[For those of you wondering why this is taking so long, stay tuned]
Saturday began, promisingly, with an excellent Breakfast Burrito [which isn't in Firefox's dictionary. Way to be racist against awesome food, Firefox] and me and Richard and Ashish and Laurence all watching Absentee [who I quite liked, in an "inoffensive" rather than "engaging" way. Their last song was very good] and then Noah and the Whale. Apparently they're "a bit popular". I've been a bit unsure about Five Years Time previously but it's great fun here, all "the kids" [in both a literal and a Stuart Murdoch sense] make noise/throw up their hands and so on. Laurence notes that they seem to have at least one "hoedown bit" per song. Which should be encouraed, frankly. Dear British indie bands, more hoedowns, less songs about birds and lads.
Bowerbirds are a band I knew absolutely nothing about beforehand except that John Darnielle had talked them up, so I was expecting some sort of lyrical-heavy stuff but what we got was very pleasant folk with wonderful vocal harmonies. I hear Bon Iver had them on later to help him out but I missed that because I was in the Bimble Inn very much enjoying Seabear, an Icelandic indie pop seven-piece who sound like they should probably be from Glasgow. Well. During their songs anyway. In between their front man's heavily-accented and ever so slightly broken English shows their roots. They're adorable and soon get the [fairly full] tent on side, even suceeding in employing most of the tent as back up vocalists on their last song. They very quickly sold out of CDs immediatley after, much to my dissapointment. Still, probably my favourite discovery of the weekend.
On the way between the 'Birds and the 'Bear [shoot me on the way out], our party saw one of the best songwriter's in the world ever hanging out at the Duke of Uke stall so we all went and said Hi. Turns out Darren Hayman is very nice as well as being constantly brilliant. Apparently he'd brought Emmy the Great with them to sing during the Darren and Jack Play Hefner Songs set but she'd gone and gotten a gig on Sunday so she wouldn't be doing it. And then we discussed how he thinks Jeremy Warmsley doesn't have a good name for rock. Right on, Darren.
Sometime after this I saw British Sea Power. I don't understand all the business with the branches and the leaves or why their fans had made banners and were, um, waving a Yoda toy arond. For one I literally do not know why they do this and for another I'm not sure what drives them to be so devoted to the band in the first place. British Sea Power are alright. I really can't think of anything interesting to say about their set because it was, y'know, Quite Good. And yet, the crowd went wild. Maybe it's just me. On the plus side, they did announce that there would be a Jonathan Richman covers band featuring two of their number, playing in the Inn at 1.30am.
A little while later, Low took to the stage. I'd been floored by their set at Summer Sundae 2007 so I was excited for this and was not dissapointed. Whilst I like Low on record, I LOVE them live. Many people made that crowd cheer but very few silenced them like Low did. It was dark and nasty and atmospheric and wonderful - the bass line of Canada creeping in made me smile more than anything else musical that had happened up to that point. Murderer was excellent too and I was really liking even the ones I didn't know [well, y'know, as much as you can enjoy the ultra-bleak stuff] but me and Richard and Ashish left early to get to Jeremy Warmsley.
See, JWarm was playing in the smallest tent of the festival so we assumed it'd be full and we'd have to get their early to get in. It was not as full as it should've been when we got there and then technical difficulties meant he started late anyway [meaning we missed the now infamous Alan-Sparhawk-throwing-a-guitar-AT-the-crowd incident]. But it was worth it, once he got going it was a joy to watch, I'd forgotten how tight his live band is. The second-album material was sounding extremely strong [Dancing With the Enemy is catchier than SARS and I love If He Breaks Your Heart more than is reasonable], the first album songs sounded better than they do on the album [I Believe In The Way You Move was never this sprightly, was it?] . He ended proceedings with my favourite cover song of all time, his version of New Order's Temptation. I told him this afterwards and he hugged me. This was all Very Very Good. He said he'd be back at 2.40 to do a covers-heavy acoustic set.
At midnight, me and Ashish went over to a tent that had been used in the day for children's activities and was now playing host to "Scarytelling", in which comedians were supposed to tell vaguely scary stories. Some of them did this, luckily not all. It ended with Robin Ince very drunk doing a series of the last lines of scary stories ("It was a child with the face of an old man! The hand wouldn't die! HE was the ghost!" etc.) and then a John Peel impression and then um, something about Stewart Lee vomiting. Then he read a very moving passage from someone's autobiography about their wife dieing. And then Darren Hanlon played a "Magical-realism Christmas murder ballad".
Seriously.
After this Ashish (perhaps wisely) went to bed and I went to see the end of the Modern Ovens [Modern Covers or Modern Others, gentlemen, surely?]. Sadly no "Since She Started To Ride" or "Dancing In the Lesbian Bar" or "Pablo Picasso" but a lovely "Ice Cream Man" and of course they finished with "Roadrunner". It's a very nice thing to see a tent full of people go mental to "Roadrunner". [RADIO ON!]
After a while, it became apparenty Jeremy Warmsley would not be playing a covers-heavy acoustic set. Here is how I could tell: There was nobody on stage, they were playing music over the PA, a dancefloor had formed, Jeremy Warmsley was on that dancefloor. So I went over and he turned out to be a bit drunk which is why he was not playing and he apologised profusely and repeatedly and sent me off with another hug. He's very nice he is. Buy his next record when it's out and definitely go see him life.
After all this excitement, I went to bed looking forward to Sunday. BUT WOULD SUNDAY BE AS GOOD?
Here is a spoiler, readers: Sunday was the best day EVER. I will write all about it soon.
1 hour ago
2 comments:
If you were in the long line of Warmsley huggees we must have been closer to meeting than either of us could ever have imagined. I particularly liked how he announced mid-set that he had a couple of CDs to sell at the end, and it literally turned out to be two copies of The Art Of Fiction.
Your review is more concise and just generally better than mine. Interesting fact: most of the bands John Darnielle champions are, while by no means bad lyrically, nothing like on his level. And musically they're very different too. I think it's just cause he 'knows how that stuff works', or something.
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