The Carling Weekend - Reading & Leeds - 24-26/8/07
5/5
By: Alex Lee Thomson
Half tired, half wired and fired, half inebriated and vaguely violated, fixed up, looking sharp (?), semi-nu-rave, the dance-rock crossover, you've got goths camping next to you and that fit lass has eyed you up; for whatever reason, this festival keeps you alive. Its memories are sure to die hard. Leeds Festival is as faultless a big event as you can have. It's got the fame and grandeur of acts such as Smashing Pumpkins, Chilli Peppers and Arcade Fire, the scope to include smaller, no less worthy acts like Patrick Wolf and Maps, or those on the fringe of the musical elite like Brakes and Jamie T. It's Glastonbury without the pandemonium and V Festival with a serious line up, the last major festival of the summer, and while the nation may flock in their drones to Reading, one of us ventured to Leeds. Why? Maybe to escape the traffic, maybe to escape the floods and TV cameras, or maybe it's just because northerners know how to party. The Carling Weekend: Reading and Leeds never fails to throw up some grade-A performances, but it seems to be Leeds that throws the curve balls, this year being no exception.
The Carling Thursday nights are normally spent finding your way around, finding friends, finding booze and creating revelry. Normally it happens in the Aftershock tent, but this year there was no such place (silent disco replacement indeed) so instead people used the open arena to their advantage and checked out the Topman Unsigned Stage where Dance To The Radio were hosting a semi-seminal club-esque night amid the setting sun and inward rock fans. We'll forgo the irony of a record label hosting a slot on an unsigned stage and go straight to the highlight which was for this Leeds home crowd the return of their favourite advancing band, Forward Russia, who held nothing back for their friends and family, all several thousand of them, letting rip a performance of their lifetimes; drowned in the blockade of noise that made 'Give Me A Wall' an album of last year and their new material fizz off the ear drums with malice.
It was a surprise to see such a great show on the festivals opening night (well, it didn't open properly until tomorrow morning...) and as reports came in from Reading of rain and turbulent mud, the some hundred odd thousand people who filled the campsites basked in the smugness of the decidedly better option.
Yet those reports turned out to be fraudulent - although the pitiful excuse for a British summer than we have been enduring in these isles had indeed been threatening to undermine Reading '07, for at least a solitary Bank Holiday weekend the Rock Gods are smiling upon this corner of Berkshire, with glorious sunshine dousing the malodorous fields for most of the festival's duration. But it's still a bit overcast as Little Man Tate (Main Stage, Friday, Reading) take to the stage at Friday lunchtime. Undoubtedly their clamorous, terrace- anthem rock is better suited to a sticky-floored, sweat drenched venue than such an early slot at an outdoor show, but their set does give them the opportunity to unveil some new material; the Jam-esque rumble of 'A Time For Everything' foremost amongst it. 'Hope you have a reet good weekend!' yelps Jon Windle in broadest Yorkshire, and they close with a rollicking 'House Party At Boothy's.
Fellow Sheffielders The Long Blondes (Main Stage, Friday, Reading) are in a similar position, with a few thousand faces responding blankly to 'Weekend Without Makeup. Still, newie 'Here Comes The Serious Bitch', loosens up the crowd sufficiently for gaggles of youths to start gyrating to 'Giddy Stratospheres' and 'Once & Never Again.'
There's barely any time to sleep back over at the Leeds leg of the Carling Weekend as the Friday morning opens what will be three solid days of relentless movement to the shape of the worlds greatest bands, this year hosting so many of the true modern archetypes.
Gym Class Heroes certainly aren't one of them though and their Justin Timberlake version of a hip hop / metal sound was about as much fun to behold as a drunkard vomiting dangerously close to your tent.
So happy the hordes then were to welcome Hadouken and their blasting firestorm of thrash dance and harsh vocals. 'Liquid Lives' appears at the beginning stages of their set on the newly raised (and about time too) Radio One stage which bled the old school 90s dance into a hardcore nu-rave opus of beats and flat lining guitars which have made them a brilliant dancefloor band and as proved here, a vision of a live one too.
