I manage to miss Holy State (sorry) but arrive in time to see youngsters Airship working the stage. It’s noisy and… stuff. They’ve got a lot of guitars going on but little else. I guess I should have got there earlier.
Bear Hands start contentiously with their greebo front man Dylan Rau advocating widespread use of ecstasy (naughty) and follow it up with some fairly crunchy opening stanzas in an At The Drive In style, mixed up with a hint of Seattle sludge. Unfortunately after these strong initial impressions, songs get locked into an unstimulating riff loop. True, the sound is not great which doesn’t help, but they need a bit more trim and conviction to be convincing.
Wild Beasts on the other hand deliver on all levels – Haydn resembles a floppy fringed Lemmy in his denim waistcoat, but still has the voice of a banshee, now backed by a garrison of bass and beats. Singing duties are also divided between himself and bassist Tom Flemming, creating light and shade. In response to all this melodic richness, the crowd move like an ocean swell, reaching tsunami proportions for ‘Brave Bouncing Buoyant Clairvoyants’. A real sea change.
Blood Red Shoes are interesting to look at and, from what little I can hear, okay to listen to too. Laura-Mary Carter and Steven Ansell make a neat little pocket Sky Larkin. The problem comes from the narrow cone of sound that the stage produces tonight. But I have a nice conversation with a skeleton, so all is not lost. This is going to be a goooood festival.
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