Despite stiff competition from the long-running Reading rock festival, the two-year-old Creamfields dance festival reeled in 40,000-odd music lovers looking for a good time on the last weekend of the British summer. Nearly sixty acts, including Basement Jaxx, Paul Oakenfold, DJ Shadow, James Lavelle, Goldie, the Scratch Perverts, Ed Rush and David Morales, played before an audience that had once taken great pride in Britpop, but now were dancing triumphantly on its grave.

British superclub Cream - which organized Creamfields - probably expected the festival's biggest coup to be the comeback performance by Eighties synth pop stars the Pet Shop Boys, but that group's thunder was quickly stolen by DJ Paul Oakenfold.

The presence of six arenas, each hosting a different dance genre (drum 'n' bass, U.S. house, trance/progressive house, the main stage "big guns" forum, etc.), a carnival of rides, burger and donut bars galore, weren't lure enough to keep a hefty portion of the crowd from packing into the BBC Radio 1 tent for Oakenfold's thunderous set.

When the DJ ended his two-year residency at Cream last November, his stint had come to represent a new standard for DJs in the influential British club scene. His sets teemed with the most cutting-edge house and trance tunes, and his smooth braiding of tracks brought him legions of devotees and legendary status. Saturday, the Oakey Cream faithful joined together with thousands of others who came from all over Britain, Ireland and Europe to see the dance figurehead for the first time.

Though the day's glorious sunshine had faded into a dry, chilly evening by the time Oakey took the stage at 10:30, amid the dancing masses the main arena felt more like the South American tropics. Though there were people crammed in every corner and spilling outside, nobody seemed to mind, nor could anyone be persuaded to move from the forum as Oakenfold swept through an intense three-hour set.

As Britain officially converted to Trance Nation courtesy of Oakenfold's set, which was broadcast live over the BBC, others still not convinced that the music style is the next big thing opted to spend their time with pumped-up acts like the Basement Jaxx, who pounded out a set of their finest, including the rocking "Red Alert." Backed by a singer dressed in Las Vegas show-girl attire, complete with the requisite peacock feathers attached to her backside, and surrounded by their friends, the Jaxx whipped the revelers into a frenzy simply by jumping around like nutcases and playing party tunes.

Lionrock's Justin Robertson's served up one of the evening's highlights when he paid homage to longtime University chums the Chemical Brothers by spinning "Hey Girl, Hey Boy," while two young blokes bounded about with a ready-made banner bearing the song's refrain. Everyone in the arena was dancing in mad-hatter style, though the festival seemed to lack the ecstasy-laden vibe of U.S. underground raves; more people danced the night away than visited the medical tent. In fact, local reports from the Liverpool Echo claimed that the medical tent only treated about 300 people for exhaustion and overheating. Not only were there few medical traumas, but only a handful of arrests (eighteen) for minor offenses, including trying to sneak into the festival, drug possession and petty theft.

JOLIE LASH
(August 31, 1999)