Well, Sunday's here already. It was cooler on the campsite overnight, but Lulu's Café does the World's most welcome full breakfast and we're ready for some more Topman treats. The last thing anyone expected was a back flip. But that was the first thing we got. Sean is a very active lead singer. Sheffield's THE GENTLEMEN (25) have the poise, pizzazz and waistcoat of THE KAISER CHIEFS and the deftly written songs of long-time pros (A bit SQUEEZE maybe). Late in the thoroughly entertaining set their "Protest Music "song adds to other hints dropped through the set that THE GENTLEMEN, like Al Green, The Staples Singers, Bob Dylan and Cliff Richard have a strong Christian message running through their lives. Us heathens can still lap up the quality fun - no problem. "I hang out with my parents" is a great family values line that still made me laugh in a goodhearted way.
BONE BOX (26) from Manchester are a sharp contrast - offering the added seduction of pedal steel, banjo, electric upright bass, and fiddle. All very promising. And another trombone shows up! This could have been magnificent, but it doesn’t quite take off and a thinner crowd sits down to take it in rather than hop about. It takes a lot of raw musicianship to make such a large and varied set of instruments work out here in the daylight - a feat that WHISKY CATS fully achieved. I can’t help feeling that BONE BOX are going to sound a whole lot better on CD in softer light. Jay Taylor's lugubrious voice demands a careful alt-country setting, but for me, today things drag a little.
We mentioned stage dressing earlier n the weekend. Hull's KILL SURF CITY (27) do it in style with melodrama costumes and profuse bouquets of old fashioned flowers. They look great and go for a Factory/4AD art band kind of thing that might be stirring up memories of Joy Division for some, or Richard Jobson for others. The tunes are more chant than melody. If only there a was killer tune in a bass line or a chorus, I have a feeling that it would all burst into life. The set is ready. A show-stopping song is all that is needed.
THIS FLOATING WORLD (28) from Sheffield have no shortage of big songs. Their thing is the emotional cry of heartbreak across some big synth chords and a tectonic bass movement. Two voices (Justin Lewis and Sally Jo) carry the melodic burden and there is strong vocal support from the band. As a proposition for the masses, THIS FLOATING WORLD's effective formula is one that sounds very familiar. But the big drama of this ballad-style is normally represented by handsome young men in long coats, or wind swept hairstyles on immaculate 23 year old females on wide screen MTV. The more prosaic version we have is less forbidding, but the simple spell of such music does need more trickery and theatricality to hold it back form the edge of bathos.
What we get next is utterly different. MICKY P KERR AND THE DUDES (29) have near cult status in Leeds and Micky has pulled by far the biggest crowd of the weekend. MICKY P KERR is a showman from start to finish. He swaggers from his little toe, right through his Pringle jumper and up to his shades. The crowd love it. He tells a joke, he does a drinking song, a rap tune, and glorious folksy thing called "Song For The Radio". His pick-up band (The Dudes, he has explained, operate on a rotation system) are some of the best in the City. DAVOC BRADLEY, a name in his own right, steps up to lead the fun on a rap about Morrisons. "Without Micky P the Leeds scene would be dead" suggests Micky P. Your reviewer is not entirely convinced.
Sheffield are having a bit of a day of it, and SCREAMING MIMI (30) are the next contenders. Loretta Chantry on vocals and theremin is the vamped up queen of proceedings. Where DEAD DISCO gave us 100% unaffected heel stamping femininity last year SCREAMING MIMI make it a little darker and more knowing. A little pushy perhaps. Loretta is doing most of the work and all of the glamour posing. The band play a relentless steam train of riffs but don’t give the choreographed support that would help the lass out. After a breathless cheerleader sort of routine Loretta confides huskily: "I really love my Pom Poms." It has a Vaudeville feel to it that goes well with the fairground rides, touting for business not so far away from the Topman Stage.
Eight strums to the bar on basic guitar chords shouldn’t need anyone to look at a fretboard. I say rip it through from memory and fix those laser eyes out into the. But THE NEAT (31) have come from Hull with percussive guitars and a determined set of frowns. Some excitement is lashed out of a good set of fans but your reviewer struggles to hear anything to report in terms of new music. It’s OK as emulation, but it's not music that could travel far and wide. Each northern town has rehearsal rooms with its own versions and many can all do a decent job for the home crowd.
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It's time for dancing, I'd say. A quick excursion to hear THE PIGEON DETECTIVES bigging up MICKY P KERR from the Radio One Stage and it's back to soak up ROCHELLE (32) - yet another Leeds export. This is sharp, accurate back to basics dance floor rhythm and squeak with plenty of space for bodies to move. The serotonin release is set to MAX. Lydia sings and speaks and squirts us with water and silly string. It's unaffected, sugar rush electro pop fun. The bright dancing skirt of Lydia's dress has a Monroe moment of wardrobe dysfunction and it’s all just perfect.
THE SWING MOVEMENT (33) might be the youngest band on the bill. But confidence comes from quality musicianship. Ben Walker has a fine voice on him and the songs rattle along in confident cheeky fashion. Patrick Wanzala Ryan plays precise guitar lines and I have to stand back and say "Oh yes!". The pair of them work well in the contrast department. We could be talking boy band cuteness here, but I'm sure they would have something to say if I said that. Fresh air, blast, skies the limit ... and so on. Mark your card punters. THE SWING MOVEMENT have made a cracking start.
THE TALKS (34) are the third of today's Hull bands. Scruffy geezer style, serving meat and potato pie rock with a decent dollop of brown sauce, it doesn’t excite the sophisticated palette but it fills the belly and give comfort in hard times. There's enough of the backbeat slip to fit into recent vogue, and a bit of the Alex Humphrey's pose. I can hear an undertow of early soul/punk Jam as well. And that all adds up to pretty good, but maybe two years late for the fickle mass audience. THE TALKS are an object lesson, I suppose, in how the regional band can provide exactly what the local audience wants without needing to dent the 5 minute ration of national consciousness.
RANDOM HAND (35) develop the thesis into genre rather than community space. Keighley is too small and too far into the hills to have a distinct scene of its own (although plenty of artists started out there). But playing a metal and punk infused ska with flair and aggression (and trombone!) has a steady global audience even after all these years. They don’t have the showbiz madness of 2005's MR SHIRAZ, but they do have the very forceful Robin Leitch snapping out lyrics and trombone solos as if this was his last day on earth. Energy is the thing. Switching between punk and metal riffing, and keeping that ska thing going makes for pretty audience ravaging stuff. It doesn’t work for me, but then I'm always happiest hearing roots music in it’s rawest forms.
ALAN RAW (36) who has presented the three days in his familiar enthusiastic way is a 100% genuine advocate for the power of regional and local music. Not, I don’t think because it is "soon going to be BIG", but because it has huge value for being itself and for nurturing creativity and activity rather than acquiescence and passivity. The Topman Stage has had some small audiences as well as some big ones this year - but everyone present has always got involved. That's what gives this new music stage such a charge. It isn’t a rehearsal for stardom - it’s a genuine experience in its own right.
Long may it continue, and big praise to the BBC for letting Alan and producer Katy Noone work themsleves into the ground broadcasting the whole thing across the North every week.
www.bbc.co.uk/rawtalent
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