Saturday at this year's Leeds Festival was opened by FRAN RODGERS (13), a contemporary folk artist performing on the Festival Republic Stage, where pop acts like ESSER and LATE OF THE PIER would be appearing later in the day. Fran had been chosen by the Futuresound organisation in Leeds as their judges' winner in the annual competition for Leeds Festival placings. Five other artists went onto the smaller BBC Introducing Stage. Fran had the rather large and slightly intimidating option. But she took full advantage of the powerful, well tuned pa system to make her presence felt. Her rich voice and delicate instrumentation (with her well judged and unobtrusively managed looping effects) were perfectly balanced and impressively strong. The recently added dulcimer came into its own as a major contributor. The small scruffy rock and roll venues she normally plays don’t always serve her well. But this show was perfect. The crowd was big, receptive and delighted. Lots more arrived throughout the set and the big emotional finish "This Is Dedicated To The One I Love" left few without a lump in their throat, if not a tear in their eye.
TRIPWIRES (14), the first band on the morning's BBC Introducing Stage did a generic Fender indie thing with two bonus features. Three well-matched voices are always good to hear, and thoughtfully made chord changes between the lines make any song better to listen to. The sun started to bully the clouds away and their melodic stuff drew in a decent crowd. Well placed keyboard sounds added to the professional quality appeal and accurate drumming kept things tight. The killer song that would bounce them from here to the bigger stages next year is still hiding its light, but everything else is sounding fine. Melodies are well shaped rather than memorable.
Sheffield quartet SITUATIONISTS (15) continued the guitar indie theme, with a little of that dancier twinkling in the guitar department that might link them with recent explorations of the early 80s and put hem in contention with bands like LOS CAMPESINOS! and THE WOMBATS. The neat fills were better than the songs, but with the dancing vibe going, that seemed like a good thing. They do play very well and chop the rhythms up between and within songs. My own excursions around the NME and Festival Republic Stages during the weekend confirmed that there is a lot of competition in this general format, already surfing on ahead and commanding big audiences. The only question would be how long the wave will last. My favourite song is their closing tune "Comprendé!", that carries the deconstructive processes a little further out.
Damien Riley led on Bolton band OUR FOLD (16) and told us how rough he felt. He had got wrecked the night before. He didn't look too sprightly but the band's pub rock feel, with the spirit of Bruce Springsteen never too far away, got the front rows cheering and shouting. Guitar soloing and the word "fuck" were used freely, while the band battered on through in lively fashion. Between the songs Riley kept up a running commentary on how great it felt to be up on the stage. His delivery of the last song "The Secret" was powerful. His voice, with that kind of tune, is a real show-stopper.
Back with the Sheffield contingent, DARLINGS OF THE SPLITSCREEN (17) poked around with the 8 bit sounds of early electro dance pop like a junior HOT CHIP. The song "I Think I've Lost my Mind" sounded like a cult hit. A breakdown that looped on "It's hot on my car" went a bit disorderly but in general the reliable dance moves were all there, skimming along in breezy style. "Money Matters" hit the spot most directly and consistently and the band widened out in the next tune to evoke Tom Tom Club/Talking Heads memories. Synth parts upstaged guitar and bass by a good measure. Lack of a real drummer softened the punch out here in the open air. There was a good big crowd soaking up the rhythm and the sun.
Leeds, above all, has been a ROCK festival ad the imminent arrival of PULLED APART BY HORSES (18) caused a crackle of electricity around the stage. A huddle of video cameras and photographers turned up, on rumours of things that had happened in Reading. Vomiting had been mentioned. The band raced onto the stage and racketeered like rogue particles in a mutant accelerator for what seemed like three minutes. Something odd happened to the time. One minute TOM is screeching AWESOME! RACHEL! Into the mike, and the next thing we knew he was crowd surfing to the finale with a mic lead round his neck. Songs like " High Five, Swan Dive, Nose Dive" seemed chaotic, and the were raucous, but they had a flow and their deviant shapes did haunt me for the rest of the day. No one was sick. A big crowd cheered like mad people, having had the oblivious sort of fun they expected at a Festival.
