Cath Aubergine did this review. This is without the photos.
Gainful employment in a job with a reasonable starting time of 8 and not being as young as I used to be means that five thirty in the morning is not a time I'm enormously familiar with. The wildest all nighters usually see me crash out sometime around four, and the day job alarm clock's six thirty is as early as morning gets. This weekend however features three cases of 5.30am - and the first is an unwelcome necessity. Standing bleary-headed at a Sackville Street bus stop I'm just glad that the bus service to Liverpool John Lennon Airport, North Westerners' cheapest gateway out of the relentlessly crap weather of summer 2007, departs just five minutes from my front door. Otherwise I'd have pretty much had to get up before I went to bed. The bus company is called Terravision, and we're mildly disappointed it's not in fact the post-stardom employment of the 90s band but in fact an international airport transfer service; the comedy airline amuses us by serving gin in a bag. No, really.
We make a mental note to check out the manufacturer's website when we get home - a few of these pouches strapped about one's person would be a fine way of circumventing festival bag searches...
Our ultimate destination is Barcelona, a beautiful city I've visited a few times before although never, yet, in the pursuit of live music...
On paper, the Summercase line-up is not really much better or worse than most UK festivals, but it has several advantages, one of which is a running order which at first glance looks like a deranged nutter has thrown a few darts randomly in HMV, added a few local wildcards and then arranged the resulting artists blindfolded on a calendar spreadsheet...
FRIDAY 13th JULY
TERMINAL O
20.10: EDITORS
22.05: PHOENIX
00.40: ARCADE FIRE
03.30: SCISSOR SISTERS
TERMINAL E
19.25: THE HIDDEN CAMERAS
20.55: LILY ALLEN
23.15: THE FLAMING LIPS
02.05: BLOC PARTY
TERMINAL S
18.40: BROMHEADS JACKET
19.35: THE MACCABEES
20.45: GUILLEMOTS
22.00: PJ HARVEY
23.45: ASTRUD
01.00: MIKA
02.45: LCD SOUNDSYSTEM
04.15: 2MANYDJS
TERMINAL N
18.25: FIONN REGAN
19.25: 1990s
20.35: SR. CHINARRO
21.50: THE VIEW
23.00: THE WHITEST BOY ALIVE
00.15: DELOREAN
01.30: THE PIGEON DETECTIVES
02.30: BELLE & SEBASTIAN DJS
04.00: AMABLE & GATO
SATURDAY 14th JULY
TERMINAL O
19.10: THE SUNDAY DRIVERS
20.40: JAMES
23.15: THE JESUS AND MARY CHAIN
02.05: KAISER CHIEFS
TERMINAL E
19.55: BADLY DRAWN BOY
22.05: DJ SHADOW
00.40: AIR
03.30: THE CHEMICAL BROTHERS
TERMINAL S
18.45: THE HOURS
19.30: PERRY BLAKE
20.45: SOULSAVERS feat. Mark Lanegan
22.00: JARVIS COCKER
23.30: THE GOSSIP
00.45: OMD
02.30: !!!
04.00: FELIX DA HOUSECAT
TERMINAL N
18.25: HOW I BECAME THE BOMB
19.25: MIQUI PUIG Y EL CONJUNTO ELÉCTRICO
20.40: MY BRIGHTEST DIAMOND
21.50: DRAGONETTE
23.00: THE TWANG
00.15: ELECTRELANE
01.30: RATATAT
02.30: RIOTOUS ROCKERS
04.00: THE GLIMMERS
And then there's the location and site. This is the view over the second stage (E) from the main stage (O) area...
This, by contrast, is what your average British festival looks like.
(Pedants pointing out that my hastily Google-stolen image was actually from Roskilde in Denmark are missing the point.)
Finally, there's the simple fact that most of my favourite bands' schedules are a little light on the travel/holiday options this summer. My mates from the New Order Vikings crew are, arguably, even less well catered for, what with not actually having a band to follow any more, which is equally annoying given the stories of debauchery Alex and Liam always came home from away trips with, and I always intended to join them for one sometime. But they had such a good time when New Order did play here they've decided to come back anyway, so we're along for the ride. Although as I hung back from booking on the offchance that one of my can't-miss favourites got the call-up to Latitude the hotel they've booked has filled up. My internet-fingers rapidly find me one around the corner that's about half the price - we don't need much other than bed, showers and breakfast after all, and it's only for three nights, how bad can it be?
