To Do List Loves… Apple Cart Festival | Patrick Wolf | Bourgeois & Maurice
The Apple Cart Festival
@ Victoria Park, Sunday 7th August 2011 – as featured in our August To Do List
“Our favourite London festival of the summer.”
Patrick Wolf
@ The Apple Cart Festival
“Melt into a pool of Wolf-induced goo.”
Bourgeois & Maurice
@ The Apple Cart Festival
“We had to be there. In the front row. Like stalkers.”
The Guardian, The Independent, Q Magazine, NME… To Do List is truly worthy of standing in a field next to any of them. And so we proved at the The Apple Cart Festival, a new music/comedy/cabaret/magic (?) celebration which took over leafy Victoria Park for one day only.
That’s right – To Do List is proper media. If you don’t believe us, check out the pic to the left – PROOF!
Apple Cart promised to be “a new boutique day out boasting everything from Mercury winning musicians, award garnering comedians, conjuring Magic Circle members, interactive art happenings, family friendly village fete fun plus gourmet food to feast on and real ale to sup”. Feeling a responsibility to maintain journalistic integrity, we made sure to test all of these claims (particularly the last two).
The whole day was a great success as far as we could see – OK, we needed the use of a battered old umbrella a few times, but there was so much amazingness to distract us from the occasional downpour: great food at the Venn Street Market (the burgers were especially amazing), design-your-own-cover classics on sale in the book tent, tasty tipples courtesy of Jeremiah Weed… and that’s before we even mention the main stages!
The music line up included Saint Etienne, Patrick Wolf, Tim Minchin and Badly Drawn Boy, whilst the cabaret tent played host to Chilly Gonzales, Bourgeois & Maurice and Marawa. Elsewhere, there were stand-up routines, DJ sets and folk-ery aplenty – what more could you want on a Sunday afternoon?
Apple Cart definitely lived up to it’s promise – To Do List has grown a little wary of some of the London park-based festivals just lately, but this one deserves every success. It really is a festival for all the family, but without pulling punches or compromising too much. A great line up, alongside great facilities and a laid back atmosphere made Apple Cart our favourite London festival of the summer. BRING ON 2012!
We’ve picked out a couple of our favourite acts from the festival below…
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Patrick Wolf took to the stage mid-afternoon in a sexy, all-red ensemble, determined to banish the rain with his soaring vocals and his viola/piano/harp/instrument of choice.
We can’t quite get our heads around the fact that it’s 8 years since Lycanthropy, Patrick’s debut album, and 4 years since we first bounced around to The Magic Position.
It still feels fresh though! Patrick thrusts and strides across the stage, belying his 28 years (ha!) and takes the crowd along with him. It took every ounce of our journalistic integrity not to just melt into a pool of Wolf-induced goo (ahem) as he finished the set with ‘The Magic Position’, pausing half way to thank a fan for inspiring the set with some beautiful dancing. Oh Patrick, you sweetie.
Patrick Wolf’s 5th Album, Lupercalia, was released in May.
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Bourgeois & Maurice owned the cabaret stage. Simple as.
Bona fide To Do List favourites, Bourgeois & Maurice never let us down, and when we saw that they were on the bill for The Apple Cart Festival, we knew we had to be there. In the front row. Like stalkers.
Set highlights included credit-crunch lament ‘Can’t Live in London’ and ‘Ritalin’ from first album Musical Couture; ‘Retro’ and the insanely catchy ‘Out Outfit You’ from latest album Shedding Skin; and the set-closing update of Des’ree’s 90s classic ‘Life’ (of “I don’t want to see a ghost/It’s a sight that I fear most/I’d rather have a piece of toast” fame!).
We love to see new audiences experiencing Bourgeois & Maurice for the first time, and although there were definitely quite a few fans in the crowd, the first-timers seemed to love it just as much as us (and we love it a bit too much!).
Both first album Musical Couture and second album Shedding Skin are available to buy from all good Bourgeois & Maurice websites (i.e www.bourgeoisandmaurice.co.uk).
I am Joint Editor at To Do List. I like: nice pubs, film marathons, not doing real marathons, bad comedy, plays/musicals with shorter second halves, and the Oxford comma.