We renounce New Young Pony Club (because we can do that) to indulge in something this weekend has never stumbled at offering - the big transatlantic rock names - and this year that came in the form of Billy Talent. Once you realise that is actually the way Benjamin Kowalewicz talks in real life and the comical factor of such a thing has been relinquished, you get down to the serious swarming nature of their big, brash Canadian punk sound that could have come from Green Day somewhere along the line if they'd remained a serious band. It's as hard as you want it to be, the younger crowd associating it to the pop punk of people like Green Day, the older audience tuning it to the older 70s, basic punk that more directly inspired it. The vocals can get tedious and whiney after an irksomely short time but when the set back drops to reveal a monumentally big piece of red cloth and the hum of 'Red Flag' comes forward, all misdemeanours are forgiven and you push this band ahead of near rivals like The Used and My Chemical Romance into a more serious area of punk practicality.
Turning back to a Leeds based roster we find The Sunshine Underground pulling in a respectfully big crowd as they play through the increasingly intoxicating ingredients of their 2006 debut album and the odd head-splitting new track. It's all good and it's all fast but we've heard it all before and it takes the crowd itself to turn the show into the scene that it inevitably becomes. Again, this is a home crowd band and so rightly the songs are bouncing off the canvas walls and into the opened arms of aficionados and beat crazed indie boppers with a championed acquaintance. Songs like 'Commercial Breakdown' and 'Borders' speak for themselves, their racing energy and searing riffs floating atop bass drums and cow bells that cluster around the tracksuits of their performers likening them to the Oasis or Happy Mondays of the proper-north.
Kubichek! were a saluted reminder that you can have big chords and not have to compromise on integrity and though many of the Carling Stage crowd were none the wiser to their tunes before hand, it didn't take long for the bustling tent to fall at the feet of 'Nightjoy', 'Stutter' and 'Just Shut It Down'. At times this band can sound like a fragmented Bloc Party while at others they're a throwback to late 60s garage punk bands and newer, more indulgent pop bands like The View or Editors, with accessible rock-by-numbers strategies that still boast proper urban sounds and sincerity that escapes the also-ran flockists.
Those watching The Gossip (Main Stage, Friday, Reading) are treated to the sight of Beth Ditto clad solely in undergarments during a riotous finale of 'Standing In The Way Of Control'; although Jimmy Eat World (Main Stage, Friday, Reading) remain mercifully clothed they're no less entertaining. A brief aside: there was an ad campaign for a Crowded House 'Best Of' a few years back which utilised the slogan: 'you know more Crowded House songs than you think you do.' The same adage could very well apply to these hypersensitive Arizona emo-rockers' back catalogue. You may not necessarily know the likes of 'Salt Sweat Sugar', 'Sweetness', 'Work', 'Pain' or 'Here You Me' by name but having regularly sound tracked various TV shows and movies they might well have already penetrated your consciousness. With classic early J.E.W. albums 'Clarity' and 'Static Prevails' recently being granted re-issues, the welcome arrival of a burst of mid-afternoon sunshine is the perfect environment in which to re-discover classic oldies like 'Lucky Denver Mint.'
Maps are a band worthy of anybody's ear and time and so when they played their mid-afternoon slot we surely weren't going to miss an opportunity to bathe in the brisk beauty of their atmospheric convulsions. Musically they're like the final stopping point between civilisation and the end of existence, their sweeping, swathing instrumentations leaving the Carling tent in awe as the few genuine songs they store under their belt roll over their audience in a wave of entrancing stupefaction.
MaximoPark (Main Stage, Friday, Reading) have exploited the Suede-shaped hole in British indie and filled it to the brim with erudite, intelligent pop music. The Geordie fivesome deliver a searing set; just two albums in they already feel as though they're delivering a Greatest Hits package of urban vignettes, with the ever-brilliant 'Apply Some Pressure' still the pick of the bunch.
There are few indisputably brilliant songwriters in the UK, there are a lot of mediocre ones, but so precious few with the raw ability of Jamie T and no matter how many times you've heard 'Panic Prevention' you can't imagine how unreserved and relentless his live show is. Firstly, possibly in order to get through as much material as possible, most of his songs are sped up to unrealistic proportions, 'Salvador' having our Wimbledon singer almost stumbling over the lines, "bang, bang Anglo Saxon at the disco, atishoo, all fall down, hound dogs growl on the prowl for the next young gal, who told her daddy she's going round Gemma's tonight..." within a half second space. Then there's his band, The Pacemakers, pulling out all the stops to make his show one of the moments of sheer excitement that this festival is all about, fresh, bright and electrifying.