We never find out. After a long bus ride from the comedy airline's nowhere-near-anywhere airport, during which Alex manages to annoy pretty much everyone not with us by testing out the speakers on his flashy new portable DVD player (The Chameleons go down quite well with the festival-going young English couple next to us who'd never heard them before; Fad Gadget were probably best off left in the 80s though) we arrive to find the plumbing has flooded out an entire floor, and we've been relocated to the Hotel Catalonia Plaza, which is considerably more upmarket. It doesn't have a bar on the roof, but Alex and Liam's does and doesn't seem remotely bothered by people not even booked into the hotel wandering up for a few pints there, so we do precisely that.
Yeah, time to introduce a few of the others. That's Janette and Christine and John, survivors of many an away trip with Alex and (latterly) Liam. The bloke talking to Alex is introduced to us as "a Welsh beast" - this is actually the only time we will see him sober all weekend. In fact it's pretty much the only time we'll see him at all. The two sensible looking types back right are nothing to do with us. It's one hell of a view from up there...
Troops gathered (well, apart from the lad who's forgotten the number combination for his luggage lock and texts us from his room to see if anyone has any bolt-cutters - er, sorry!) it's time to head off into town - to partake in a little Catalan culture, perhaps; some tapas and local fine wines at some off-the-beaten-track gem? Um... nope. Alex doesn't do foreign food, and there's this Irish bar that's 1 euro a beer during happy hour... "Great" says Liam, who's not been abroad as much as the rest of us being only a couple of years out of university and really fancied "a paella or something... we might as well have gone for a night out in O'Shea's and flown out tomorrow". He's right, it's truly awful - entirely populated by English tourists (do the Irish seek out "English pubs" when in foreign climes, or doesn't it work both ways?) apart from the Australian bar staff. Luckily my old mate from Chameleons days Jam - who's lived in the area for about three years now - turns up and leads us off to a nearby "typical" Barcelona square, where a few tourists mingle with a lot of locals, and the spirit measures are best described as frightening. As indeed is my sunburn.
Although Liam's is worse.
Some hours after this picture was taken, The Welsh Beast (right) will be found crashed out in a gutter by the local constabulary, and finally make it back to his hotel at 11.30am.
Friday we get down to the festival site early; some of the crew have got guest list via various contacts and they need to make sure they get in OK. They do - although the legitimate tickets purchased by Nick and myself prove slightly more of a problem. Long-term gig-goers' nemesis SeeTickets, the official UK agent for the event, has managed to print their entire consignment with bar-codes which don't work on the stewards' scanners, so the majority of the large British contingent here are forced to stand in a long queue in the blazing afternoon heat whilst two not-especially-hurried people in a Portakabin process tickets manually and individually. Although not generally a big fan of the Yorkshire six-pints-and-a-kebab-indie-rock scene I'd quite fancied the opportunity to see if Bromheads Jacket are any good, but it's not going to happen. By the time we've got in, got some beer and found the rest of the crew it's time for Editors.
As most of my friends and regular readers know, Editors annoy me. They have been annoying me for some time now by being apparebtly satisfied with being quite good, and by having a lot of wonderful ingredients which somehow fall short of being greater than the sum of their parts, a prerequisite for any great band. The first time I saw them, on a cold Sunday night in a less-than-half-full Night & Day during the January will-go-and-see-anything-just-to-get-out-of-the-house gig doldrums of 2005, I'd never heard anything by them but was already aware they were being talked about as the next big thing, filing a review containing the following thoughts: "Lyrics tend to centre on that general unspecified hopelessness destined to appeal to the inner student in any of us, but in a market fast becoming saturated there is little to distinguish them. Half way through trying to work out whether a song sounds more like the Chameleons' "In Shreds" or the last bunch of overcoat sporting upstarts you saw, there's that sinking feeling that a scene that seemed exciting a year ago might already have peaked." and furthermore "Let's get one thing straight - they're not bad at all: everyone I spoke to liked them, but nobody was talking about falling in love with them or hastily checking where the next date was. Given time they could develop into something that's all their own - the seeds are definitely there, but whether they will get there before the wheels have turned again, is less certain." (Link to full review)
OK, so they did "get there" - here, in fact, on the main stage of a major European festival, but they still annoy me. I've seen them a couple of times since then and each time I've been left feeling that they're nothing more than a collection of bits lifted from far greater bands, glued together and given a lick of major-label polish for the biggest possible market-demographic capture. People whose musical opinions I respect have however told me they've got a lot better of late and that the second album's a vast improvement on the debut, so it's with an open mind that we step forward into a crowd somewhat bigger than that Sunday night at Night & Day. Their sound is bigger too - I don't mean purely in scaling up terms; even compared to last year's Academy 1 show - the last time I saw them - there's a lot more power behind them. And again, I don't just mean courtesy of this beauty...
