in the day, Danny Baker smashed the proverbial champagne bottle to launch OnBlackheath by announcing that it would be his pleasure to introduce the very first act - someone he's "known since birth" - and the last act of the day, with whom "I went to school with”. The former is none other than 18-year-old Mancie Baker. Yes, the name is no coincidence: it’s the youngest of his three offspring, and a supremely talented singer-songwriter she is, too, boldly getting a thinly-crowded early audience under way with a set of just her and a blue Fender acoustic, singing compositions written in a bedroom just a short walk from the stage. It’s a family affair, too, as the Clan Baker and assorted family friends and neighbours are out in force to support her. Watch this space: I think she’s going to be huge. 

Fast-forward, then, to the evening's finale, Squeeze. Formed, more or less, 40 years previously on the very heath on which we are assembled, they have an unrelenting charm built on the tremendous canon of songs written by Deptford’s Glenn Tillbrook and Greenwich’s Chris Difford. I saw them last year at the O2 Indigo (part of the O2 Arena, built on the site of the Greenwich gasworks, where Difford’s dad worked as the payroll clerk), and it was as joyful a couple of hours of thoughtful pop-rock as it’s possible to have. Moreover, it underlined what Tillbrook and Difford have contributed to post-punk music. So here, a few miles down the road from the O2, Squeeze recreate the same brilliant selection of memorable classics like Pulling Mussels From The Shell, Hourglass, Annie Get Your Gun, Labelled With Love, Goodbye Girl, Another Nail In My Heart, Take Me I'm Yours, Tempted, Slap And Tickle, Is That Love, and of course, Up The Junction and Cool For Cats, ending with Black Coffee In Bed. Just those 13 songs alone would have constituted an incredible gig in their own right, but with the addition of tracks from their last album - the paean to London that was The Knowledge - Squeeze confirmed that they're not just kings of south-east London but a band that, frankly, should be recognised as national treasures. I'm not exaggerating when I say that Difford and Tillbrook is a songwriting partnership in the same breath as Lennon and McCartney, Donald Fagen and Walter Becker.

Squeeze homecoming
© Simon Poulter 2018

Squeeze are, for me, the weekend's undoubted main attraction, but Day 2 brings plenty of good stuff to warrant a full afternoon and evening's attention, with R&B singer-songwriter JJ Rosa kicking things off on the main stage, and another well connected individual, Leon Tlilbrook strumming the second stage into post-prandial life. 

The first major act of the afternoon are The Lightning Seeds, who storm through Sense, Lucky You, Perfect, The Life Of Riley and Pure, with Ian Broudie thankfully ignoring calls for Three Lions (despite one or two members of the band sporting England shirts). I think we've had enough of that song for one summer, thank you. But with a strict evening curfew to observe, the main stage performances come thick and fast. Next up is Corinne Bailey Rae, the Leeds-born soul star who, you'll remember from her self-titled 2006 breakthrough album and hits such as Like A Star and Put Your Records On, a pile of awards, and then a decidedly low profile in the 12 years since (just two more albums - 2010's The Sea and The Heart Speaks In Whispers in 2016. She is, though, an infectious performer, and her set - which includes the 2006 hits - suggests that there's much more to come, albeit at a pace she seems happy to be fully in charge of.

© Simon Poulter 2018

It may now be almost 30 years since De La Soul first emerged with their still lovable album 3 Feet And Rising, with its hippy-dippy mixture of "hip-hop lite" (their words) and psychedelia, so a seemingly lengthy wait for them to reach the main stage is worth it. Within minutes the trio are getting the audience grooving to songs they probably last moved limbs to at university. Noting the family orientation of OnBlackheath, they vow to keep the set profanity-free, a pledge that lasts for only half their allotted time, much to the amusement of children in the crowd. Their parents appear unoffended, willingly joining in the pantomime fun that divides the audience into competing halves, with Posdnuos, Trugoy and Maseo whipping well to do mums and dads into wild frugging with feelgood performances of Me, Myself And I, Eye Know, The Magic Number and Ring, Ring, Ring.

There appears to be a personal pattern to the 2018 OnBlackheath headliners: I only saw Squeeze last October at the O2, and I was back to the Greenwich dome in March to see the second night's star bill, Paloma Faith. Similarly local (well, Hackney), Faith purveys big, brassy retro soul (not dissimilar, in that regard, to Adele) but delivered with a gusto and at times exhausting amount of chatter. She does like to go on, a fact she happily reminds the audience. She has a lot to say, though, and a lot of it is said on her stunning last album, The Architect, tracks from which form the backbone of her Blackheath set. Her songs and their themes revolve around the human condition - often her own, personal experiences - and she's not afraid to tackle the evils of racism, misogyny, homophobia and sexism in society. 

During one lengthy rant I was reminded of the previous evening's Billy Bragg, and the two share an undimmed conviction that their stage is a platform. That might not be everyone's cup of tea, especially if you're expecting a jolly night out waving your arms in the air, but her vow to spread "epic kindness" in her songs is endearing. She may not have - yet - the lengthy career of Squeeze from which to draw on a vast catalogue of witty, poignant, instantly repeatable pop songs, but this second night's headline act is nonetheless a force majeure, belting out blockbusters like Can’t Rely On You and even The Mamas & The Papas’ Make Your Own Kind Of Music. A momentous finale to a couple of delightful days in one of London's more delightful postcodes.