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Review: 'Long Division Festival, Wakefied'
'11th & 12th June 2016'   


-  Genre: 'Rock'

Our Rating:
In recent years, I’ve become a huge fan of the cosmopolitan festival, with Live at Leeds being firmly fixed as a highlight of my live music year. On discovering Long Division last year, I was itching to get back before I even saw the killer lineup. Wakfield not only has a disproportionate number of excellent venues, but they’re pretty much all within five minutes’ walk of one another.

The Friday night – although billed as part of Long Division – is actually an even with a separate ticket, but when said ticket gains entry to see Gang of Four in a room with a capacity of 150, it more than justifies it. And ok so there’s only Andy Gill left of the original Gang, but his unique guitar sound has always been the band’s defining feature. Thomas McNeice has been with them some eight years now, and has mastered the funk-tinged basslines which underpin Gill’s stuttering fragments, and in John Sterry (who commented on my garish shirt as I lurked in the front row) they’ve found a pocket rocket who can fill the stage by being in all places at once and who radiates a witchy, tense energy that’s utterly compelling. New material is well balanced by classics including ‘Anthrax’, ‘Not Great Men,’, ‘Damaged Goods’ and ‘At Home He’s a Tourist’, and a three-song encore that culminates with ‘I Found that Essence Rare’. And they sound great.

Despite clashing with England’s first match of Euro 2016, Saturday saw a hoard of enthusiastic music fans hit Wakefield. The question for large chunks of the day wasn’t not who to see, but who to sacrifice – but equally, other spells invited perusal of the (very nicely produced) programme and more often than not, sucking a pin in the schedule. Biographies and hype only go so far, and bans so often sound very different from what one may expect, especially live.

Still, my early-doors punts of Kid Canaveral and Kagoule, the in the Unity Works Major Hall were educated stabs and both acts impressed. The former are a quintessentially Scottish act: playing stadium-leaning alternative rock with a bleak edge, they looked and sounded very, well, Scottish. Kagoule, on the other hand, who I’d missed at Live at Leeds due to a scheduling clash, were killer. They opened their set with a lugubrious, dirgy racket of noise, accented by jarring, warping guitar and choppy rhythms Hints of Pain Teens’ sound interwoven with the melodic grunge pop of DZ Deathrays and a hefty dollop of riot grrrl attitude filter through their abrasive sound, while on stage the threesome radiate ten shades of 90s alternative fuck you delivered at high volume.

Between-act bands The Homesteads and Milk Crimes, who both played in the Lesser Hall of Unity Works, were competent and entertaining, the former delivering some stocky 70s-influened rock with (beer) guts, and the latter serving up some classic indie with jangle, but also pace.

Outside at the Orangery, I caught the end of Big Love’s set. The female-fronted act turned in some straight-ahead rock with 70s hues, before I moved indoors for Jaded Eyes. Much to their surprise their brand of guitar-driven rage didn’t clear the room during the first two songs. The singer’s Black Flag tatt gives more of an indication of what they’re about that his Van Halen T-Shirt, as they power through a set of full-throttle socio-political tirades heavily influenced by US hardcore acts of the 80s. Being older and angrier than the majority of the bands on the bill, who they could have fathered, Jaded Eyes make for a welcome score for diversity. They’re also seriously strong in their performance,

It’s a shame I haven’t mastered the science of self-cloning yet: Her Name is Calla are a band I’ve loved for so many years and have seen live over a dozen times, and they turned in a phenomenal set at Long Division in 2015. However, Fighting Caravans were one of the standout acts at Live at Leeds this year, and their performance outdoors at the Orangery only bolstered their status as one of the most exhilarating live acts around right now. They brand of skewed psychedelic country rock is out there, with awesome slide guitar work pinned down by some sturdy drumming. What’s more, Daniel Clark is one of the most compelling – and insane – front men you’re likely to see. He can simmer for so long but at some point, it’ inevitable he’ll erupt, and he does. In your face. Or, indeed, mine: the fact the refrain ‘I’ll fight dirty if I fight at all’, is my earworm of the week is due in no small part of having it sung while he stood against me, his chest against mine and his face in my face. At other times he careered around the space like a whirling dervish, and toppled mic stands left right and centre. He seems like such a nice guy offstage, but while performing… he’s a complete maniac.