The Forum Park's solar panel. Plans to power a large festival in Manchester by a similar method were shelved when more than two bands said they'd rather not play entirely acoustic sets.
Not only does some of the newer material seem to have more depth to it, but first album tracks like "All Sparks" and "Munich" sound strong enough, particularly in the bass and drums department, to distract attention away from their woeful lyrics. I realise that their frequent comparators Interpol, still one of my favourite bands, have also unleashed some lyrical horrors on the world, but where Interpol's words often have the air of sweetly over-egged sixth-form poetry about them, Editors' are just not very good - and coupled with Tom Smith's flat (as in expressionless, as opposed to off-key) singing voice I don't think I'll ever be able to actually like this band however good their tunes and instrumental work might be. And there's still an overriding feeling that my enjoyment of their music is not so much appreciation of ot in its own right as a collection of warm feelings of familiarity - "In Shreds" still casts a shadow over one tune as well as lost 80s classic "Remembrance Day" by B-Movie. In short, they're still - and still annoyingly - quite good, but a bit better than they were. At this rate of improvement they could be mind-blowing by sometime around 2027.
Which is more than can be said for Lily Allen. She receives our attention for two reasons - she's playing down on the amphitheatre stage (E) and we're having a nice little chill-out watching the sea from pretty much the vantage point shown in that first picture as the sun sets behind us; and alternative choices comprise Guillemots and The 1990s who would both rate in my top (or more accurately bottom) ten of the worst bands I saw last year. For the most part, her jaunty pop is inoffensive enough and a decent horn section emphasises the summery ska flavours much more than on her records, although she loses us towards the end with a clunking cover of "Heart Of Glass" followed by something that sounds frighteningly close to the terrifying oompah-disco that was the soundtrack of a dismal German-tourist-oriented "nitespot" we once found ourselves in in a crap Italian holiday resort in the mid-90s. Janette whispers the word "oompah" quietly, as we've been joined by Norbert, a friendly if quiet German member of the Viking contingent who will prove extremely useful throughout the weekend for finding each other in crowds due to the fact that he's about a head taller than anyone else. We're still sat there when Phoenix come on the main stage - they're French, although I initially mis-identify them as probably Dutch due to their ability to blend not-bad indie-rock elements with soft-rock so cheesy you could grill it on toast.
Eventually, troops reconvene and a few of us head off to the smallest of the four stages, Terminal N, to catch a bit of The View. Unimpressive on the NME tour back in February, the five or so songs we catch here are absolutely fantastic. Not for me to speculate what the young Scots have been hoovering up, but they seem to be playing everything at about twice its regular speed - thus the dreary single that was "Same Jeans" is here a riotous explosion of feelgood punk-pop and "Superstar Tradesmen" gloriously energising. Wish we'd got up off our arses a bit earlier now. Oh well. Time to head down to that amphitheatre thing for Flaming Lips.
Nobody puts on a show quite like Flaming Lips. Not only is this universal recieved wisdom but it's actually true. Aside from that thing (above) there are little groups of Santas and aliens, psychedelic projections which right now look pretty impressive (28 hours later we'll realise they're actually pretty average), the unleashing of loads of massive spherical balloons, the same glitter-cannons The Killers used on their last tour only about five times as many of them, and Wayne Coyne's commanding presence - part wizard, part slightly bonkers college lecturer.
But what about the music? Well they're one of those bands you're supposed to like, aren't they, if you are remotely into music. They've had a couple of decent singles out, but I've just never got round to investigating them further what with such an enormous back catalogue to go at. This is their chance to show me what I've been missing... and sadly it's utterly fucking forgettable. Strip away the Santas and balloons and stage-show and what you're left with is a really average hybrid of college-rock and neo-prog that if it was being played in the Roadhouse by four blokes in jeans would send you to sleep in minutes. Even John and Liam, who'd been so keen to see them and so hopeful of a cracking set they'd considered setting their watch alarms to ensure they left in good time to get a decent spot for Arcade Fire, actually depart the arena when we do, after about five songs. The main stage and its crowd area suddenly seem about five times the size they did when we were watching Editors from near the back, and it takes a bit of effort even a good half hour before their start time to get a decent spot down the front.
