Get in or get out!
Well it's been a long weekend and with the Chilli Peppers boring everyone to tears on the main stage we head off to the Carling tent for a more rousing finale to the weekend's events. There we find Hot Hot Heat and as has been customary all weekend in this tent, a good sized and very vocal audience.
The lights go down, the Dr Who theme tune blares out and the band come on to a huge cheer. From the back of the tent front man Steve Bays bears more than a passing resemblance to Leo Sayer dressed all in white with his big curly hair! Fortunately he doesn't sound like him and he puts in a good performance, he's all over the stage and constantly cajoles the crowd, only pausing to play keyboards. If an energetic finale was what we wanted that's exactly what Hot Hot Heat give us with a stream of frenetic indie underpinned with a danceable beat.
The crowd are clearly up for making the most of their last chance to let rip this weekend and they respond to Bays enthusiastically. All the tracks are greeted with huge cheers as they wade through tracks like 'Dirty Mouth' and crowd favourite 'Bandages'. The band are tight and it's a good all round show and whilst some of the tracks don't quite hit the button there's enough about the overall performance to carry them through. Appropriately they round it off with 'Goodnight Goodnight' and the crowd get their reward as the song is dedicated to them.
Canada seems to be churning out bands from all genres at a rate of knots these days and in Hot Hot Heat they have produced another major contender in the indie scene. With their fifth album 'Happiness Ltd' set for a September release it would appear the band are here for the long haul and when a band puts this much energy into their live show you can't begrudge them their success. It's a fitting end to a strong line up on the smaller stage.