Radio 1 Hackney Weekend 2012

This weekend the BBC put on two days of free music at hackney marshes. As local (ish) residents we managed to wangle tickets. We were attending on the Sunday where Rihanna was headlining. Saturday night was headed by Jay-Z.

The weather has been nothing but awful in the last few months. Rain rain rain. Apparently the wettest June in 100 years. Hello global warming. Therefore outfit selection is crucial. Hunter Wellies were a must, as was the new lacey white number I bought the day prior.

Boots, black tights, jacket...not exactly summer attire.

Dress - Warehouse
Jacket - Zara
Boots - Hunter
Bag - Michael Kors
Shades - Ray Ban

On arrival we were ticket checked no fewer than 4 times, and had to go through airport style security. Seriously?! Eventually we got in and headed to the one extra tent. In there were a boy band, so cute their voices hadn't even broken yet. We pulled some wicked shapes laughed our heads off then darted out. 

The first act we were going to see on the main stage was Plan B. I can't say I'm a massive fan and I couldn't have named any of his tracks beforehand - and cant remember any now! He had a beat boxer on stage in between songs, he was really getting the crowd going, we loved it...honestly this beat boxer was better than Plan B, so we took the opportunity to catch up with some other friends we had met...

...and check out the mud situation

One of the acts I was really looking forward to seeing was Jessie J. Her tracks are so catchy and some of them are on my running playlists - much fun. She also seems like a gorgeous person. We were looking forward to seeing the outfit! She didn't disappoint, belting out all the hits from Man Dem to Price Tag and Whose Laughing Now. Finally we heard the opening notes on Domino. Cracking summer tune. The party had started.

Not sure what happened to this pic, but I like it

Next up was Tinie Tempah, Florence and The Machine and Lana Del Ray in the New Music arena. In between this we popped to the food vans for some much needed, over priced, terrible food. After Florence we decided to go to the Dance Tent, for the first time that day where David Guetta was pressing play on the Mac to deliver the tunes. It was honestly one of the highlights of the day. Dance music isn't really my thing. Don't get me wrong I like some David Guetta tunes, but they are all the ones with vocalists and a catchy hook. Just 'doosh, doosh, doosh' isn't for me. Maybe it was the mud or the shades inside (a tent) but we really got into it. It was almost a shame to have to leave and meet our new friends who were hooking us up for Rihana.

Tinie getting the crowd going

Lana Del Ray looked hawt

Serious 'do and eye liner

Flo looking like she would have a boob incident any second

My David Guetta pics kind of suck...

When we disappeared for the aforementioned over priced food we got chatting to one of the security guards. He was a marine and this was the first time he had worked a concert. He said he would hook us up, we kind of took it with a pinch of salt and thought we'd try our luck but didn't hold out much hope. At the allocated time we went to meet him at the platform that was directly opposite the stage and raised above the crowd where the camera crew were and also some guests with special requirements. When we caught up with our man and amazingly, he came through. We were waved straight up onto the platform and the view was cracking. We did a little victory dance and then realised we were out of drink. C (for Crazy) was dispatched to the bar...

Hello view

Ri-Ri's set up

The woman herself. Hot (but no Beyonce...)

When we had been 'downstairs' with the masses for every other act that day it wasn't that busy and we got kind of close even for people like Florence who we thought would be packed. The crowd for Rihanna was no joke. I don't know if all the other tents pretty much shut down but it felt like the whole of east London had descended onto Hackney Marshes. The crowd was insane. Cue another victory dance...picture flailing limbs, high tenning (five just wasn't enough) and general hyperactivity.

Thank god we're not down there

As soon as Rihanna came on the air was electric. You cannot recreate an atmosphere with photos or videos. They do not do anything any justice. The first track was Only Girl in the World. Amazing. She did some of the best hits including my favourite, What's My Name. I made a video of this moment...which when I watched back I had completely ruined by my dreadful singing. Honestly when you're there you can't hear yourself and think you sound amazing. On reflection I wanted the sofa cushions to swallow me up and make it stop. It's unfortunate because otherwise I would share!