I needed to spend some time in the sheltered environs of the Westgate Chapel to decompress after that, and RM Hubbert at the Westgate Chapel provided a change of tempo if nothing else. Like many, including a crazy older Scottish guy I got chatting to later, I discovered RM Hubert as the support for The Twilight Sad a few years ago. His music is mesmerising, and it’s a rare pleasure to observe his incredible dexterity and the close relationship between man and instrument. He pours his heart and soul into the songs, and as he explains at length between them, they are his life, his self-therapy and his life. But while he details his personal difficulties and depression in the most heartbreaking of detail, his performance is also absolutely fucking hilarious. There’s no pretence here: just brutal honesty, and a lot of swearing. He may live in Troon these days, but he’s Glasgae through and through. His anecdotes are laced with self-deprecating humour and a raw honesty that has no filter. He’s playing in a church, but I lost count of the number of times he used ‘cunt’ and ‘fuck.’ But he’s a funny cunt who plays beautiful, moving songs, and he kept his word and didn’t get his knob out.

I arrived back at the Orangery and managed to squeeze into the packed-out indoor stage to catch the last couple of tracks by prog-pop indie rockers Buen Chico. Not really my bag, but proficient enough, and they filled the time while I waited for Fizzy Blood.

The Leeds quintet have been playing live a fair bit lately, and following the release of their latest single they’ve toured as support for Allusondrugs. They showed real promise a few months back, their time on the road had tightened them up no end, and they’re beginning to fulfil that promise, merging as proficient a grunge-infused rock act as you’re likely to find.

I took a punt on Climbing Alice, with their promise of ‘a dissatisfied and snarling pop dream, served with a slice of canyon chorus’. With some suitably big, grungy riffs and sandpapery vocals, they invite ready comparisons to Pearl Jam, Alice in Chains, Dinosaur Jr and unsung heroes of 90s alternative rock, Milk. There is a sense that they’re not entirely happy with their performance, and after a while, the songs do start to sound a bit samey. But when it’s a good song, laced with ache and anguish, it’s not really cause for complaint.

John Robb occupies an unusual cultural space, in that he’s respected both as a musician and a critic, and that despite having been in bands since the late 70s, he’s probably better known as a talking head on TV shows. But what matters most, particularly when it comes to post-punk legends The Membranes still giving it some in 2016, almost 30 years after their formation, is that he’s one hell of a performer. He may be 55 years of age, but exhibits a boundless energy and frankly pisses – and sweats – over the majority of so-called punk front men less than half his age.

In his sleeveless shirt, flexing muscles sheened with sweat, saliva running from his mouth and a manic look in his eye, Robb’s demeanour is as menacing as fuck as he lofts his bass and lunges threateningly toward the crowd. The set is culled entirely from last year’s ‘Dark Matter / Dark Energy’, with the blistering force of ‘Dark Energy’ and ‘Do the Supernova’ sounding positively explosive. It’s thrilling to see how the lead guitarist attacks his instrument with various implements, including what looks like the handle of a sink plunger with the sucker cup removed. They conclude a full-throttle set with the only track from the first phase of their career, a thunderous ‘Myths and Legends’, and true to his word, Robb is at the merch stall, still running with perspiration, within sixty seconds of the last note.

I killed the time before my next planned artist in the Unity Works bar, and was fortunate to catch Loz Campbell playing a solo acoustic set. Despite it being her third set of the day and a headache-inducingly talkative crowd, she sang and played well.

How do you end a day like this? Last year, I had the dilemma of Ash versus Future of the Left: this year, it’s contemporary connoisseurs’ choice Field Music against Brix and the Extricated. Not loving the work of the former, I plumped for the latter, but arriving on stage 15 minutes later than scheduled didn’t do anyone any favours. Brix, it, has to be said, looks rough. The set-list is good, opening with ‘US 80s-90s’ leading into ‘Leave the Capitol’, and a sturdy rendition of crowd-pleasing Brix / MES duet ‘I’m Feeling Numb’ but it very much fuels like a tribute band – without the tribute. That said, do you want a band that sound like The Fall but here the mics all stay at the drum kit and the singer can be relied upon to stay on stage and sing, or…?

Electing to call it a night, I realise I’ve seen an insane number of acts play some staggeringly good sets. For range, for value, for quality, and for decent beer at keen prices, Long Division has shown once again that it’s not only a great advertisement for Wakefield, but for the town festival, and for music.

  author: Christopher Nosnibor

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Long Division Festival, Wakefied - 11th & 12th June 2016
Gang of Four
Long Division Festival, Wakefied - 11th & 12th June 2016
The Membranes