It's around 7pm on midsummer's day and, approximately half a mile away across the sweeping amphitheatre that is the National Bowl, a geographically challenged Californian is trying to sum up the mood. "London!" shouts Xzibit, very, very wrongly, "We're gonna f*ck this shit up!"
As a statement of intent, it's fairly worrying stuff. As a premonition, it's a little harsh, but not far off the money. That said, it isn't Xzibit's fault. Someone has seen fit to burden today's talent with a new concept in stadium gig amplification - ladies and gentlemen, we present the quietspeaker - which means that the copy of 'The Eminem Show' being played on a ghettoblaster beside one of the burger vans at the back is in serious danger of drowning out the main stage acts. Relaxed conversations are not only possible at the Bowl's periphery, they're inescapable. A sense of incipient boredom is pervasive.
Which is, to be sure, somewhat anticlimactic. By some margin the biggest hip hop event ever staged in Britain, Eminem's three-day residency at this colossal gathering ought to have been triumphal for both artist and genre. Instead it's stunted, the size of the venue dwarfing not so much the talent, or the egos, but the songs.
Stadium gigs need stadium-sized music, and, whatever its merits or demerits, the often sluggishly paced, deliberately monochrome soundscapes most of this bill deal in are ill-suited to the communal experience. Couple this with a serious volume deficiency and the result is hardly energising. The most conspicuous failing is 'Stan', one of the most lavishly praised compositions in hip hop history, which falls flat because its introspection, coupled with the volume deficiency, means it effectively fades itself out of existence.
50 Cent's appearance, in the middle of Eminem's set, is perhaps the most anticlimactic moment of a day of missed opportunities, rap's newest superstar's emergence on stage barely registering as people at the back send text messages or depart for a mid-set drink. Tellingly, the one moment where the venue doesn't seem to overwhelm the music is 'Lose Yourself', the song's nagging guitar riff underlining that there's a very good reason why it's called 'stadium rock'.
Xzibit, who has the wit to dedicate one song to "the people on the grassy knoll", takes the stage on a mirror-festooned bicycle, but does little else of note. Still, he manages to curtail the bottle wars that break out between sets, when the selection of hip hop and old funk is only audible with the aid of a cupped ear and a favourable breeze. Rumours persist that some of the plastic projectiles have been filled with urine before being persuaded to describe a lazy arc onto a distant head. Cheers!
By the time the star of the show is gently deposited on the stage from a Ferris wheel, we're in serious need of some geeing up. And Eminem's set at least benefits from a strong opening. A collage of dissenting US politicians generates the expected hail of catcalling, and an opening double-whammy of 'Square Dance' and 'White America' shows that Slim has heard the voices despairing of his lack of content, and is letting the recontextualisation a live set provides take up some thematic slack. Despite his vagueness, and apparent happiness to posit all his social and political slingshots entirely in terms of how a nanny state impacts on his own career, he remains mainstream America's only real voice of dissent. Which is a position both heroic and tragic.
In front of the stage, several concentric circles of crowd control separate wearers of various differently coloured wristbands. Apparently, there's a zone for kids to get up close, which is an excellent idea, but pretty much underscores what's wrong with the whole event's concept. Here we are, 65,000 people, gathered to celebrate the apotheosis of insurrectionary counter-culture, asking permission to go to the front and making sure we leave in time to catch the last train home.
Our anger well and truly managed - and, those piss-filled bottles aside, very much contained - we dutifully depart, still convinced Marshall Mathers will one day make the artistic statement of which he is (ahem) eminemently capable of, but equally certain that enormo-shows such as this will not be the best forum in which to hear it.
