By Carron Stacey, A Humdrum Mum

WHEN?: Friday 23 August 2024, festival runs through Sunday 25 August 2024 (press pass)

Storm Lilian didn’t have a ticket, but she certainly queued up all night to get in.

• Read on for reasons including Fatboy Slim, Russell Howard, Do Nothing, Razorlight, Idles and Maximo Park

Thankfully, she is no threat to what is the 12th annual bash on Southsea Common.

The Seaside Stage is back after a notable absence and this year, it is the home of Beats and Swing. I miss the early days of this promoter showing the more unusual and alternative acts in a tent, which then upgraded to the car park. It added to the dark side vibe of their acts.

However, they totally deserve the beautiful stage setting next the new sea defences, alongside the Solent, with its passing traffic of water-spouting tugs, hovercrafts, ferries and even the odd luxury cruise liner.

We arrive in time for Do Nothing, the Castle Stage’s first band and, I believe, the festival opening band. These 6 Music darlings certainly set the bar high for the day. With a besuited lead singer, Chris Bailey, styled on Tony Hadley, with the stage presence of Franz Ferdinand’s Alex Kapranos and the vocals of Lloyd Cole, he appears as the grown up son of Jarvis, shunning his dad’s dress sense and going to Moss Bross instead.

But this takes away from their music, which does have a little Warmduscher thrown in for good measure. A strong set, the highlight of which for me was Lebron James. Chris has perfected the rather ubiquitous spoken word, however he intersperses it with soulful vocals and intelligent, storytelling lyrics (I need to study them in peace).

I shall look forward to the audience Venn overlap with Yard Act on Sunday. Festival scoping, lunch at Lidl (still the best value at £9.50 for a fancy hot dog and Prosecco), a henna tattoo and family band commitments see us taking in Reactor One’s almost all originals set and the Indie Seymour duo before being disappointed that Woody Cook didn’t show for the Seaside Stage DJ performance.

In my head, Woody is surely about 10? No, a 23 year old. Oops! A surprise listen to Big Red Ass (a horn always gets me): this is as if the sublimely gorgeous Tuba Litres had got drunk with Bernard Manning before performing … ok and changing their style to ska. You get my drift. A good, fun band.

The crowd really do turn up for Razorlight on the Common Stage. Johnny Borrell has the crowd in his hands, with hits including Before I Fall to Pieces, Somewhere Else and America. Grant Sharkey on the Seaside Stage needs a revisit as I can’t quite take in the satirical lyrics to his (self-described) stupid songs, accompanied by his double bass.

One of my fellow festival correspondents, Frequent Festival Goer, assures me he’s brilliant. We sadly miss The Murder Capital and the Sherlocks (must do better) but do catch Russell Howard in the Comedy Tent. With his West Country family imitations (which always make me smile) and trademark high energy self-mocking, he extolls that we are all different.

He gamely ends the set slightly early when an audience member needs medical help. We hear the screams for Louis Tomlinson and can only assume the ex-One Directioner was great. (I do hear lots of girls in the queue for the loo exclaiming how amazing he was later on.) I wonder how the crowd coped with the heavily-suggested crowd surge that Louis’ fans create at the beginning of his sets? I hear nothing of this. Sadly, even though I am only in the VIP area nearby, I hear nothing of his singing either, only the music!

We end up missing the Lottery Winners (crowd favourites, will see them soon) and A.Skillz, although we have seen him before when Beats and Swing were in the dirty old dance tent. That year, our son and his mates all danced to him at the same time as we did. This year, 90’s Teacher Girl, another of my fellow festival correspondents, tells me (independently to my previous experience) that he shows his skills blending music that old and new will dance to, and proves it by sending videos of Snoop Dog’s Drop It Like It’s Hot, Acraze’s Do It To It (I’m too old to know that) and Toto’s Africa (NOT a guilty pleasure – nothing to feel guilty about). We are both in agreement (that rarely happens).

The first band clash. Idles -v- Maximo Park. I’ve seen both before. Mr Humdrum is a HUGE Idles fan. We see loads of T-shirts around and he bemoans that he is sporting Ibibio Sound Machine. I tell him he doesn’t need to show he’s an Idles fan. They will know.

Now I like Maximo Park’s songs and love that Paul Smith sings in his Northern accent. I choose them over the aural assault that is Idles (and I mean that with total kindness). Being a total fan, Mr Humdrum was so blown away by them he can’t remember what they played or what they said. Except the crowd loved them; he hadn’t seen a crowd so engaged so far back (for a non-headliner). I admit it hurt to walk away from a band whose songs I like, whose lead singer’s spoutings I love and whose ethos I adore. But work has to be done, and I catch what I want to on the Castle Stage.

A huge audience for Maximo Park. I walk back, soaking up the end of Idles. Mr Humdrum really wishes he’d been able to buy the Southsea Record Club t-shirt (a Pie and Vinyl and Tonic Music collaboration), worn by Idles’ drummer. (One of their songs is written about a friend suffering with depression.) Just a lovely band.

Waiting for the Rockafeller Skank himself, we hear Snow Patrol, but mostly just the music. Keen readers will know that I had a chat with the Funk Soul Brother back in September last year, when he supported My Dog Sighs’ street art festival, Look Up Portsmouth (of which I – Be Your Own Bee – was a local artist!).

I asked him then when he was going to be playing Victorious, as he sort of owed it to us being a fellow South-Coaster. Lo and behold, he said he’d just signed the contract. Like the ethical hack I am, I didn’t write about it. Until it was announced. Thirteen years of Victorious (in its guises) and we get the best headliner on Day One 2024. (Notwithstanding Prodigy playing in 2018 – joint tops, I think that’s fair.)

I would also like to add that Mr Humdrum and I saw him when he first burst onto the DJ scene in 1996 at Brighton’s Essential Festival – he was too big for his tent! Mr Humdrum saw him the first year of the beach gigs, and blagged his way into his residency afterwards at Big Beat Boutique.

I missed his DJ set at the Look Up wrap-up party last year as I was double booked, so this was extremely anticipated. I do have a problem with this – how do you review it, without using all the stock phrases? Best gig ever? Amazing? Outstanding? These words don’t even scratch the surface to describe it.

We watched from the platform and, being a shorty, I had the best uninterrupted view. Opening with a line or two to Praise You, he went into Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now and that, readers, was it. His accompanying visuals were an ocular feast: a huge My Dog Sighs’ eyes (sporting a MDS shirt too), Prince, Keith Flint (‘m sure), Greta, Rita Ora singing Praise You, too many bass drops to cope with…

There was even the photobomb of the Virgin luxury cruise liner sailing by with heart Pompey on the side. Can I have one complaint? He doesn’t delve into his back catalogue – where were the Mighty Dub Katz, Pizzaman and where were the hints to Going Out of My Head and Everybody Needs a 303? But that guy is my preacher and that is my church. We all need to heed his preachings that love is everything.

The explosive end (I’d genuinely forgotten about the traditional fireworks) played along to the Beatles’ outro The End. And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make. How fitting, Mr Cook. How abso-funk-lutely fitting. The weather made it today, and the Fatboy. With a slightly dodgy forecast for Day Two, it’s worth remembering that some of the best sets have been in the pouring rain – think Prodigy, Bluetones and Peter Hook and the Light. Don’t forget your mac.

• Pictures via Facebook courtesy Victorious and Carron Stacey Tickets
• Read more from Carron at her blog A Humdrum Mum
• Have you seen any of these shows? Let us know what you thought in the comments below
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