Arcade Fire are another band you're supposed to like if you are remotely into music. Even more so than Flaming Lips. People who say they don't like them are often treated with the sort of mixture of disdain and incomprehension that would imply they'd just admitted to being a bubonic plague carrier. It's a minority that the annoying-bastard side of me would quite like to join - aside from the fact that they are pretty fantastic. Or at least their albums are. Yes, both of them - like Interpol and (in a slightly smaller circle) British Sea Power, their second album has had rather too much to live up to. When a band's debut has just appeared out of the blue and blown peoples' brains out through their ears, it's never going to enough to release a follow-up that's just as good - "Neon Bible" is, but without the surprise factor. (Interpol's second wasn't, but nor was it the steaming turkey many claim it to be). Live however they can be rather inconsistent. I've only seen them twice myself - that blinding Manchester debut in early 2005 which was upgraded from Academy 3 to 2 to 1 as the band's stature rocketed (2 to 1 or 3 to 2 are not unknown with rising stars but I've never known anyone before or since make both leaps between booking and fruition) and a really poor reading of much the same set at Liverpool Academy later that year that saw us back in the pub before they'd finished. Alex, Liam, John and Christine have seen them rather more times than that and can equally report on being variously blown away and irritatingly underwhelmed. Which one are we going to get tonight?
From the minute they walk onstage we're smiling, and alternated with sheer open-mouthed amazement this doesn't let up for the full set. There's no trickery and pantomime needed here - a simple stage set decorated with organ pipes, a few neon tubes and the Neon Bible logo, and six people lined up along the front with nothing to hide behind. Not even, at this point, the much revered tracks from the first album which already feel like ingrained classics. Opening with "Keep the Car Running" and "No Cars Go" there is no doubt that they have tackled that difficult stumbling block of coming up with a second salvo of great songs; these were not immediate "hits" with me when I first played the album but to hear them come alive like this confirms their status. Win Butler's voice - the source of much disappointment for those who caught their early 2007 gigs (or indeed missed them, when his throat problems simply became too much to bear) - is restored to its full power as the motley collection of people that is the rest of the band build up towers of sound which latterday imitators such as The Strange Death Of Liberal England (see last week) can only dream of. And down at the front of a crowd which stretches back as far as it physically can in every direction, this already feels like something special. It's difficult to put into words the euphoria which ripples through us all and everyone around us as we dance with the strangers who've become incorporated into our crew's sprawling midst, throwing our arms in the air not because someone's told us to or because we think we should, but because it just happens.
John has a "moment"...
It's pointless me trying to reel off the set-list, too. The only slight lull comes during the track where Regine takes lead vocals; each to their own, but I find her inherently annoying for reasons I can't actually put a finger on; most of the time we're a very long way from her though as she prances about like a six-year-old at her own birthday party - largely due to Liam's, er, "admiration" of some of the other female band members. But overall it's been a good one - and then it just goes up several million gears. "Tunnels", "Power Out", and "Intervention" comprise probably the greatest 15 minutes of live music I have heard in a long time, and as we gradually come back down to earth and stumble away from the stagefront towards the first patch of unoccupied ground we can find to collapse onto, the question is not whether it was one of the best gigs of the year but was in in fact the best? Me I struggle to rate such things (although I usually have a try; hitherto 65daysofstatic's blinding Preston performance in May had topped my mental list and I'd say it was a close call but probably still does); Liam is unquestioning. Minutes later he has upgraded it to the best gig ever.
Where the hell do we go from here?
The answer is into a tent, the hitherto unexplored territory of Terminal S where LCD Soundsystem are due on, well, some time soon. It's not exactly full - there'd been quite a crowd heading for the exits after Arcade Fire; some presumably had largely come for them, others reckoning 2am was a reasonable time to call it a night. But as a champagne bucket is placed onstage (an important part of the set-up, clearly - band members will occasionally help themselves to a glass during the set) and the last line-checks and tests carried out on sequencers, it's starting to get busier. LCD Soundsystem are one of those bands I see at festivals and enjoy but never get round to investigating further, so titles are not going to feature heavily here - but they're irrelevant anyway, as one track segues into another to actually achieve what various glowstick-wielding twats in London have tried but failed - something that feels like a rave, with live instruments and sequencers in perfect synchronicity.
Oh yeah, and a drummer who's almost naked. And of course the uniquely lunatic presence of James Murphy. Said drummer, Pat Mahoney, is nominated early on as "today's band member" which largely seems to involve being introduced and pointed at by Murphy throughout in between the intelligent, off-centre and sometimes genuinely funny streams of lyrics and ad-libs that splatter out of his 21st-century-overloaded mind. We're dancing like we've all necked a bucket of E as opposed to a few too many litres of fizzy Euro-lager. After that Arcade Fire performance it's astonishing anything's even registering, but at the end of the set a quite stunning "Yeah" featuring Murphy, Mahoney and someone else all hammering away simultaneously at drumkits is bordering on the earth-shattering. Sweat is dripping from the roof of the tent and let's just say that when Mahoney finally stands up in his tiny yellow shorts we're quite glad he keeps his back to the crowd. It's pushing four in the morning and it feels like about 10pm.