Cold War Kids and The Maccabees threw their all into perfectly enjoyable performances as did Lost Prophets on the main stage, but what the majority of people were interested in was the days headliners. New Found Glory contended with the dulcet rave of Klaxons (leg cast in tow) and the reformed (kinda) Smashing Pumpkins, the band who stole our attentions. You have to wonder if the Pumpkins were ever cool. Were they? Or have they always been the nerds that stood before a ponderous gaggle of guitar fans who waited with baited breath to see if the inspiration behind bands like Placebo and Muse would live up to their reputation as rock gods or unravel as aging has-beens? The dead silence of the blackened night time field created an atmosphere so thick you'd need to beckon your arms around in front of you just to know which way to look, until the searchlights and sirens mark Billy Corgan's steps onto his lawful headline spot and uncertainties are laid to rest.
The band opened with an intro that could send shivers up the spine of anybody that appreciated good guitar music, and though you could see some people willing them to "get on with it", with a minor flick of the odd 'boo", this is what Smashing Pumpkins were about. They could come on stage and reel off a string of easy to hold songs, all four minutes long and all wrapped in the comfort of familiarity, but the wonder of them is far beyond simplicity and the epilogue of their starting manoeuvre was testament to their genuine ability to make music, not just songs. Nobody could have foreseen the impact that one of their biggest records could have had though, the band nonchalantly starting it early-set to the rapture of a won-over crowd. 'Tonight Tonight' sounded unbelievably victorious, reminding the people who had hesitantly come along that there was a reason they were headlining, and this song was that reason. It has never jumped out of their catalogue but has remained a staple indie track since its 1995 release and at the peak of Fridays events stood as this monster of a song, more poignant now than ever and showcasing the connection, closeness and talent that the band still shares after so much turmoil, even if they are a few comrades down. Needless to say that their appearance, resolved around that one genius flash of a song, was the talk of the campsites for pretty much the rest of the evening as once again, very little sleep was had.
That might however be because a few people chose to stay behind after hours and indulge in the audio / visual treats of the Transgressive night on the Alternative Stage that included the harmonies of Noah and the Whale (who we love) and the voice of Jeremy Warmsley, all jumbled into a seven hour long feast of great music with our own Tim and Toby at the DJ decks providing the definitive mix set of the day. Anything went, and everything did, and so it fell into the wee small hours of the morning. Sleep when you're dead as they say.
Saturday morning at Leeds and what bands would best suit the sunny atmosphere of the day? How's about The Pipettes, Little Man Tate and The Long Blondes? "You're wish is our command" Festival Nation proclaimed and with that these three bands opened what would ultimately turn out to be the best all-round day for music quality of the event.
The Pipettes hark back to an idyllic version of what 1960's swing rock 'n' roll was all about, the outfits and happy, clapping mood of their music steering a stomping ground of gleaming pop tunes that contrasted well against the pride of Sheffield and Jodie Foster enthusiasts Little Man Tate. Still parading the best parts of their debut album with 20-something poetry in the form of 'Man I Hate Your Band' and the almost student anthem 'House Party At Boothy's' they're a great tongue in cheek sing-a-long band fit for the main stage and that shaky morning beer.
The Long Blondes, a band who have all but disappeared since their initial firework bang onto the scene a few years ago, were nonetheless a truly talented fusion of Ace Of Base with The Rakes and made it sound kind of cool. Most of their album was played, 'Once And Never Again' being the highlight of their sunny show and a fan friendly set list which only missed out 'Motorways' in an otherwise flawless recital.
Some people were lucky enough to be in the right place at the right time as a band that nobody had heard of before, Hooks For Hands, took to the Carling stage with a strange air of fluency. The lead singer looks like Ricky Wilson we thought, hey that guy has the same kind of hat as Peanut, I recognise that opening chord... wait a tick... holy shit it's Kaiser Chiefs! Leeds first sons and instigators of the nu-pub rock scene returned to their home crowd as Forward Russia had a few nights before and though their 7 song set, covering the Chief basics, was an obvious publicity goldmine it was no less appreciated and a thrilling surprise showing yet again how the Leeds leg of this festival can keep you on your toes.
