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Kelis Review
This page is provided only for information, it does not apply to the 2002 festival.
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We love you so much right now
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You could cut the atmosphere backstage behind the dance tent with a cricket stump. It's 8.30 and the day's most intriguing act, who was due to play at 8.10, is still holed up in her bus. Was Kelis, the feisty New Yorker with a mouth the size of Blackwall Tunnel, a penchant for slagging off fellow pop-stars and a fondness for blunts indulging in divaesque behaviour? What colour would her hair be today? What on Earth was an apprentice diva doing rubbing shoulders with crusties at Glastonbury?
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Things look promising: a couple of backing singers appear at the front of the bus to adjust their hair in the rear-view mirror, giggling. The band leave the bus and launch into the first track. Three minutes or so into it, Kelis finally bounds on, looking distinctly 80s in blue reflector shades, a Blondie t-shirt and white flares split to the very top of the thigh. Today, her hair is blue and tied back.
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At first, the dance tent hordes don't quite know what to make of Kelis surprising blend of heavy metal, hip-hop and swing. Portia the guitarist's Funkadelic t-shirt betrays an obvious influence. The crowd respond to Kelis' energy and moves - her dancing puts that of anyone who has set foot in the dance tent throughout the entire festival to shame - but they don't really kick off into an abandoned frenzy. Until Mark Bat, multi-instrumentalist and self-styled "Hype man", steps out from behind his keyboards, congas and acoustic guitar and gets hyping. The crowd find themselves chanting: "Rock this" and responding to his exhortation to: "Jump up", before going completely apeshit.
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Kelis plays her version of Steppenwolf's Born To Be Wild - with the three backing singers and guitarist sharing vocal and leaping around duties with her front-stage, and launches into her smash I Hate You So Much (disappointingly, the backing singers, rather than Kelis, do all the screaming). By now, the dance tent's inhabitants are leaping around with more energy than they've shown all weekend. Eventually, Kelis announces: "They're telling me I've gotta get off stage, but before I do, I've gotta leave you with something." That something turns out to be a kicking and surprisingly faithful version of Nirvana's Smells Like Teen Spirit. A valedictory shout of: "Get fucked up!" and that's it.
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Round the back of the stage, Kelis' posse prove friendly, polite and approachable. Kelis herself is a diminutive ball of charm and politeness, disappearing temporarily into a thicket of children seeking autographs. Five minutes later, she's being whisked off the 100 yards to the Backstage area in a BBC car for an interview, as befits her burgeoning status. A star in the making, indeed. She knows that's the case, for sure, but nevertheless proves utterly impossible to resist.
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Text: Steve Boxer
Pictures: Marilyn Kahan
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© 1994-2000 Glastonbury Festivals Ltd.
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