Underage Festival 2009

2nd August

Streetlife FM gave away two tickets to Underage Festival! We were there to review the event, and of course, stalk a few celebs.

Hello, Underage

Underage is the only festival that caters to under 18s. In the line up were a range of acts – some that have been around for years and others that are just starting out in the music industry.

The festie took place at Victoria Park, London, and all the acts were spread out on five different stages.

Live acts

The first act we saw was 18 year old Lykes, an artist from Finsbury Park, on the Bedroom Jam stage. It was the smallest stage at the festie, but the audience were still buzzing!

By the time we got to the Youth Music Stage, Kid British were already hyping up the crowd – lifting their guitars in the air and screaming down their mics.

Indie band Hadouken! has never really made it into our radar, but that all changed after we saw them on the Converse stage. Their set was one of the best performances we saw on the day! We’re officially a fan.

Santigold’s performance was as strange as we expected. Her back up dancers moved like robots as she sang hits like ‘Say Aha’ and our favourite, ‘Anne’. Big tunes.

By the time we made it to the Ctrl stage, fans were already screaming for the next artist. All we could hear was, “Tinchy! Tinchy!” After a few minutes of teasing the audience, the man himself finally came out from behind the curtains to his screaming fans. His version of the Ting Tings ‘That’s Not My Name’ was heavy!

Backstage gossip

We weren’t really sure who we were going to bump into backstage.

Chefs were busy grilling some good munch, press were interviewing celebs and busy journalists were on their laptops.

We spotted Esser chatting to an interviewer. Boy does he have funky hair. Then we saw the BBC’s Nick Grimshaw talking to The Skins’ Kaya Scodelario just before they jumped into massive plastic bags – yeah, we don’t know what was going on either.

The extras

The MySpace bus was rammed from the moment we walked in. A DJ was busy spinning some tunes, and festie-goers were taking pictures and writing their names on the wall.

The Silent DJ area was live as well – though we couldn't hear what all the fuss was about because everyone was busy dancing to music from their headphones. The music must have been really good though because as soon as a pair became free, eager festie-goers had their hands on them.

Can’t wait for next year!