Who better than The Shins (Saturday, Main Stage, Reading) and their swoonsome, 60s-indebted melody-drenched pop chunks to soundtrack Saturday's sweltering early afternoon? Resplendent in vintage train driver cap, James Mercer acknowledges the 'f***ing hot' weather, charges through old faves like 'Saint Simon' and leads the band to a climax with the latest album volley of 'Phantom Limb' and 'Turn On Me.'
With an unruly mop of hair and clad in a black trench coat and shades, on the Radio One stage the Pigeon Detectives' (Saturday, Radio 1 Stage, Reading) singer and shameless showboater Matt Bowman looks every inch Johnny Borrell's heir apparent as he tears into opener 'I Found Out.' A large on-site billboard advertising the band's debut album 'Wait For Me' may not have found favour with some attendees, who armed only with a marker pen and a streak of Wildean wit have amended the sign to read 'The Penis Detectives' (other alterations spotted nearby: 'Razorshite', and 'Angels & Airwaves ARE SHIT.') True, its often hard to avoid the temptation to list during a Pigeon Detectives performance the host of other bands who they strongly resemble (Kaiser Chiefs, The Cribs, The Strokes) but to this young, animated crowd, they can do no wrong.
On a complete opposite note from Kaiser Chiefs were Jimmy Eat World, though strangely the two could be compared, both focusing muscle bound pop rock songs around a pungent riff and power chord wrap that waits for no straggler. 'Sweetness' and 'The Authority Song' have been rock club essentials for almost ten years and when the band plays them live, with the gusto of an understatedly strong charm, it's clear to see why. The energy and high octane majesty of their set is nothing short of faith restoring in the American scene proving that some bands from across the pond can actually make credible, modest and witty, yet tremendously catchy rock songs without having to resort to shouting obscenities and bad-mouthing Bush between big guitar bashing.
Back on the main stage, Bloc Party's (Saturday, Main Stage, Reading) decision to begin with 'Song For Clay (Disappear Here)', 'Positive Tension' and 'Hunting For Witches' might not appear to represent the most accessible opening to a Main Stage set, but its pretty clear that 'Banquet' and 'The Prayer' are bona-fide festie slayers. Kele Okereke tells us how he first met guitarist Russell Lissack at Reading 'whilst watching Kula Shaker', he confesses- but then immediately retracts this statement.
Swiftly after that onslaught of J.E.W. glee Maximo Park were wheeled out to the idea that one of the UK's best live acts are struggling to match their current reputation and for the first time we start to qualm their previously undoubted live ability. Take Paul out of the equation and is this band really that great? No time to think about that as Interpol, one of the festivals highlights were already warming up with a plan to raise their new material up to the heights of their classic first record... which they fortunately did honourably.
Interpol can't be faulted as a live band and as some people wondered if their morose songs would come across live or fall apart into a string of boredom, the rest of the Leeds Festival audience just hoped they'd fill the set with all the songs that have made them so pleasurable to indulge in for the past few years. Heck, for me, their new album is probably the best of their career with 'Mammoth' colliding onstage with 'Evil' into pure unadulterated bass clashing excitement the likes of which hasn't been heard at the site since Pixies a few years ago. We were told to "fucking dance", we were swooned with 'Narc' and we were catapulted into the new world of music by a vocal that quite frankly has been missing from Tim Burton films all along. Their sound is dark, tight, expansive and overwhelmingly passionate and while the bass guitar moves their might along, the melody makers give their tunes a padding of surreal interest and plot.
These guys must have floorboards buckling under the pressure of pages and pages of good material as there's not a single second, a flickering moment of lapse in their bombardment of promising everyday emotion. With each song you're won over just a bit more until it reaches a point where you can't imagine how their sound could get tighter, harsher and your brain more in synch, then they lay 'Slow Hands' on you and you shatter to an unrecognisable mound of barely human components in its wake, hasten to blink or even breathe. Theirs is a sound best served in portions, the performance building up, crashing down, and then getting even bigger than before until the precision of their catalogue overpowers the actual uplifting value of it and you're focused more on the fact that the band isn't just a machine of great songs, but a collection of side-winding technically gifted musicians out to blow the world apart with flair.
