When I first heard about the iTunes Festival not many people knew of it, but despite that, they were still getting loads of great acts to perform. That year I won about 4 different pairs of tickets.
Unfortunately the year after, I didn't win any.
What changed?
Simple answer really, Facebook.
When I won all those tickets in 2008, the only way you could enter was through the iTunes festival website, and the only place it was advertised was on iTunes.
Fast-forward a year, and the Festival was now advertised on Facebook. They even had a Facebook page where you could enter the competition, as well as numerous other website. That year the number of entries made had skyrocketed and made it very unlikely that you would win any tickets.
Moving forward to 2010, and the chances of winning tickets were even more unlikely. More people now know about it, there are more ways to enter, therefore, more people enter.
Despite this, I still entered, and on Saturday the 3rd of July, I got a notification on my iPod telling me I had won tickets to see Foals supported by Two Door Cinema Club on the 4th of July. Pretty short notice, but i was pretty chuffed to say the least. 24 hours later and my girlfriend and I were in the Roundhouse, waiting for Two Door Cinema Club to arrive on stage.
Due to the rules in place to make sure the venue gets filled, the competition winners are made to get to the venue for 7pm, otherwise the tickets go to those waiting in the stand by queue. Therefore, when the support act got on stage, there was the unfamiliar sight of a full venue for someone other than the main act. If truth be told, Two Door Cinema Club probably deserve a big crowd as they put on an entertaining set, lasting about 35 minutes as they played 7 or 8 songs off their debut album - 'Tourist History'.
Songs such as 'Something Good Can Work', 'Undercover Martyn' and 'Do You Want It All?' were played and got the crowd excited and warmed up for the headline act. Every band member was full of energy. Dancing and jumping round the stage, with very little space in-between songs to relax. If the young lads from Northern Island can make more albums to the high standard of their debut I wouldn't be surprised if they are filling arenas in 5 years time.(Also as a side note: If you were a fan of Mumm-Ra, and were disappointed when you heard they split, this may well be the band to fill that little hole.)
After a 30 minute break, on came Foals. I had seen the band perform once before, as they supported Bloc Party at Olympia last year, however, back then I felt the quality of the sound let them down as it was very much geared towards making Bloc Party sound as good as possible.
On this occasion, the quality of the sound was no problem and in that respect they sounded superb. However, as far as the performance went I felt it did have a somewhat lackluster middle section, which lasted around 20 minutes. But they more than made up for it with their performances of 'Cassius' and 'Balloons'. As well as the final 20 minutes which was absolutely mind blowing. It was highly energetic and their unique style of music and performance was excellent, we were even lucky enough to witness a rather impressive crowd dive from the Foals front man; Yannis.The set in total was an hour long and despite the feeling the Foals have a lot of room for improvement, as soon as I got home I pre-ordered the live recordings from their set, which can be expected to be released early August on iTunes.
Two Door Cinema Club - 8/10
Foals - 7/10
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