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End of The Road (Saturday): Super Furry Animals, Danielson, Fireworks Night, Port O'Brien, Concretes, I'm From Barcelona
Larmer Tree Gardens, Dorset
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Article
written by Ged M
Sep 30, 2007.
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Clear cobalt skies grace Saturday at End of the Road. This suits I’m From Barcelona as their joyful, childish songs need the sun and live performance to work as well as they should. On record they can sound flat and in the rain they would go down like a punctured beachball but today’s perfect for them; the slimmed down band (I count 14 bodies instead of last year’s 21) monkey around by crowd surfing on a lilo and releasing confetti and huge balloons into the audience and generally act as the perfect spirit-lifting festival band. They’re part of a ‘Scandinavian showcase’ on the main stage; before them Loney Dear play their wonderfully lush and Wilson-esque symphonic Scandopop and then the Concretes show that they lost more than a singer when Victoria Bergsman left; they still have the same cool pop sound but ‘You Can’t Hurry Love’ just shows what they were once capable of.
The Big Top stage has a number of acts that entice me into the shade. Hush the Many’s songs have a natural rhythm, from soft folky beginnings leading up to full-blown orchestral-pop climaxes. It’s not original but it works well today. My Brightest Diamond as a live three piece are no less dark and nightmarish than on record (it’s only slightly fanciful to feel the temperature drop in the Big Top when they perform); Shara Worden's performance is full of drama and emotion but she'd only needs to put down the guitar and keyboard and dance around on stage for the Kate Bush comparisons to be proven. Lots of sensitive men attend the Big Top when it’s time for Frida Hyvönen; they claim to like her fearless, explicit lyrics and her sense of female empowerment but I suspect they’re more interested in seeing a beautiful six foot tall, blonde Swedish woman talk dirty. She might be a witty woman but she plays rudimentary piano and her songs all sound as drippingly wet and me-me-me as Tori Amos. When I leave, the sensitive men in the audience fall over themselves to occupy my space, trying desperately to have their feminine side noticed.
My Sad Captains are one of my EOTR faves; maybe they look too young to be served alcohol in Tesco’s (their experience this weekend) but the sound they create is like an ultra-melodic Pavement or Grandaddy. The glorious melancholy of ‘Here and Elsewhere’ is a highpoint of a set with no bad moments. Indigo Moss have lost 50% of their number to injury over the weekend by the time I see them but Trevor and Hannah-Lou are still more than capable of setting the Bimble Inn a-hooting and a-hollering with their old-timey Americana with enough of an English folk sense that it’s not pastiche.
David Vandervelde and his Moonstation House Band have been turned back at Heathrow for not having a vital piece of paper so Port O’Brien fill in their slot and are a revelation.
From California, they’re like a rocked-up Neil Young with the country-punk power of the Meat Puppets plus a banjo to sweeten the mix. They’re a lot louder and more unhinged than on their album too! The marvellous Fireworks Night (Local tent) have distilled all their louder, stompier album tracks into their set. With a string section that looks like an authentic Mr and Mrs Borat, Fireworks Night go from maudlin to joyous to gloomy again, sounding like Sonic Youth at the Gogol Bordello.
For some strange reason Americans love uniforms and Danielson’s uniforms reinforce their sense of family – a surreal Addams Family in this case. The concentration on visuals as well as sound makes them a real artrock band; it’s part ethereal Flaming Lips and also something harder, like the Pixies in a state of rapture. For a Christian band, they’re stolen some great moves from the Adversary. I couldn’t get into the Local tent for Liz Green so I heard from outside her transformation from shy Manc to full-throated Deep South blues singer, achieved without any sense of mimickry or parody. She has a soulful folky voice that ought to scare her, it’s so powerful - it terrified me, as much as her chatter charmed. The bulging tent and dozens of people outside were testimony to her rising status.
What has happened to Architecture in Helsinki? They used to have a nice line in quirky dance-influenced indiepop; now they’re a desperate copy of LCD Soundsystem and CSS. They’ve become a frantic dance outfit, all rhythm and no songs, and their cover of Mental As Anything’s ‘Live It Up’ (from the film Croc o’ shite Dundee) is painful.
There’s an unfortunate clash between Super Furry Animals and British Sea Power meaning I only see the last BSP song on their tree-dressed Big Top, which includes Eamon from Brakes dressed as a Neanderthal boxer, a couple of Blue Peter cardboard robots, various flag wavers and a 15 foot bear on stage. Having seen them the previous week (minus bear), I think I’m justified in sticking with SFA, who play most of the songs from Hey Venus plus a healthy selection from each of their previous albums in what is essentially a greatest hits set. All your favourites are present, even if they’re not played exactly the way you remember them and there are plenty of visual treats, from Gruff’s Red Power Ranger helmet to Bunf’s birthday cake and the invasion of (invited) masked young people who end the set dancing to ‘The Man Don’t Give A Fuck’. Pure entertainment – diolch!
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