You can't walk away, or run away if you wanted to catch The Subways play the other stage, feeling undecided about Interpol. Either you die inside with confusion having only heard 'Slow Hands' or you're reborn with a new respect for America, their scattered unravelling and authority endearing to the point of collapse. If you didn't get Interpol with this show you never will, as the band could not have been more on form, more in the mindset of proving their worth and more on top of their game, literally bowling over the now breathless Leeds commune. Watch this band with an open mind and an even more open heart and they might just steal it away for 45 minutes.
The Subways themselves followed up their inconceivably stunning Sugarmill performance with what has to go down as their biggest crowd-pleasing performance of their career. We've seen them lay waste to big crowds, we've seen them pack out venues full with dance ready rioters, and we've even seen them clamber the tiny halls of tiny stages... but at no point have we seen the mob that unfolded during their groundbreaking slot on the NME stage. They are the embodiment of quintessentially British rock 'n' roll, influenced by the 1960's, raised in the 90s Britpop era and constructed with a contemporary alt-rock angular gutter of strings. When Billy, our hero of the short, fast rock anthem, strums the opening to 'Oh Yeah', open up the crowd into a mosh pit that grew far beyond our command, and as we held back the crowd as best we could until that blinding, hard and steadfast chorus ignited it, the thick ambience surged through our bodies and out of our balls at which point we threw whatever shred of energy we had into a compulsive lunge that triggered the climax of the song. Elsewhere, other pits were forming to the stark growl of the Subways experience and like hurricanes converging, when 'Rock N Roll Queen' began there was, even to a veteran enthusiast, one bitch of an open space that was so big people didn't know what to do with it. Spectators began running around the perimeter of it at 30mph, colliding with the poor bastards on the outskirts of normality until the final, extended, chorus triggered a final drain in sweat and another stab of violence-like gathering to the sounds of the most relevant and exciting rock band in the UK - or at least that was the feeling at the time.
T-shirts still clinging to our heaving, gasping corpses, we, along with an outstanding amount of other music enthusiasts, find Jack Penate winding down his set that like all of his shows, begins well with 'Spit At Stars' and ends happily with 'Turn On The Platform', but within lacks importance.
Not to worry as the teenage girls fantasy, the epitome of post-Bowie-ism and the guy on a lot of peoples list of top British song makers, Patrick Wolf, was adding his final dashes of make up and finding the most obscure piece of cloth to wrap around his head before adorning the stage to the loudest screams ever ushered within the tent walls. 'Get Lost', 'Overture' and 'Accident and Emergency' made it one the most jingle packed outlays of the day and as he affirmed "I don't want to depress you too much" which struck off songs like 'Magpie' from the set, we knew it would be a dance-worthy affair so obviously his own twisted electro version of the disco classic 'Feels Like I'm In Love' went down to hordes of enthusiasm. His childlike demeanour and homoerotic qualm found the populace, us included naturally, shouting our allegiance to him along with declarations of love, which he took with his usual friendly and appreciative grace. When you see Patrick live you don't feel as though you're seeing an unobtainable distant music star, no matter how inexpressibly voluptuous his music may be, but a friend who just happens to have penned one of the definitive albums of the year, building a set list as he goes along based on crowd reaction and suggestion, turning the tent into an intimate-like setting for one of England's most respected and celebrated songsmiths. Our hearts were certainly beating like drums.
Now, the 1990s provided some wonderful British singles bands. A few bands supplied truly dazzling runs of hits. Blur's 1992-94 purple patch that started with 'Popscene', via 'and culminated with 'Parklife' is pretty darn impressive. The two year spell in which the Super Furry Animals unleashed 'God! Show Me Magic', 'Hometown Unicorn', 'The Man Don't Give A F***'. 'The International Language of Screaming' and 'Demons' is equally splendid. And what of Supergrass, who during their mid 90s pomp gave us 'Caught By The Fuzz', 'Alright', 'Richard III', 'Going Out' and 'Sun Hits The Sky'? But if we're talking about a uniformly fabulous run of consecutive hits, then it's hard to trump Ash (Radio 1 Tent, Friday, Reading). Between March 1995 and October 1997 they were responsible for, in succession, the melodious pogo-punk majesty of 'Kung Fu', 'Girl From Mars', 'Angel Interceptor', 'Goldfinger', 'Oh Yeah', and 'A Life Less Ordinary.' Wow. Once again a three-piece, their Radio 1 headline set focuses on this golden era. Opening with 'Lose Control', they treat us to the first and final two tracks mentioned on that aforementioned list, still dizzily resplendent a decade on.