When the line-ups were published, I'd had the vague thought that much as I can't stand The Scissor Sisters I should apply my own "don't knock what you've never tried" rule, especially as they might actually be tolerable on the end of a 12 hour drinking session; as it is I've just seen two back-to-back sets of a quality I rarely see once in a week never mind twice in three hours, so Nick and I leave the rest of them to it and head off to look for the "special bus service". We can't find it. Nor are there any taxis to be had. Grimly, we check the map - five miles' walk will take us how long? But it's straight down one road, the city's main trunk route Avinguda Diagonal; it should be safe enough and maybe we'll see a taxi before too long. Ten minutes up the road and with a collection of imposing concrete tower blocks ahead we're not so sure and start heading back. There's a small crowd hanging around a bus stop, and a couple of enquiries reveal it's the stop for the regular N7 nightbus. That'll do. The arrival of said bus a few minutes later produces a scrum of frightening proportions; luckily Nick is amongst the first to spot a second N7 pulling up behind it and soon we're aboard; flashing our metro travelcards in a sort of "well, it's worth a try" way we're even happier to discove they are actually valid for this service. Of course being a scheduled bus it takes a somewhat indirect route, which coupled with the fact that Barcelona has traffic lights approximately every three metres which stay red for several minutes at a time, makes for a less than pleasant journey, but it does the job. I see my second 5.30am in three days just before falling into bed.
* * * * *
Now I've always been one of those people who likes to do something besides the gigs when I'm on an away trip, but having dragged ourselves up after four hours' sleep to take advantage of the hotel's breakfast (it's lovely, and with another day's festivaling ahead cramming down as much free food as possible is useful) we fall asleep again til it's time to go out. Down on the tourist strip in Barceloneta, the crew seem to have selected the one restaurant which does not do any vegetarian food at all. They've already ordered though. As we wonder what to do, their food starts arriving. And Alex is spluttering with disgust. At first this appears not entirely unjustified - in front of him sits possibly the most revolting looking dish I've seen since some of our friends were served tubs of lumpy lard in Prague three years ago. It's basically a plate of peas, and not particularly nice looking peas, with a few tiny strips of rather watery pale pink meat flopping around in it. "What the fuck did you order?" asks pretty much everyone. He indicates the offending article on the menu. It says ham and peas. So, no contravention of trade descriptions there then... the remainder of the weekend will be filled with as many pea references as everyone can think of.
The peas will return to haunt Alex for the rest of his days. Oh, OK, yeah, that's actually a picture of Flaming Lips' set last night. Sorry about that.
A few doors down, Nick and I find a restaurant offering a vegetarian paella; expecting a bit of yellow rice with a few limp veg chucked in we're pleasantly surprised to be delivered enormous and delicious home-cooked pans of wonderfulness, of which we try and stuff down as much as we can so we don't have to waste money on butties at the festival. Once again the veggies have triumphed in a supposedly veggie-unfriendly country, although Liam tells us his unpronounceable fish soup was fantastic too. Neither dish contains any peas.
Jam doesn't have a ticket, and can't really afford one; I've texted (sometime Chameleons and British Sea Power sound engineer) Shan Hira who's working for the Chemical Brothers these days to see if he can get her in, but their list's full. However, John and Christine have unused places as they pulled two different contacts for their own passes and both came good - the problem is they require passport ID. Christine has short blonde hair, Jam a full head of waist-length bleached dreadlocks. But they're about the same age, and facially not too dissimilar, and Christine's passport is nearly ten years old... you could grow those dreads in that time couldn't you? Minutes later John and Jam are trying not to laugh too much as they return to us with Jam fully wristbanded up and escape into the crowd before any list-checking jobsworths have chance to notice Christine is here twice.
We're a bit early.
We sit down again in our chosen spot as Badly Drawn Boy continues his quest to play at every festival ever, but as he opens with a brilliant "Born in the UK" I decide to head for the front. It's a short song though and he's done before I get there - I find Alex and Norbert, but can't actually talk because Alex is recording, in between trying to catch Damon's attention. Which takes some time, as the miserable sod only looks up after about the fifth song.
