Playlouder - Music is the Network

(previous day here)

Saturday:

The morning of day two sees us sipping Rooibos and listening to world music in a café tent. There are young attractive couples everywhere and Steve has lost his umbrella, which is no doubt some kind of karmic justice for wandering behind boundaries and using a staff toilet.

Bowerbirds are on early in the proceedings and have a laid-back sound that seems to suit the newly-sunny afternoon. He smiles a lot, she doesn’t, I’m a big fan of their lilting country lullabies, Steve isn’t. We go to the shady grove and find a library attached to a tree, and deposit some poems that aren’t about communism in it.

Much less suited to their time-slot, but not letting that stop them, are London-based off-kilter punk freaks Screaming Tea Party, who are the loudest thing yet witnessed, and one of the most interesting too. One of them wears an uncomfortable looking mask, and all three are giving 110% of their muscle spasms to the cause. God knows how they actually got here. They have a song called ‘Death Egg’. Crikey.

Friska Viljor pull/s quite a crowd in the Bimble Inn and though this sweet-voiced Scandinavian holds the interest of a lot of people, the cover of Alice Cooper’s ‘I Love The Dead’ seems ill-judged and ridiculous to my straining ears. It’s sort of like Antony and the Johnsons covering ‘Heaven is a Half Pipe’. What the Bimble Inn really needs is someone who can shout over the steady flow of conversation. And this ain’t it.

The last track of Let’s Wrestle’s set could do the job: it involves them shouting “Let’s wrestle” a lot. And a few people actually do, albeit in a half-hearted way. There ain’t no way I’m wrestling in the big top. A river runs through it.

The Young Republic reappear today as if to chastise us for wandering around during their set yesterday. However, I made my bed, so I wander around to the shady grotto and lie in it. How long can it go on for? They can’t exactly follow me home and play outside my door can they? Again, through the trees, they sound quite pleasant.

Bon Iver is also quite pleasant. I find it difficult to express my sentiment with any more enthusiasm. Plenty of people can be found doing so for the rest of the event, but for me Bon Iver is quite pleasant, and little more. I think I recognised one song. From an advert. (I think.)

I broke my own rules by getting upfront for British Sea Power at least half an hour early and downing the preparatory Jägermeister and ginger wine. This was not the behaviour of someone who was happening upon a band.

The thing is, I happened upon BSP what seems like ages ago on a free CD with Uncut Magazine. This was before the debut. I bought each of their three albums on the day of release, even the recent one, even though I could probably have got it for free. I love this band.

And I’ve never seen them live, and what today’s set teaches me is that I should have started much earlier. It’s a triumphant set by a band that are perfectly comfortable in any of the many environments they create for themselves. The set-list is eclectic, drawing from albums one, two and three, with a couple of b-sides thrown in to keep you guessing. ‘Down on the Ground’ and ‘Atom’ are explosive, ‘Waving Flags’ and ‘No Lucifer’ anthemic, and ‘Oh Larsen B’ is pretty much my favourite foremost song about a coastal Antarctic shelf.

British Sea Power are, contrary to some early reports I’d heard, entirely competent live and yet still able to raise the metaphorical roof.

Kurt Wagner can’t follow that. One dude sitting behind a washing line singing slow paced meandering songs is, whether he’s from Lambchop or not, an unlikely follower to the BSP experience, and is all at sea in the big top.

The actual follower on the main stage is Low: yup, those big names keep on coming, inexplicably given the size of the festival – some comparatively measly 5-7 thousand.

Low play a long and wandering set of sparse rock and herald the night with murky feedback and soul-searching howled hymnal harmonies.

The music would leave a profound and lasting impression if Alan Sparhawk hadn’t chucked his guitar into the audience at the end of the set. You don’t hurl large heavy objects right into the midst of your most adoring fans. That’s the first thing they teach you.

Steven Adams in The Local puts it better than any of the many speechless could:

“I’m still shaken up by what happened at the end of Low’s set… I suppose everyone’s natural reaction would be, “What a dick”, but... the guy’s obviously got some serious problems.”

Fair point.

There are no problems with Adams’ set, which he boasts was only ever planned so he could get a free ticket to the festival. Being without his Broken Family is no problem – his songs, accompanied or otherwise, shine through with wit, wisdom and poignancy.

It’s left to Two Gallants to kill the day off tonight though. Another band three albums into their career who I’ve yet to see, and another carefully prepared viewing point.

It takes ages for Two Gallants to get going, considering there’s only two of them, but when they finally surface from behind a wall of dry ice and red lights, the mutated, tortured take on ‘Seems Like Home To Me’ is well worth the wait.

What follows is a seriously impressive trawl through odds and ends from their impressive canon to date; the songs are given so much life by added introductions and twists and turns. Vogel’s melodic drumming and Stephens’ intensive fingerpicking are an intimidating, formidable combination, a match for which is hard to come by.

Vogel introduces the band, midway through the set, as The White Stripes, and aside from that their interaction remains musical, and of the most emotive and sincere kind.

Rustic narratives like ‘Waves of Grain’ and ‘Long Summer Day’ make the transition across the Atlantic more naturally than one would suppose, as does the brooding ‘Fly Low Carrion Crow’ and the fierce ‘Steady Rollin’’. An unlikely complaint (if I had to make one) would be the omission of some really great tracks from the new record, which is their strongest yet.

Amusingly, I recall some woman at the back of Low's massive crowd moaning about how depressing they were and demanding, several times, that they play 'Las Cruce's Jail'. I'm sure she enjoyed it when 2G finally placated her.

They’re a band that split opinions somewhat, but there’s nobody that’s given me better proof of their credentials this weekend than the unlikely-looking San Francisco kids who somehow mastered the blues and made them their own. Their performance is just incredible.

(next day here)