Albert Hammond Jr. was the consummate entertainer delivering a surprisingly agreeable guitar led show that may not have been too rich in great songs but was no way faulting in the ability department. He's one of those people you watch to appreciate rather than enjoy, which sounds harsh, but is a great thing for a man of his unfathomable aptitude.
Crystal Castles and Dogs opened the Sunday at Leeds, one a frisk bleep of dance rock exuberance and the other a disappointingly also-ran-like guitar mess. Dogs started off okay with some dungeonous vocals and thriving guitars but all too quickly started sounding like the rest of the post-Libertine crowd in the flail of The Twang and The Enemy, though without the staple anthems that have defined their careers.
Crystal Castles alternatively had us jumping capriciously while screaming along to the almost incoherent lyrics of the crossover party who landed on stage to deliver half an hour of escalating beats that called out to CSS and !!!, who would appear later on along with Unkle, to coerce the new wave of thumping rock that filled the Dance stage as though to prove that a new era of music was adorning. This kind of music is here to stay, and with this calibre of band on the case it's no wonder why.
Back to the morning though and Brakes followed Dogs with their own blend of eccentric alt country that found 'Porcupine And Pineapple' and new single 'Beatific Visions' making their way through the speakers to lingered ears. More admired among music adherents than the general public, though why is anybody's guess, Hamilton's super group tore new areas of musicality as the unconventional investigation into experimentation persisted with catchy strings that played roughly against the hidden melodies of Brakes tracks, some of which only last several seconds. They are such talented musicians that the first thoughts of novelty some folk had faded quickly and had a toe-tapping entourage intercepting the length of their performance to the pleasure of a band who play so infrequently it's a wonder they're so fantastic.
A bit of Good Shoes showing why Morden life is rubbish soon ensues before attentions fall onto the main stage where Eagles Of Death Metal were showing off their guns and moustaches to a sexually stimulated and frenzied crowd. Shortly after, The Shins were the toast of the afternoon with more bodies taking their places than pretty much every other outdoor band of the day. The American song makers were in high demand and their appearance had been whispered about for the previous two days, and with this being another rare UK show, there was a sense of question looming over their routine. Within two minutes we were lost in the depths of their music though, carrying the chorus lines and stamping our feet while looking around and realising that The Shins were what this festival was about; bringing the best bands of the world to one place and under the afternoon sun putting on a performance that wakes people up, fans or not. But hold onto your cervix ladies, the hedonism of some other US rockers was about to give the day a different tone... Cue Angels And Airwaves.
The band, who were formed in the wake of Blink 182 by the bloke that isn't in +44 (who FYI had pulled out of the festival just days before), were another band attended at Leeds Festival out of curiosity as much as any love for their debut LP. You often hear of US rock stars playing to the crowd and using a self-indulgent and patronising tone while holding the belief that their music is far more important than anything else on the planet, well, Tom DeLong is certainly an example of this stereotype. Using their 45-minute slot to only play around six songs, Tom used the rest of the time to mince (and boy do we mean mince) around the stage grabbing his crotch and swearing in the name of Bush far more than was funny or relevant. You could almost see people preparing bottles to throw at him, this after all was a serious audience, but just when it reached tipping point the band would strike a note that opened into a riff that unravelled into a full blown gargantuan guitar song that really clicked with the kids.
It's a shame that Tom held such a distain and big-headedness as it undermined the new found seriousness of what they were trying to do, and how his band has managed to put up with his dodgy stage presence until now is beyond thought. When we were all 14-year-old boys, doing what 14-year-old boys do, we were hearing songs about what other 14-year-old boys did... and there was always something quite likable about that. But we aren't any more. And come to think of it, they weren't in the first place.
