SIXTY FIVE POUNDS!!!

  

ANOTHER festival!?!  What's going on?!?  

As a work benefit this year, I got offered a pair of tickets to each weekend of BST Hyde Park - last weekend wasn't possible due to Glastonbury, but this weekend I had the choice of Guns'n'Roses, Take That or BLACKPINK.  Which one do you think I went for?  Well, I say "I", but it wasn't me making the choice - this weekend was handed over to my youngest.  Initially, she was massively unimpressed by them all - until she found out that Sabrina Carpenter was supporting BLACKPINK.  And who doesn't love a bit of Sabrina Carpenter, eh?!?  What do you mean "who's she?"?!?

I'd never been to a BST event before, so had no idea what to expect - it's quite a decent set-up!  The main stage and audience area takes up the central space, with a couple of smaller stages at either end and a large number of food stalls and bars scattered around the edges of the site - there was plenty of choice and, whilst it wasn't cheap, things could have been worse.  But, we're not here for the food and drink, we're here for the music - what was it like?

Caity Baser

She was playing when we arrived and we got to hear one whole song of hers and I can report she seemed perfectly fine - and very happy to be there!  Amusingly, her Wikipedia page tells me that she "takes inspiration from Etta James, Billie Holiday, the Carpenters, Fleetwood Mac, Iron Maiden, and Rizzle Kicks"  - which is quite the mix!

Mazie 

Mazie was on one of the smaller stages and we went to see her because my youngest liked her name - to me she sounded exactly like you’d think a Mazie would sound.  American, sparky, confident and, like, super annoying.  She also had some really "interesting" dance moves - Isobel really appreciated me copying them!

The Rose

Someone else I'd never heard of - I don't know what I was expecting, but I was definitely surprised to see they're a K-pop-rock boy band.  I can't say I was expecting to like them, but they offered up decent enough songs with an appropriate level of skill involved.  They made a sound somewhere between Snow Patrol and Busted - it all went down very well with the crowd.  They also played their "#1 single" which was "She's In The Rain" - a brief internet search has offered up absolutely no explanation as to where it might have got to #1.

Sabrina Carpenter
I had been played some Sabrina tracks to get me prepared for her set - and I can't say I'd been overly inspired by what I'd heard.  Which made the whole "decent songs sung well" a very pleasant surprise - think Katy Perry or Miley Cyrus.  Most of the songs definitely fall into the "I'm having trouble with boys" category (she was allegedly one of main focuses of the anger on Olivia Rodrigo's Sour album), but she doesn't get too overwrought about such things.  She also did a very enjoyable cover of Abba's "Lay All Your Love On Me".  She was admirably supported by a decent band and a lot more dancers than you'd expect for a support act - but she's going to be supporting Taylor on her Eras tour, so I'm guessing she's gonna have get things sorted.  Happily, I think it all looked fine to me - and, much more importantly, Isobel loved it!  She did, however, have some very silly shoes on!

BLACKPINK

And, finally, the main act were here - cue massive cheering.  Oh no, it's just a roadie moving a mic stand.  NOW they're here - yaaaaay!  Oh no, it's someone with some gaffer tape.  And repeat ad nauseam - there was soooo much anticipation in the crowd for the girls!!  And finally, they did turn up ("BLACKPINK in your area") and everyone just exploded!   And well, they certainly did their stuff.  And they did it well - it was all very well choreographed and sung with an amazing visual stage show and some skilful musicians in the band.  But just don't ask me to describe what "it" actually was - it's not something I really have any points of reference for.  There actually didn't seem to be a huge amount of variety between the songs to me - I'd say I enjoyed the spectacle rather than loved the music.  

However, I can absolutely assure you that no-one there was paying the slightest attention to what I thought - they were all absolutely mad for everything the girls did.  The fans didn't seem to consist of any one specific type - the hardcore set seemed to range from girls under the age of ten to couples in their mid 20s and they knew ALL the words, no matter what language they were being sung in.  They also filmed absolutely everything - I reckon some people didn't watch any of the gig with their eyes focussed on the stage.

There was also a huge range of nationalities in the audience - yes, there were a load of South-East Asians but there were also loads of Europeans in there.  It's possible they all live in London, but I have a suspicion that a lot of people flew in specially for this.  One demographic that was very unrepresented was the mid-50s, white dad - a couple of people at work today said "Why on EARTH did you go and see them?".  Having said that, I do have to give kudos to the (admittedly much younger) Dad with a pink stripe in his hair and “I’m doing this for my daughter” written on his teeshirt .

Before I go any further I have to talk about the love hammers (or "lightstick" as they were officially called).  Imagine two squeaky dog toys with a light inside them attached to a handle - this was core merch and VERY popular with the fans.  So, how much do you think they cost?

Yup, that's right.  £65.  SIXTY FIVE POUNDS!!  To be slightly fairer to BLACKPINK, I do have to inform you there was a Bluetooth connection, a controlling app and the light colour was configurable - but even so (and the rest of the merch had eye-watering prices as well).  All in all, when combined with the music, I was pretty much left thinking I'd been transported to a different planet where my presence was tolerated, but nobody really cared what I thought of it all because there were so many other people deliriously happy to be there.

All in all, it was a very enjoyable day - it was a decent set-up but having access to the section closest to the stage and a backstage rest area with seats and tables certainly didn't hurt (work is far and away the most impressive aspect of my personality to my daughters).  And Isobel LOVED it - we've had BLACKPINK played at every opportunity since.  Next weekend, I have a choice of Billy Joel, Bruce Springsteen or Lana del Rey - which one do you think I (or, more possibly, my eldest) have gone for?  Come back in a week to find out..