★★★★☆
A private birthday barbecue that blossomed into a boutique festival, Standon Calling retains something of that agreeably homespun, quirky, intimate atmosphere 13 years after it was launched. And yet this modestly scaled event, held on a family estate 30 miles north of London, repeatedly punches above its weight in its stellar musical guest list. Defiantly upbeat despite the rain and mud, the glitzy gathering included chart-topping pop stars, veteran cult figures and living legends, with a pleasing diversity of race and gender in the mix.
The fraternal techno-pop duo Orbital have been transforming rock festivals into hands-in-the-air raves for decades, but their very British brand of melodically rich, rhythmically robust electronica proved as reliably euphoric as ever on Friday night. Indeed, their rousing headline performance set the ecstatic mood for the screen star Idris Elba, who packed the giant indoor club space with a late-night DJ set full of warm-blooded dancefloor bangers spiced with occasional wild cards, including a welcome nod to Stormzy.
Laura Mvula has shaken off her prim soul-pop diva image in recent years, taking a more experimental detour. Wearing a ripped Tupac T-shirt and channeling Nina Simone, Mvula’s Saturday performance was rich in eclectic ingredients, but disappointingly short at only 40 minutes.
Playing in heavy rain on Saturday night, Clean Bandit were dogged by technical problems and long mid-set delays, which was frankly no great loss. Once an interesting left-field act fusing orchestral and electronic elements, these Cambridge chart-toppers appear to have settled on a lucrative niche churning out featherlight, formulaic, anodyne dance-pop. Imagine Ed Sheeran without the raw sexual magnetism.
Charismatic female vocalists dominated Sunday’s bill, with a special mention for the hypnotically intense Cathy Lucas of the freeform jazz-rock oddballs Vanishing Twin and the charmingly sarcastic Rebecca Taylor of the Sheffield-meets-Nashville country-pop heart-twangers Slow Club. Even the cult techno-metal pioneer Gary Numan was upstaged by his 11-year-old daughter, Persia.
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Yet inevitably the day belonged to the headliner Grace Jones, who served up a magisterial banquet of deluxe funk and reggae grooves, saucy Jamaican patois, dazzling high-art outfits and otherworldly glamour. A homely festival with stellar ambitions, Standon delivered.