Back again to the core stage and Bloc Party did their usual set of modern indie standards that integrated 'Hunting For Witches' into 'So Here We Are' so well the lines between the bands two albums are all but lost on paper, the absolute ability of them generating something of awe. To anybody that saw them play the small clubs of London years ago, there's a wonderfully overwhelming feeling of elation and satisfaction seeing the masses give their hearts to 'Helicopter'.
Within minutes of Kele leaving the stage, graced with the biggest smile a musician can have, Arcade Fire began the arduous job of setting up their equipment for one of the more anticipated sets of the day, one that would of course cut through disillusionment like a hot knife through butter. With the last fragments of light disappearing behind the majesty of the main stage at Leeds Festival, the feeling that it was drawing to an end was more than playing on peoples mind, but with Arcade Fire, there was still reason to revolt. When the band played the event in 2005, people's lives changed, this young fellow's certainly did, and on their return they didn't so much have anything to prove as much as they did reinforce. Armed now with two albums and a deserved reputation as one of the worlds greatest live experiences, Arcade Fire were here to only do what comes naturally to them, without malice or preconception, without mediocrity or normality, and without any degree of unoriginality.
There's no easy way to talk about Arcade Fire without rambling on for days about the apocalypse, reeling off pages from the bible and almost breaking down in tears of pain and passion, but when they play on stage this enthusiastically it's hard to bypass such imagery. Open up your ears and perch your head up atop its neck in preparation and you might not miss anything of value, possibly however unlikely as with so much cross stage shenanigans occurring from all of the bands nine members, theirs is as much about the visual as it is the musical. If God and the Devil got together to form a super group holding all of Earths history of musical knowledge among them, from Mozart to U2, from The Sex Pistols to Enya, and then somehow played all the varied sounds together to the beating of one tribal drum, it could echo close to this band, though would inevitably only make the support slot. Arcade Fire are completely unrivalled by everything else on the planet. You compare other bands to Arcade Fire, but you never compare them to anybody else.
The set list was a dream, 'Laika' lunging towards 'Rebellion Lies' with spite and a benevolent charm, the songs ceasing only for a short, sharp shock of silence before picking up, expanding, growing and ultimately changing into something else. 'Wake Up' became their new finale offering as 'Power Out' appeared premature of its normal climatic moment, strangely so but blowing us all away in the process.
Arcade Fire were the real headliners of the Sunday, it was them who took us as high as we could go only to leave us hanging there. Anybody with sense would have avoided the obvious disappointment of Red Hot Chilli Peppers, which was of course the reality of their slot, and as some took on the dance of Unkle or set out to see where Hot Hot Heat had gone (turns out they've been writing songs, pretty good ones actually, huh, how about that), Rockfeedback caught the American version of Art Brut; We Are Scientists. These guys have never sat that well with some of us, but seeing them live you can see the beginnings of a potentially good band at last. The abandonment of cheesy harmonies will suit them well and if their new material is anything to go by, they're a band that will really find their identity on their second album, current fan base in tow and one mother of a lead vocal.
Then there was The View, those Scottish rabble-rousers that last year had us all screeching the incoherent lines, "astedwae ittlae ejaysdae, they're the cleverest blonde weekend", or whatever the heck it is they do sing in that exceedingly catchy 'Wasted Little DJs' number. It's easy to think of The View as one of those firework bands that blasted onto the scene fortified with a few good songs, captured the mainstream radio audience long enough to get their album noticed, then fizzled back into their hole like we all hope certain others will. However, the View at such a young age have become a formidably tight live act. The set was all over the place, like a marooned Libertines, with postings of ska, punk, indie, pop and reggae, the long melodies and catchy lyrics bringing people together for the final time of the festival under one sunshade.
With bands this good, implosively joyful, you leave knowing you'll be back next year, not doubting its ability to generate some of the best music moments you'll ever have in your life. It' not as bohemic as Glastonbury, but it's more about the quality of music than the kind of drug you're taking. And while the likelihood of other, newer, smaller festivals future success looks cloudier with each new addition to the summer calendar, this one is certainly a lasting force that used its sister Readings' reputation to get noticed, but has now forged it's own. For all the sins of modern music, be thankful we still have places like this to feel like children again.
All reviews from Leeds site unless otherwise stated.
Leeds reviews by Alex Lee Thomson, Reading reviews by Matt Tomiak.
All photography courtesy of and copyright Nick Pickles 2007.
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