The Umbrellas came out for all the right reasons...the song. Electric

The pièce de résistance was when Run This Town came on. Our new best friend (who had seen the show the previous day) Whispered 'this happened last night' at which time we speculated until we needed to no more. Jay-Z comes out on to the stage and the crowd literally went wild. If you thought there were a lot of cameras in the air before (from our vantage point we had a gorgeous view of this) the whole crowd was one big phone screen. Although I captured some footage and photos I was determined not to see the whole thing through a small screen and just focused on singing and dancing very enthusiastically. Serious shapes were thrown. What a work out.

Ri-Ri and Jay-Z

Ohhh Snap

The final song was We Found Love. Again my 30 seconds or so of video is just me singing, like a wild woman. I love the tune and it's another on my running playlist but live? Oh My. Next time I run and that comes on I will literally have goosebumps. Amazing.

As this wrapped up we heard England had gone into penalties, cue some spontaneous EN-GER-LAND, EN-GER-LAND chanting, especially when Italy missed. Honestly I think the euphoria would have been too much for us had they won. A bit of a come down that they crashed out of the Euros, but what did we expect?

Overall, that's what I call Sunday's...
Thank you BBC Radio 1.
Thank you Hackney

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DL Video Shoot - Photo Roundup

So I took about 400,000 pictures at the Daytona Lights video shoot last Sunday. Due to how cold it was my Canon battery could not hold a charge so the varying quality of these is due to a mash up of iPad, iPhone regular and Instagram.

Some of the highlights:

Sam, drummer (obvs)

Louis (guitar, obvs)

Laurence (bass guitar)

Some pretty amazing port...

The house that was the set for Lovejoy

Matt (guitar)

Danny (right - lead vocal)

One of the house dogs, tried to get into every scene

I suspect these may be first edition originals or something equally as impressive.

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My music video début

A very cold Sunday in January, stay at home under the duvet for a DVD day? Not for me and Daytona Lights (a band you may have seen in Hollyoaks should you be so cultured). They were filming their debut music video in the country and I was going along for the ride. Literally, after being picked up at 7am in a minibus. Rock and Roll.

The concept for the day was sort of Alice in Wonderland type experience whereby a whole manner of weird and wonderful things would be occurring in a manor house in Suffolk. And a very nice house it is too belonging to a very nice country gent named Charlie.

Notice the peacock on the roof? There were three at various points throughout the day

On arriving at the manor the first thing to do (after lighting a fire) was begin building a house of cards. I was amazing at this aided by a pritt stick. It did feel a tad like school though after having to keep reaching over people as they weren't sharing the glue...Here is our creation as used in the video...impressive eh?

The boys began the day of filming with solo acts. Taking place in varying locations in the stately rooms each would play their instrument (or sing in Danny’s case) along to the playback of the single. The song du jour was ‘My Place’, luckily my favourite song from the album - since I would be listening to it roughly 27,000 times throughout the day.

After the individual shots it was time for some outside (brrr), one of the outhouses of the building was apparently called the fornication room as this is where the master of the house would ‘entertain’ the milk maid. However this could have been a made up story, we aren't sure, but I'd like to think it was true. 

Thankfully it was then back inside for the black tie takeaway. Some other scenes to be filmed around this table, the mad hatters tea party and surgical removal of Sam's head with a chainsaw. Marvellous. 

One of the most hilarious sessions of the day was the princess’ knitting. How this came about and who dreamt it up I have no idea, but comedy value it certainly is. Myself and the crew totally forgot we were filming a music video and decided this could easily be a sitcom, producers and scriptwriters pay attention…

One of the most impressive scenes of the day came courtesy of the English National Ballet. 4 dancers elegantly performing in front of the impressive exterior of the mansion, how they managed to not show the pain on their faces from the cold is amazing. Seeing them dance is equally impressive.

A mere 15 hours later and it was time to head back into London and try and thaw out. I don't remember being that cold in a long time. The sort of freezing where you can't even imagine ever being warm again.

Once the video is ready I will post it on here, I did film a scene with two of the boys, If I am banished to the directors cutting room floor I will not be impressed. I want my 5 seconds of fame thank you very much...I think I can feel stardom beckoning. Today a freezing cold manor in the country - tomorrow the Hollywood walk of fame.

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