Commercial radio is all very well in background bursts, but would you want to live inside one for a weekend? Since its origins as a dual-site Britpop extravaganza in 1996, the chart-chasing ethos of V has turned it into the summer festival season’s pantheon of populism.
But even as mainstream broadcasters tighten their claws around the throat of alternative culture, this playlist struggles to deliver the bigger pop bangs. The organisers, unable to land a Sheeran, Swift or Cyrus, end up with a bill full of the A-list’s C-listers. Fuse ODG’s slick electro-reggae comes on like Shaggy does Vegas, Labrinth upstages his own R&B sizzlers by proposing to his girlfriend and, bewilderingly, Olly Murs – the queen ant of V’s major infestation of faux-soul lads – headlines a stage. Both English bluesman George Ezra and Irish corporate jig-rockers Kodaline test the unthinkable possibility of inventing Mumford-lite, the latter actually looking bored of their own band. The Script’s boyband romcom-rock, meanwhile, is beyond a rewrite, and should be shelved immediately.
Although Sunday-night headliner Calvin Harris, the world’s angriest DJ, is on a mission to make pyro predictable – every single drop, fireworks – the weekend’s only real coup is bagging Sam Smith, a man who has rocketed to Bond-theme ubiquity by singing cruise-ship soul and gospel pop as if coming around from dental anaesthetic. Songs such as Like I Can and Money on My Mind have to be strong to survive the vocal numbing. Meanwhile, Lay Me Down, his piano paean to an ex-boyfriend, is touching, but a medley of Le Freak and Ain’t No Mountain High Enough is pure Mursian folly.
The saving graces of V 2015 come in the form of Chvrches’ compelling synthpop and Kasabian’s Saturday-headline masterclass, straddling genres from palatial electro-rock to Ennio Morricone-gothic and delivering a devastating Goodbye Kiss, accompanied by a string section dressed as skeletons and dedicated to Cilla Black. Plus, there is no Bastille this year. Small mercies.
