Not a bad line up today, eh? Unfortunately the wheat has to be separated pretty early on and today’s chaff comes in the form of Emo/ Doom Rockers YOURCODENAMEIS:MILO. Some of the best music evolves from a state of despair. Think 'The Holy Bible', 'On the Beach', and 'Closer' to name but a few: classic works that manage to produce a degree of invariable beauty from the bleakest corners of life. But Saturday’s first act offers no such illuminations. Whiny vocals, artificial emotions and cod-gothic posturing. No doubt the kids will love them.
Brooklyn’s RODGERS SISTERS leave me acutely puzzled as to which side of the wheat/chaff fence they should be placed. Clearly one of the three was not a ‘sister’ in the traditional mould; but it was their brand of riot-grrrll, punk-rock that left the greatest degree of confusion in my mind. Hopefully, catching them on their forthcoming tour with Brighton’s Pippettes should be able to settle the debate. By contrast, the appallingly titled DROPKICK MURPHEYS left no such complications. On the contrary, I was able to devise a practical formula to sum up their 'musical' endeavours: IRISH TOURBOARD FOLK + COMMERCIAL HARDCORE = LUKEWARM SHIT.
Talking to the crowd with his head bowed, desperately avoiding eye contact, GRAHAM COXON mumbles “this is a song that was something, er, like a single”. Yet rather than irritating, the former Blur man comes across as thoroughly charming and engaging. Drawing upon a bedrock of English punk references (notably The Buzzcocks and The Skids), Coxon performs many of the highlights of last year’s critically acclaimed album, ‘Happiness in magazines’. The contrast between Graham Coxon the persona and Coxon the act is neatly summed up in the space of about thirty seconds. In the chorus of a new, as yet untitled song he adopts a viscous, Johnny-Rotten like snarl, (‘thh-reatt’), before subsequently reverting back to his Frank Spencer-like moniker, thanking the crowd for their kindness. Bless him.
THE SUBWAYS look like worthy pretenders to the Ash corner of the market with their melodic, jaunty pop songs neatly condensed into little over three minutes. A surprisingly large crowd fills the Radio 1/ NME tent to see the effervescent trio. Backstage, a couple of little Subways are having the time of their young lives, bouncing along to the sugary delights of ‘Oh Yeah’ and ‘Rock and Roll Queen’.
Like THE CORAL one hour before, QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE surge through the vast selection of classics to their name: ‘Regular John’, ‘Feel good hit of the summer’, ‘Little Sister’ and a prolonged version of ‘No-one knows’ all delighting the Leeds crowd. So tight as a group now, following the split in 2003, QOTSA now appear to be firmly under Josh Homme’s taut reign. It is here before the festival crowd that his abounding voice really comes to the fore, displaying his unique talent as one of modern Rock’s leading icons.
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No surprises tonight with THE KILLERS. As with the Futureheads the night before, Vegas’s favourites are sandwiched between the end of promoting their debut release and commencing work on the follow up to 2004’s Hot Fuss. Of course, EVERYONE knows the words to ‘Mr Brightside’. And ‘Smile like you mean it’. And ‘Somebody told me’. And every other song that Messers Flowers, Vanucci and co. perform tonight. One new track to surface this summer, ‘All the pretty faces’ is aired midway into tonight’s set. Borrowing heavily from the classic U2 delay-driven guitar sound, its 1980s feel is not any real departure from the band's previous ventures.
Back to the Carling Stage on a tip off that Graham Coxon will be joining CHARLOTTE HATHERLEY tonight. Indeed, he does, but it’s a bit of a misnomer, simply adding some rhythm guitar for ‘Bastardo’, which is dedicated to Hatherley’s beau and video director Edgar Winter. With three fantastic backing singers, the Ash guitarist performs a storming rendition of Kim Wilde’s ‘Kids in America’- sexy, sumptuous pop. Hatherley’s original material bears all the hallmarks of the Britpop era (Lush, Sleeper, Echobelly etc), typified with the sublime set-closer ‘Grey will Fade’.
Heavyweights in every sense of the word, alt-rock stalwarts THE PIXIES headline the Main Stage before an expectant crowd. With a back catalogue as strong as any of the acts to grace the Carling Weekend, the band can afford to offload big guns like ‘Where is my mind’ early into their set. As amazing as the material at their disposal is, (‘Monkey…’, ‘Debaser’, ‘Caribou’, ‘Nimrod’s Son’, ‘Wave of Mutilation’- the list goes on…) the Main stage has a rather stifling effect upon the band. It isn’t that the performance is below par, (far from it as Kim Deal overcomes her saw throat to belt out a rousing version of ‘Gigantic’). Rather you get the distinct feeling that this isn’t the time or the place to be seeing The Pixies. Am I becoming a cynic?
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