A more well-behaved wall of guitar sound followed. THE MAYBES? (19) are from Liverpool, and had some rather subtle and very loud tuneage with them. In my fuddled brain, memories of how good DOVES had sounded when they started made a welcome appearance: plain looking blokes doing emotional songs and making three guitars jangle a bit are always welcome. Second song "Lost In The City" quickened the tempo and hearts raced. It's an obvious hit song. Not all the songs turned out to be as strong as the opening two though . The band can do a nostalgic early 90s sound and they played to the audience's dance buttons. The early Liverpool promise gradually morphed into something a bit more Manchester and a bit less interesting. But the closing number dragged attention back from the plastic football being kicked across the front rows and set fire to some sort of "Two Tribes" clone. Stirring stuff.
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Southampton band THOMAS TANTRUM (20) gave us a bit more disco back beat and a touch of aggression in a harder-edged voice from Superman-shirted Megan Thomas. The band played with fashionable sloppiness, and hearing them for the first time I did think "plodding" rather than "agreeably twee and contemporary". As the set went on the band struggled to keep in time once or twice, but there was a very sweet bass riff in the fourth song (that might have been called "Blasé"). Checking their myspace is recommended as it gives a much more varied and enjoyable account of their songs than this live outing did.
Tiger Shadow (21) features Komla MC, West African by birth, global in musical influences and now settled in Leeds. He and Lyndsey Cawthra worked well as shared focus on vocal mics. A range of styles and influences are apparent, starting to make something new and distinctive but not yet fully blended. Funk, reggae, trip hop, indie and world music floated in and out. Even "Reggae Sauce" got a shout. Jim Tycho's bass playing was usefully strong. Komla took the drum kit for two songs while Lyndsey Cawthra took the lead vocal. After they had finished I checked TIGER ARMY who (coincidentally) had been playing on the Festival Republic Stage, and the quality gulf was a useful corrective. TIGER SHADOW, brought in at short notice and playing only their third gig were already far better, with so much more potential to create and hone a more identifiable sound of their own.
FLASHGUNS (22) looked improbably young. Sam Felix Johnston would easily get half fare on the bus back to Leeds. No matter, His performance was full of dextrous guitar chord riffing, effect pedal mastery and jerky dancing. The performance was immediately arresting: the voice and the songs demanded attention and the thinned crowd was invigorated. The talent shone, but maybe by the end of the set a shortage of songs to match the opening delights left a seed of doubt. The energy was all coming from Johnstone's guitar and dancing and it’s clear that there is plenty of scope for beefing up the sound and getting those extra little vocals and bits of keyboard into something. Pop is now in such a hurry to wring out the flashes of early genius, that such promising bands can be under too much pressure.
The crowds of mid-afternoon had drifted off to the more expensive joys of Main Stage artists like THE FRATELLIS and QUEENS OF THE STONE AGE, so when CHERRY COBB CARTEL (23) came on, they were playing to a smaller audience than had been at the BBC Introducing Stage in the afternoon sunshine. Numbers, nevertheless, compared very well with your average local gig and the atmosphere around the stage was good. CHERRY COBB CARTEL are from Hull, just along the M62, and supporters' flags were proudly waved to greet the band onstage. The band do hammered riffs, shouty, rowdy, indie chants and they thrash, burn and blast their way through the set with tankerfuls of energy and loads of enthusiasm. The drummer is strong. A song "This Is My England" is announced as an assertion of the individual's right "to do what they want to do".
No stronger contrast could have been engineered than IPSO FACTO (24) following Hull's rowdiest. IPSO FACTO are a polished, pristine exercise in self control, emotional denial and knife-edge sexuality. Mannequin-postured Rosalie Cunningham, Cherish Kaya, Victoria Smith and Samantha Valentine form a shifting pageant of posed tableaux, faces and bodies held impassive and motionless between the staged moves. The songs are minimalist excursions into a land of punk-cum-goth with electro. With co-ordinated black clothing, bobbed dark hair and the darkest lipstick, the music is a soundtrack to a spectacle that is part VELVET UNDERGROUND "Venus In Firs", part KRAFTWERK, part theatre. As with LOQUI on the previous evening, something a bit special has been saved for the day's closing act.
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