Music festival hits all the right notes

BY CALUM FRASER
calum@slpmedia.co.uk

Tom Jones, Nile Rodgers and Noel Gallagher were some of the stars lighting up Greenwich last week.

The Greenwich Music Time festival, which ran from Tuesday, July 3 to Sunday, July 8, attracted thousands of revellers to the Old Royal Naval College site.

Classical quartet Il Divo, pop group Steps and soul singer Emeli Sande headlined the other three days of the six-day series.

But Emeli Sande’s set, which kicked the series of concerts off on Tuesday, clashed with the England v Colombia World Cup last 16 game. This caused a dilemma for the organisers. They decided to show the game on a big screen on stage. Support act, YOUNG, had to play a truncated set before the game and a 10-minute jam at half-time.

Emeli Sande was set to come on at 8.45pm. But with Colombia’s last minute equaliser, organisers had to make a snap decision on whether they would continue to show the game and keep the “Heaven” singer waiting.

Some of the less fanatic football fans in the crowd became quite restless when they were informed by agitated partners that there was potentially another 30 minutes left of the game.

Emeli Sande then came on and the Scottish singer told them she would keep them up to date on the score and the game was turned off.

By and large this was a welcomed move by the crowd, but there were some punters rushing out of the concert to find the nearest venue showing the game.

On Saturday, there was no clash of music with England’s 2-0 victory over Sweden in the afternoon to land them a semi-final berth as the music started later in the evening.