Review:
'Icarus Line, Lites, Maybeshewill, Kong'
'Brainwash Festival VI, Leeds, 15th October 2011'
- Genre: 'Rock'
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Our Rating:
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Now into its sixth year Brainwash has established itself as a showcase for a huge range of Leeds-based talent while also managing to draw some headliners of remarkable quality, although naturally selected from musical spheres way off the conventional festival radar. It’s this combination of diversity and quality that’s drawn me for the last three years: it’s a cheap day out and there’s invariably a band that unexpectedly grabs my attention in the mix with the bands I’d have paid just as much to see on their own, and so many others on the bill that are more than worth a punt.
I arrived fractionally late for early doors at the Royal Park Cellars, and so missed the opportunity to see if BEARFOOT BEWARE had improved since I slated their live show in York a while back. A shame, as I rather dug their most recent release. Still, it afforded me the opportunity to get a pint of the very tasty hand-pulled Kirkstall Pale and settle in for a long run of acts at my favourite venue, The Brudenell, kicking off with CIRCLES. They made a fair stab of US-influenced, guitar-driven indie rock, even if the songs did get a bit samey rather quickly, and it wasn’t until SHAPES took to the stage that I things started to warm up. This dual-vocalled power-trio packed some serious energy and weight into their hardcore squall ruptured by some tightly-kit mathcore breaks. It made for a decent racket and they were highly entertaining, note least of all on account of the bassist’s deft footwork.
I could have pegged it over to the Royal Park Cellars for non-stop band action, but instead elected to replenish my glass and catch up with my companions. We didn’t have long to wait between bands though. and &U&I were up next. They didn’t grab me immediately, being not nearly as in-yer-face intense as their touring buddies who had been on earlier, and at times their genre-straddling amalgamation of styles seems a little too confused to cohere. That their bearded singer was sporting an NWA T-shirt, while the dreadlocked bassist looked like he’d just stepped out of a time machine from the 90s, resembling as he did every alt/indie/grebo bassist of the era (think Ned’s Atomic Dustbin, PWEI, etc., etc., ad infinitum) pretty much sums up their stylisic incohesion. But by the end of the set, their multifaceted proggy math-rock with hardcore elements and generous helpings of kitchen sink, they’d won me over.
After catching the fag-end of NGOD’s set of straggly indie-rock in the Cellars – and that was more than enough – it seemed like a good time, in strategic terms, to duck out for some grub. There was just time to chow down a sizzling Madras before BLACKLISTERS were up at the Brudenell, where I would remain for the rest of the evening. However many time I see that band – and in the last couple of years I’ve racked up a fair number of shows now – I’m always left feeling dazed. Few bands deliver such a full-throttle sonic assault anyway, and the fact they do it with such consistency is astounding. Taking in the sinewy grind of ‘Ask Yourself a Question if the Answer is Go Fuck Yourself’ and the screaming explosion of ‘Club Foot by Kasabian’, they bring the set to a traditional close with ‘Trick Fuck’ and the now-obligatory audience participation and headlocks.
The scene is set for the mighty KONG, who turn in a set that’s by turns blistering and bewildering. Whereas on previous occasions I’ve seen them they’ve gone all-out to involve the audience, tonight they cultivate an awkward distance. It’s not just in the lack of between-song address, but their whole demeanour, and if the trademark wearing of underpants and psychotic masks can sometimes present as humorously warped, tonight the band radiate a more hostile air that makes the image more readily interpretable as darkly sinister. The antagonism also manifests in the constant noodling, doodling, jamming and abortive attempts at a random selection of cover versions. The result is a challenging set that is all too often a rather frustrating mess of noise, with only ‘Leather Penny’ and ‘Blood of a Dove’ standing out as full-blooded and faithful renditions of their studio counterparts.
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In contrast, MAYBESHEWILL were a lot friendlier, yet no less – or more – impactful, blasting out a robust set of instrumental alt-rock with gusto. It was curious to note that the Leicester quintet had attracted a small but extremely devoted core of spectators who bucked the general demographic, the four or five guys near the front who went ballistic being markedly older than most of those present. With the sample-soaked ‘This Time Last Year’ providing a centrepiece, and its counterpart ‘Last Time This Year’ marking the set’s conclusion, they benefited from a much improved sound over last year’s appearance and departed the stage triumphant.
More complex instrumentalism was next, courtesy of LITES, who also managed to pack in some well-timed blasts of the heavies into their intricately woven digital/analogue dance/(post) rock hybrid that’s somehow quintessentially Japanese. A little impersonal, perhaps, and not always entirely engaging, they were nevertheless impressive in the way they chopped and changed in myriad unpredictable directions with timing that was precise to the millisecond.
After a brace of instrumental acts, I was eager for something with vocals, and had been looking forward to seeing THE ICARUS LINE. And why wouldn’t I be? I had fond memories of the band, having seen them in 2004 at King Tut’s in Glasgow. They’d been little short of incendiary. Still burning with the raw, visceral energy of their roaring debut ‘Mono’ and having honing their sound for the follow-up ‘Penance Soiree’, they’d been the epitome of raw power.
Sadly, I found myself begging the Line to gimme danger as Joe Cardamone strutted his way through a lacklustre set of sub-par garage lite. Not so much a Stooges tribute as a half-arsed Iggy parody, most of the ‘action’ consisted of an endless assortment of well-rehearsed poses as Cardamone postured and preened without any real conviction. A call from the audience prompted the spindly singer to ask with a petulant sneer ‘What did you just call me?’ ‘Are you having a nice time?’ the voice came back from the crowd. ‘Yeah. We’re having a... ‘nice’... time,’ he replied with a pained blank sarcasm that suggested precisely the opposite. Rather than being coolly aloof, it seemed unnecessarily stroppy. Yeah, well fuck you too. Somehere along the way, the band seem to have forgotten that being convinced of your own coolness is the shortcut to being completely uncool, and it was noticeable that the audience thinned rapidly after this point, and I decided to follow suite.
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author: Christopher Nosnibor
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The Icarus Line
Kong
Circles
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