I mean that in the nicest possible way of course; his gentle folky pop works pretty well in the blazing sunshine which feels more like 2pm than 8pm - good, body clock realignment to Summercase time has worked perfectly.
Back up on the main stage, the first of three reunion acts of the day is taking to the stage. As I've frequently stated, I don't generally do reunions although some leave me pleasantly surprised - today we've got James, The Jesus And Mary Chain and OMD. Let's see who manages to keep their dignity intact.
I was never a massive James fan back in the day; they made plenty of decent singles without ever doing it enough for me to bother buying their albums. And what we get is essentially a greatest hits set with the occasional slightly odd choice ("Gold Mother" anyone? Not exactly a crowd pleaser) and one mediocre obligatory new tune thrown in.
My list of favourite James songs spans their whole career, but most of them ("Chain Mail", "Ya Ho", "How Was It For You?", "Run Aground") are conspicuous by their absence - highlights we do get are the ever brilliant "Laid" (still probably one of the filthiest things to crack the top 20) and the stream-of-consciousness stadium-rock-gone-astray of "Sometimes". Last time I saw the latter live was during a Tim Booth solo set at Manchester's Move festival a couple of years back, and as he sang of relentless rain the drizzle which had been, er, drizzling all afternoon suddenly broke into a torrential downpour; tonight the song heralds the only black clouds of the entire weekend. I make a mental note never to go to anything else outdoors where they're playing, but the clouds pass as soon as the song does. Coincidence, of course - but a slightly sinister one. Lacklustre takes on "Sit Down" and "She's A Star" round off a set that's been overall pretty average. File under "obviously doing it for the money". We head into Tent S to watch Jarvis Cocker to find him quite a big draw - this is as close as we can get to him...
...but I'm strangely quite pleased with that photo. Never that much of a Pulp fan (and, of course, they had their golden days during my can't-be-arsed-going-to-gigs patch of the mid 90s) this is my first experience of Jarvis live, and my first hearing in any form of his solo material. Pleasingly it's reminiscent largely of "This Is Hardcore" era Pulp, their creative peak in my opinion (although probably precisely nobody else's) - bitter, wordy and sprawling. And good enough for me not to want to waste several months queueing for the Portaloos. I go behind a bin. I'm classy like that, me.
It strikes me that I'm getting slightly nervous as The Jesus And Mary Chain's slot approaches. Never my favourite band back in the 80s, but they were usually in the top three. A bit of a loner at school I was one day sent to sit next to a new girl in third year maths class; she had The Jesus And Mary Chain written on her pencil case, and within a week we were inseparable best friends. We went through all the 14-18 rites of passage together; including the fanzine that gave me my adopted name. And whilst I wrote probably 80 per cent of the fanzine I couldn't have done it without her; she was the confident one. We kept in touch through my student days and her first years of work, but diverged in adulthood as she settled into marriage and children somewhere in Northamptonshire and I basically reverted to being a teenager. I still think of her sometimes but I'm not sure if too much water's gone under the bridge. And when people question why my music taste tends equally towards pretty tunes, thundering drone-rock and discordantly visceral noise-blasts, the roots of all three lie in those peerless first three albums. They were never my favourite band, but in a way probably had more influence than any other on the person I am today. I was too young to have caught their legendary mid 80s 15-minute riot sets but I saw a few good gigs at both Internationals, the Free Trade Hall and the Apollo - and I'm crossing everything I've got that they're not about to piss my memories away.
It's like the last 15 years never happened. Neither Reid has aged as much as they should by rights have done; William's waistband's expanded somewhat but the black nest of hair is still present and correct; Jim could (from this distance at least) have teleported in from 1990. They start with "You Trip Me Up" and it sounds exactly as it did, even down to the sheets of glorious feedback William unleashes across his brother's half whispered vocals. It's outstanding, and I find myself throwing my body into a small Spanish moshpit (of about six people) and singing my heart out; "Head On" is next (I wonder how many of the younger Pixies-bred alt.kids here realise Frank et al didn't actually write it?); then there's just hit after hit after hit. Some in the personal sense, some in the genuine chart sense. "Sidewalking". "Happy When it Rains". You forget just how many outstanding songs this band had. I'm particularly thrilled to hear "Between Planets" which I don't think was even a single. I've hardly listened to them in years but I know every last word - but then you do, don't you, with the bands you loved in your mid-teens; you didn't have that many records then, so they all got regular run-outs. I'm not sure if this is the case these days, as the skint schoolkids of today have most of the history of music at their internet fingertips - but me, I could reel off lyrics from the filler tracks off The Stranglers' less impressive albums probably more easily than I could more recent and far better albums. No wonder I struggle to remember useful everyday stuff when my head's crammed up with music.
