What the hell is going on? #4: Offset Week
By: Thomas Hannan
Mornin’ all.
I write this to you from a very sleepy Rockfeedback office, as we have had a weekend we are yet to fully recover from. On Sunday night, some members of our team (myself and head live booker Dan Monsell, along with our Transgressive brethren Toby, Tim and Lilas) were DJing the many hits of Prince, Vampire Weekend and Kiss to the Rockfeedback/Transgressive stage at the Leeds Festival until 3.30 in the morning – which means, technically, we headlined Leeds. We’d like to thank Radiohead for their able support (is it only me who genuinely preferred the idea of the weird album tracks littered set we got at Leeds to the likes of ‘Creep’ et al at Reading?), but the whole festival was made for us by the performances we were privileged to witness from the side of the stage in our very own tent come Sunday eve.
Two Door Cinema Club’s relentlessly joyous tunes had us so entranced we genuinely did take ‘em back to our hotel room afterwards, The Invisible were as stylish as ever, Pulled Apart By Horses bled their way through one of the most dangerous, vicious and brilliant live sets I’ve ever seen, and Future of the Left cemented their place in my heart as perhaps the finest (and certainly funniest) rock band in the country before The Wave Machines were our surprise hit of the day, proving that ‘Punk Spirit’ and ‘I Go I Go I Go’ are not anomalies – these boys have loads, and loads, of tunes you’re going to love.
Speaking of Future of the Left, they’re also headlining the fantastic Offset Festival this weekend. We love Offset Festival, a jaunt at which the idea is to present the best bands of today alongside the bands who influenced them. So, you not only get The Horrors and Future of the Left, but the likes of A Certain Ratio and The Slits as well. We admire the idea so much that we’re making this Offset Week on the site, which alongside our competition for a pair of tickets (which will stay open for a few more days – get entering!), will include all of this...
Today, Future of the Left (who we’ve got a massive thing for at the moment, you may or may not have noticed), are the lead programme in our TV player, as we look back to a gig they played in our very own house alongside Jeremy Warmsely, Soko and Shinghai Shoniwa of The Noisettes after they rocked Camden Crawl 2008. That's a picture of it, up there ^. They’re followed on Wednesday by the infinitely loveable Official Secrets Act, who also join the Offset bill with Friday’s Rockfeedback TV stars, the Sonic Youth-covering, goth-loving awesomeness of An Experiment on a Bird on the Air Pump.
Furthermore, the aforementioned Official Secrets Act bassist Lawrence Diamond will be contributing a frank, heart-warming and hilarious low down on life on the road with Art Brut, and Offset headliners The Horrors are our artist of the week (an honour that makes that Mercury nomination pale in to insignificance). And if all that’s not got you excited about Offset, then check with your friends, because you may or may not be an idiot.
Tom.x