Undoubtedly the worst dancer in all of Marlay Park, Calvin Harris knows the steel in his armoury is a collection of big ass choons. Harris can churn out one heck of a post-(Daft) punk, critic-defying, floorfilling, tear-your-clothes-off racket, and today his hits all sound pretty good for four in the pm. He closes the set with monster smash ‘I’m Not Alone’, a little bit Chemical Brothers (circa ‘Saturate’, 2007) and a lot Faithless (circa anything, any date) and everyone goes crazy.
Before Dizzee Rascal hits the stage, I’m already annoyed at the amount of cranky folk who’ve decided to tap their toes impatiently until he does ‘Bonkers’. In a surprisingly diverse set (there are snippets of Ting Tings’ ‘That’s Not My Name’ and M.I.A’s ‘Paper Planes’), beat-heavy tunes like ‘Stand Up Tall’ and ‘Fix Up, Look Sharp’ remind us why this loveable Rascal is still rallying huge crowds four albums in. And when he finally does do ‘Bonkers’, aw hell, it’s rather massive.
Now, maybe I just don’t understand this superstar DJ malarky but is David Guetta really allowed a whole show of just punching the air and tapping the side of his decks? Seeing as I don’t hear any complaints from an adoring Marlay Park mob, I’ll move swiftly on.
By 8.30pm, it seems like so long since Guetta left the stage that everyone’s forgotten there’s a headliner and fallen head-first into their pints. Which makes it all the more magical when Norman Cook appears, clad in the perfect ‘Dad’ shirt and greying around the temples, to the tune of Willy Wonka favourite ‘Pure Imagination’.
As rain clouds darken the sky, the 46-year-old throws out just about everything he’s got in his funky arsenal (and he’s scratching his disks himself, thank you very much). Cook is the coolest Da in the world and what’s more he’s our Da (for the next few songs anyway) and we’re never more proud of him than in the magic minute he spends sitting on the side of the stage, legs dangling, belting out the opening lyrics to the Arctic Monkeys’ ‘When The Sun Goes Down’.
Exciting throughout with colossal numbers like ‘Right Here, Right Now’ and ‘Renegade Master’, Slim leaves us (eventually) with an unexpected but fitting mash-up of the Stones’ ‘Satisfaction’ and his own ‘Funk Soul Brother’, although it seems I might be alone in the Park before long – for some odd reason, the crowd halved halfway through the set.
Those of us left are most grateful for the extra down time, but running about 20 minutes over curfew, lovely Daddy Cook’s in for one fat fine. But hey, as long as the little ones had fun, eh?