They fuck up "Some Candy Talking" but it wouldn't be a Mary Chain gig without a bit of fumbling incompetence; it's more than made up for by hearing songs such as "Blues From A Gun" and "Reverence" which I'd actually forgotten existed. By the end I'm as elated and exhausted I can hardly even walk back to the meeting spot where Jam's had to retreat as the feedback wasn't doing her tinnitus any favours. File under "probably doing it for the money but who cares when it sounds this good"; emotionally I'm flashing back seven years to that first Chameleons reunion gig whilst warning myself that I don't really have a vacancy for another can't-miss band; luckily I can now recognise post-blinding-gig euphoria for what it was. I'll go and see them again, but I've changed a lot in those seven years too; the present and future excite me more than the past. But that's three amazing sets I've seen this weekend - I could go home now and I'd be more than happy. But aside from Jam and a brief glimpse of John and Liam as I dashed to the bar for water I've hardly seen any of my mates all day, and they're bound to all be watching OMD.
Them and, it seems, most of the world. The tent's full, and whilst Norbert's head is visible over the crowd down the front we can't get near them; I don't want to be crushed in anyway, so we find a spot at the side. Andy McCluskey has also aged well; a little heavier maybe and with hair grey-flecked. A familiar tinny, bleepy synth intro fills the tent. They're starting with "Enola Gay"? Are they insane? It's brilliant of course, but where are they going to go from here? An hour or so later we realise that this bold move paid off by getting the crowd going, and that the band had more than enough genuis pop hits up their billowing sleeves to sustain it. Like most of the Viking crew (Liam of course excepted) Jam's a little older than me, and grew up with this music. She's dancing like the intervening years never happened and looking ecstatic. And so are we, the exhaustion of a few minutes ago forgotten. In front of us, some Spanish kids who weren't even born when these singles were hits are giving it loads; to our left, an older man with grey hair who was probably out of his teens by the time of the band's first single is doing likewise. And the same is happening from the front to the back and (as I discover when nature calls me behind the bins again) outside the edges.
Things reach a peak with a stunning "Joan Of Arc" and "Maid Of Orleans", which are followed by probably the loudest and most sustained mid-set applause I've ever seen or heard. Andy McCluskey can't believe it; almost breaking down himself with emotion at the amazing reception afforded these near-quarter-century-old singles and the spotlights are turned onto the rapturous crowd. We'll forgive him the rubbish "Talking Loud And Clear" on the grounds that he possibly knows himself it's crap, choosing this moment to have a sit down ("I can't help it, I'm old") although he manages even whilst seated to continue his trademark ridiculous arm-dance. And with one of their greatest moments employed to kick the thing off, the other one comes into play to ensure we go out on a high - the tinny, bleepy synths are back at the forefront for "Electricity". Not only a fantastic set, but all the more so for being an unexpected highlight. Probably doing it for the money. And why not - a glance at the current Manchester Academy listings reveals a whole host of lesser bands (Dodgy? Foreigner!!? Kula bloody Shaker!!??!) doing just that. Did you guess correctly who the four festival highlights were? I have to say if someone had told me before we went that four bands on that list would absolutely blow me away I'd have struggled to guess which.
Back in the main arena, the Kaiser Chiefs are about to start. It's two o'clock in the bloody morning. In early 2005 the band opened for the NME tour and as fans of headliners The Killers we did a few dates, where the unadulterated joy and energy of this pretty much unknown (to us) band was great fun, and tonight's opening "Every Day I Love You Less And Less" was one of the songs we liked back then. Tonight it just sounds tired, bloated; everything the band have sadly become in those two and a half years. Calling a song "Everything is Average Nowadays" is basically asking for trouble when it's a fair description of the band's "development" - before long we can't even be arsed listening to any more and head down to the amphitheatre stage to go and annoy Shan while he sets up for the Chemical Brothers. He's telling us about the band's new toy, the Stealth Screen, a revolutionary transparent LED net screen which can present photo-quality images when required whilst remining almost invisible the rest of the time - and it's true, we can see two massive lighting rigs behind it. Those who are impressed with such things, check out the only time you will ever see a link from this blog to the undoubtedly fascinating "LEDs Magazine". He also slips us the tasty news that he's been approached to do the remastering on the Chameleons' "Script Of the Bridge" 25th anniversary reissue - it couldn't be in better hands, and remember where you heard it first... in the distance, the Kaisers are predicting a riot. A couple of hours later trying to get on the night bus we discover they're not for off the mark...
