Friday August 26th 2005
ALAN RAW (1) who presents BBC North's crusading Raw Talent show, has pestered Mean Fiddler for three years on the trot. And this year Lee Jeans have sponsored a full stage for unsigned northern artists to pitch at the biggest Leeds audience ever. Alan's team worked flat out for nine-hour sessions and through the night recording the whole thing and putting great slabs onto the BBC website to download. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/rawtalent) The idea worked so brilliantly – just brilliantly – that it looks like a regular Festival highlight from now on. Mean Fiddler MD Melvin Benn seemed pretty excited.
THE ADVENTURES OF LOKI (2) set a standard with the first set for Friday. Looking back it’s still in my top five moments of the whole Festival (I saw 55 bands all-told). Brigit on bass and Rachel on drums drive a frantic ship through terrifying and beautiful storms of noise and pure music. Guitarist Steve adds his aching voice to theirs and a punky rasp is brightened by huge invention and a great stage presence. Single "Feminine Side" stands right up and punches us to our senses – are all the bands on the stage going to be this good? I had heard 'Loki were good.. They are awesome.
PARISMAN (3) make an enormous spacey sound. They're a cloud swirling five piece with a drummer who sings like a bird – making blended sinuous music for dark city nights that works as well in the blustery sunshine of the afternoon. The crowd quickly grows to huge – the open awning and strategic position of the stage makes it possible for the big passing crowd to get involved. And by gum they do. This is terrific. They finish on the magnificent "Loosely Connected", with its soaring lines and furious guitar band/electronics mix. It kicks like a mule in the final climax.
CIRCLE SOUND (4) are a tough Oasis meets Doctor Feelgood sort of thing. Familiar blokey hats are down the front, cheering them on and punching the air. The four piece band has a strong percussive sound and the knack of writing songs that are robust enough to work like football chants, Top tune is their own blistering "Psycho Killer" that rattles along in rocking style, staying well clear of any comparison with the David Byrne song. The balance of a strong singer and stylishly surly bass player works well.
PILLA (5) are a great looking six piece band got up in armed support of Dave's centre-piece attraction as the sit-down fine young singer with an acoustic. There's a David Gray feel to his songs and something definitely funky is going on in the band, encouraged by a second percussionist. The ambition and the complexities put me in mind of THE EARLIES. There's even a rockabilly feel as the set progresses, and we get an interesting and extended version of a BILL WITHERS song. In the day's clouds vs sunshine battle, a cool breeze is ahead on pints at this point in proceedings.
O FRACAS (6) are wearing suburban Pringle and stoopid shades. But by gum again, their Yorkshire eccentricity drives them into a technoid onslaught of thrilling machinecode guitar music. They show no respect neither for the ringing balm of that sweet Rickenbacker guitar they have – it’s on demon robot duty this afternoon. Here's another band with a killing drummer – the third by my counting. O FRACAS are recommended by your reviewer as High Class Purveyors of tempo lurching, staccatoness and whiplash direction changes. Their sound is gripping and riveting in ways that feel more substantial than metaphorical. They hammer it together, sure enough.
LAST DAYS OF VENGEANCE (7) are lively and silly and they come from Wakefield. They scream and point and rush backwards and forwards and show off in a delirious and pumped-up way. This is spin round, get dizzy and fall over punkish music. It’s a whatever-core that does a lot more in ten minutes than it does in thirty. But if you want this – and the crowd is growing magnetically – these boys are the ones to bring it to you. Video camera, tattooed torso and all. They look the part and live the part, one hundred percent.
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CARDBOARD RADIO (8). The first of two cardboard lovers this weekend, CARDBOARD RADIO give it a Dukes of Hazzard feel – without Jessica Simpson, obviously. Their skiffle-shuffle hoedown picks up with three scrawny looking wastrels who understand the value of four bass notes in a bar that's more often crammed with eight in these overstated days. Gaines' guitar sound is especially good and as the set winds on, his blues roots come through with strength. Based in York they prove the point that while you can’t keep a good guitar player down, a good guitar player doesn’t necessarily create a top notch band sound.
XENITH SOUND (9) have chosen a celestial point in a triangulation with The Music and Parisman. There's a Dance (capitalised) beat in the drums and an eight to the bar feel that pushes the audience to bouncy mode. Guitars jangle and ecstatic waves ebb and flow. The bass player marches on the spot with knees pumping and a groove building. There is some passionate support and the set is generally well received as the six o'clock crowd thins out a bit. It's a difficult time for dancing – and dancing is the way to hear this band at its best.
DESERVES TO DIE (10) are a more intense and less glam version of LAST DAYS OF VENGEANCE. When they roar and scream it comes from the heart and doesn’t just try to whip up the crowd. Their five piece madhouse has a crisp female drummer and makes a right good thrashing noise. The bass playing is magnificently fierce. The vocal has two auto-destructive gears: woooarrghh and eeeeeaaahhh - hurling and screaming. They serve a bigger crowd and play with huge lungs and loads of commitment. They neither die, nor deserve to. Good work.
FUTURE EX WIFE (11) keep the skillet good and greasy. There's something archaeological about their bearded blues rock licks. It hasn’t been fashionable outside the Lone Star State since about 1974, but it’s still fine sounding music. They pull a crowd round them and the sound gets steadily heavier. They name check the late Richard Whitely and bring on "Danny" who does sexual chemistry and singing on one number. A little disobligingly, I think, they announce "Later on it’s This Et Al, or you can go and see LCD Soundsystem over there, which is where I'm going." Rock and roll, eh?.
THIS ET AL (12) seem to be morphing in a ¡Forward, Russia! / O Fracas direction as they develop. My memories of their earlier space adventures are treated to a punchier more aggressive sound. There's more industrial concrete and twisted reinforcement rods these days. The four guys in black and red do the magnificent and punishing song "Catscan" to huge audience approval. Endearingly, they remain a bit diffident between songs – making a nice contrast with the raging power of their playing. And, we have another fearsome drummer on the lose. Is there something about Leeds that make 'em all so twitchy and combative?
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