I should have known better than to have made even the slightest reference to the sunshine that beamed down on Brighton as I blogged yesterday. For no sooner had I closed up my laptop, the heavens opened. Cue torrential downpours and driving winds. The sea was as choppy as a Karate Kid box-set and I had a hole in my shoe.
So this is a British festival after all.
Whilst waiting to see We Were Promised Jetpacks on the Drowned in Sound stage (the first of a relatively unholy trinity of Scottish bands I had in my sights), we were treated to the spectacle of a policeman chasing a flock of seagulls along the beach, only for a gust of wind to take his hat twenty metres in the opposite direction. Wonder what the gulls had done?
We managed to catch the tail end of Jetpacks’ set which was, as expected, darn fast. The place was jam-packed, not sure whether that was solely down the Jetpacks’ draw or because Marnie Stern and Metric were on after them. We’ll give them the benefit of the doubt.
Maybe my focus has been to narrow, but the whole Indian rock n roll thing is not something I’m overly familiar with. Obviously the likes of Ravi Shankar have had an impact on mainstream music, but bar Cornershop and Nitin Sawhney, not many bands have enjoyed much success. It was pleasing, then, to see Indigo Children put on such a good show in the Providence.
They were followed on stage by Wintersleep, who may just be one of my new favourite bands. Halifax, Nova Scotia is where they call home, and whilst I am conscious of constantly bleating on about Canadian music, what the fuck are they putting in the water over there? They’ve been getting hefty airplay on 6 Music and are one to watch.
Since I moved from Edinburgh 4 months back, there’s been a Gulag-sized hole in my life. Since signing a lucrative contract to guarantee them a support slot at every single gig in Auld Reekie,
Broken Records became ingrained in my, and everybody else’s I guess, consciousness. So it was great to see them on the Mojo stage. Even if they did have to borrow a bass drum from Noah and the Whale.
Great Escape bills itself as “Europe’s leading festival for new music”, which is part of the reason why I’ve mostly chosen to avoid the big boys thus far. Faced with a choice of Ben Kweller, Metronomy, Noah and the Whale and Crystal Antlers, I decided to go see Polly Scattergood and FOUND. The former were an average synth pop outfit, fronted by a foxy young blonde and the latter were, as usual, a bunch of scruffy geniuses from Edinburgh.
This morning, I won’t tempt fate by mentioning the weather, but will remember not to wear those shoes. David Kitt is playing the Prince Albert at one, happy days…
Originally written for The Skinny - full review and pics to follow.
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