Anna Calvi
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Sitting round the backstage campfire listening to La Brass Banda’s tuba player running through a melancholy passage from Bach, we reflected on a Haldern that had an element of Sehnsucht as well as the usual industrial-strength dollops of hippy dippy Zuckerzeit. Maybe it was the weather, (glowering, leaden, ever-threatening), maybe it was the zealous and clearly alien security measures brought in, we believe, as a national response to the tragedy at Duisburg’s Love Parade last year. Whatever the reason it brought a slightly melancholy note to the proceedings and a blast of the real world into this temporary land of faery.
But let us not dwell on the down-side; let us reflect on some of the most memorable performances ever witnessed here. Whilst normally our focus is on the sticky, bucolic charm of Haldern, this year our attention was sharply on the gigs. My Brightest Diamond, The Avett Brothers, Socalled, Wild Beasts, Alexi Murdoch, Suuns, Hauschka and the Erased Tapes bunch (Rival Consoles, Codes in the Clouds and Nils Frahm & Anne Mueller) could all claim to be artists of the festival, whilst Fleet Foxes, Anna Calvi, Johnny Flynn, Bodi Bill, Gisbert zu Knyphausen, The Wombats (yes, the Wombats) and La Brass Banda could also demand acclaim for their efforts. On a less cerebral level, 2011 Haldern Pop must be acclaimed as evidence of the official “Year of the Beard Amongst the Young”. Gillette Wilkinson must be concerned.
Yuck make very pretty noises and there’s something about their music makes you want more of it, but their attempt to play the “can’t be arsed playing to you lot” game fell very flat in Germany. Taciturn white boy/girl guitar bands will always feed our sonic drip: the Bunnymen, British Sea Power, the Velvet Underground, Les Rallizes Dénudés, My Bloody Valentine. They don’t really see eye- to-eye with the Bruce Forsyth School of entertainment but they all have/had a sensibility that they are sons of the stage. Playing live is often about pride, respect and mutual understanding: putting on a show. A good performance is a creation of a portal though which both audience and band step. If you keep that door shut, Yuck, pretty soon we won’t come a-knocking.
Julia Marcell, from Poland, needs to sort out what stays in the bedroom and recording studio and what treads the boards. We reckon she’s on a winner because there’s a great deal of talent and budding personality waiting to be unleashed. For now it does feel a bit unfinished, gauche and a bit flat. Get a sweat on, girl… Sweat, passion, crowd interaction and having a good ol’ time were elements The Avett Brothers had in spades, however. Maybe it was the crowd’s desire to let rip at this point in the night, maybe it was the fact that the band didn’t come over as stand-offish or gauche, but the Avett Brothers found themselves whipping up a maelstrom of good vibes in the Spiegel Tent. When you have a band moving up and down in a kind of synchronised ecstasy of boot stomping, you can’t help but join in. The songs were pretty damned good too; amalgams of country rock, bluegrass and honky tonk in the style of maybe Townes van Zandt, or maybe at times stuff that was close to Van Dyke Parks in spirit. And even though there was a fair dollop of winsome wide-eyed stuff, they were passionate, sincere and had a self-belief that made you want to like them regardless. And how many bands have a stand up cello being thrown about with abandon? Not many. A truly great and uplifting gig.
It could be very easy to write off Anna Calvi as a passing fashion, but we’d advise you not to. There’s a steely purpose in her music, one that manifests itself through widescreen, glossy and immensely seductive songs like ‘Blackout’. The seductive element is dramatically increased in the flesh; but that’s more a case that she combines all this petite Brunhilda of rock stuff with an impression that she’s pretty shy. And sometimes it’s refreshing to know you are falling for old musical tricks; you want her to keep fooling us all into believing we’ve never heard such music before. It’s not all there yet mind, there’s a nagging suspicion that she knows she can get out of any tight corner simply by blasting us all away with that strident voice, or with the ridiculously good guitar playing, but still, it’s working for now.
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Weird Dreams - Choreography (album)