Oxegen 2011 - Amanda Brunker
Vodaphone stage, Saturday, 2.20pm
Describe in a Tweet: Impressive levels of embarrassment.
What happened: Amanda Brunker is a well known socialite in the south. Imagine a slightly refined (but almost as pointless) Jordan. Apparently she fancies herself as a singer these days, but is yet to release anything and (before today) hadn't done a single gig. But, with Jessie J pulling out, she was booked seemingly as a cheap publicity stunt, with column inches and a twitter trending guaranteed.
Crazy in Love: We honestly approached this with an open mind, but we really can't emphasise enough how much of a joke this performance was. A Spanish guitarist and his chums jam for a bit, before Amanda joins them for a lengthy and astonishingly bad, faux-soul version of U2's 'With or Without You', during which she sings only a handful of lines. It's surreal. She has the cheek to inform us "that wasn't so bad, was it?" (how can she possibly think it was good?!) before explaining she won't be performing any more songs and would therefore just dance about a bit. So her 'band' jam again as she shuffles around her mic, showing her age by throwing the odd cringe-tastic cliched shout-out to a very small and increasingly puzzled gathering at the second stage. Our toes our curling out of our wellies - then she's gone.
Why Don't You Love Me: Our 'beef' isn't so much with Amanda Brunker. As pop music rules these days, Oxegen has lost a little credibility, arguably no fault of it's own. But it's puzzling that they've added insult to injury with this booking, especially with any number of incredible Irish acts who could make a great deal of this slot. It's also a little disrespectful to the actual music fans who've supported this festival for several years. With ticket sales low we appreciate they needed the publicity, but this was a crass way to go about garnering last minute interest. Embarrassing on so many levels.
Oxegen rating: 0/10
Comments Post your comment