Live review: V Festival 2006
The first thing you notice about Orson is Jason Pebworth's bright green hat. The second is that he really knows how to get the crowd going. As the band open with 'Happiness', Johnny Lonely goes wild on bass, kicking his legs out in front of him and jumping around, and the crowd reciprocate by sitting on each others' shoulders in addition to throwing frisbees and beach balls around.
As they bring 'Downtown' to an end, Jason is standing right on the front of the stage waving his arm towards the eager audience, and when he announces "People of England... here's my Bright Idea!" there's no stopping the screaming.
People with digital cameras don't know where to point and shoot - the band is so hyper and entertaining they don't actually stop to catch their breath. Excitement spreads through the crowd as the throbbing bass kicks in and by the last chorus everyone's going totally wild. Johnny flashes the full front of his guitar while he's standing on a speaker and Chris Cano fuels the rhythm for the next song, 'Already Over'.
An announcement from Jason that it's Johnny Lonely's birthday today means that, of course, the crowd has to share the greetings and sing 'Happy Birthday' for him, but not before Jason politely invites the crowd to join in with their closing song, 'No Tomorrow'. He starts with "If you don't know this one... I'm sure people will help you out by singing along..." But it's a mad thing to say because everyone here does know it, and if they don't, where have they been hiding?
The extended intro with lots of "doo-doo-doo's" from the band isn't testing our knowledge of lyrics too much, but everyone joins in and throws their arms in the air and generally has a wicked time. So Happy Birthday to Johnny, and three cheers for Orson in general!
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