The arena starts to fill up, and the lighting rigs flicker into life with the first beats; seconds later the screen springs into action to gasps of disbelief. Images seem to be appearing in mid air above the shadowy figures of the duo and their equipment. Impossible to capture on my camera (we're a long way back), this is a pretty ground-breaking audio-visual experience.
Then it just gets madder. "Do It Again" sees flickering photo-realistic clown faces pop up across the space above the band, nouthing the words of the sample. The lads in front of us have clearly had something stronger than fizzy Euro-lager and where seconds before they were jumping like nutters, they're trying to work out what the hell is going on. Later a projected journey through a black and white forest scene is punctuated by lasers which seem to come from between the trees. Retreating back up to our high vantage point for one last blast, we look down over the now packed amphitheatre, the most innovative light show we've ever seen, the twinkling of a guiding light in the sea behind it and the stars above. It's still 22 degrees.
This is how all festivals should feel; few actually do. So many times I've seen bands I know and love play below par sets on festival stages - it's hard to get your sound just right when you're on at 4pm and the last band came off at ten to; to chop a 75 minute set down to the required 45 and still leave in enough fan favourites to satisfy the hardcore who've made the effort to be there but enough hits that you don't lose the more general crowd. But here everyone gets a full length set with hour long gaps on each stage between bands to get the set-up right - it's been more like watching a series of gigs than a festival. Time to leave before the rush, but with thoughts already of returning next year.
Some attention to transport options might have helped though; a few more people are aware of the N7 tonight and the bus stop if crowded. There are at least three buses' worth of people here, and when one arrives we dash to its door. the driver then decides, for god knows what reason, to accelerate away and stop again ten yards down the road. We make it close to the door again - and he does it again, the bastard. This time we are crushed in the scrum and pushed aside. It's at times like this when a little British style queueing wouldn't go amiss, but it's never going to happen. As the bus departs and the unlucky crowd retreats to the pavement we note Norbert's no longer with us and for maybe the only time in my life I wish I was a six foot five German. And we wait. We haven't seen our own Welsh Beast all day - Janette ran into him during the Chemicals' set where he was on his fourth E - but as luck would have it (or not) we seem to have acquired another one, a Reni-hatted raver from Swansea who attempts to lift the spirits of the frustrated gathering with a loud version of the entire "Home And Away" theme tune. It doesn't work. Half an hour passes, and more people arrive. There are more here now than there were before the first bus came - how are we ever going to get on the next? Somehow Nick forces himself through the door and drags me aboard... and relax. It's once again five thirty in the morning. The journey back to the city centre takes even longer than last night, enlivened by Swansea Raver leading the back half of the bus in a demented medley including "Can't Take My Eyes Off You", several Swansea City terrace chants and Eddy Grant's "Electric Avenue" renamed "Diagonal Avenue". A few of the locals look rather bemused and I'm briefly mildly ashamed to be British until I remember that every last person on this bus had to fight like a velociraptor on crack to have got on it. Jam of course has no such problems - anyone else might question the wisdom of riding the ten miles home on a pushbike at 5am after considerable quantities of beer, but this is Jam, this is what she does, and she'll be fine. The sun's coming up as we stagger into our hotel just after six.
Sunday and time to go home. Standing in the hotel lobby we are a collection of sunburn and hangovers. Still, at least we haven't brought a portable gazebo on holiday with us, like the woman currently checking in. This time the airport bus is treated to Alex's Best Of The Human League DVD - a collection surprisingly larger than the title would imply. We are frankly stunned by the video to lesser-known single "Louise", which is one of the most demented examples of 80s video insanity any of us have ever seen. To the point where, if you have a minute or four spare, you really need to check it out - it gets particularly stupid from about half way through. >> http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XIPNBIwqZNY We're sure there's a deep meaningful story in there somewhere but we're not sure exactly what it's on about.
Back at the airport, there's a woman with a small dog that looks like a squirrel, dressed in a Superman outfit. The dog, not the woman. The time for boarding comes and goes with no sign of a plane; eventually it appears, arriving back in Liverpool just in time for us to miss our bus home, but we catch the next one. It's still raining in Manchester. The Welsh Beast apparently got to the airport two hours before his flight, and still managed to miss it.
The next day on Amazon I right the wrongs of previous festivals and order both LCD Soundsystem albums before I forget - the site tells me "People who bought these items also bought... Arcade Fire... the Chemical Brothers..." - seems like we weren't the only ones who had a brilliant holiday.
