They can put ducks on sticks but the good times have to end (End of the Road II)

Published on Wed 23 Sep 2009

A few of us went to see the world premiere (!) of "'Sno Angel, Winging it", a film about Howe Gelb's tour with a gospel choir last night at the Arts Picturehouse, followed by a very entertaining Q&A with the man himself and the director. The film itself was excellent, and really, really made me want to go on a little tour again. Or at least play a bit more. Fortunately I've got a gig with the guy from The Bluetones at The Portland tomorrow night to either satisfy that a bit, or put me off playing again, depending on how it goes. I wasn't really familiar with Gelb's work, but I think I'll check it out now - he's very cool indeed.

 

I spent most of the weekend actually doing some mixing and stuff (I'm aiming to get a short thing done by the end of the year so I can start on a new proper one - I've got some new songs coming that I think might be ok. I'm sure I won't), and watching the now weekly Red Arrows display from my window.

There was a Vulcan bomber too (very big, and very loud) and there were WWII planes on Saturday during the football - everyone sang the Dambusters theme as they flew over. It was pretty great.

Anyway, more of End of the Road. We were up bright and early (and, because it was camping, hangover free) on the Saturday for a breakfast burrito (nice, but I find the juxtaposition of unheated salsa and hot potato/bacon mix a bit weird) and a wander until The Leisure Society came on at midday. They were perfect for a sunny lunchtime - poppy and cheerful (though, 2 ukuleles? really?) - but I'll not be investigating further I don't think. There was just time for an unsuccessful wishing well hunting expedition before Darren Hayman, who was pretty disappointing to be honest. I really loved it last year when he played Hefner stuff (not that I knew any of it) but the new songs aren't really my thing. They don't seem as poignant as the older stuff and I'm not sure they're even especially clever. Maybe I'm just not especially clever.

We left about halfway through to go and see Motel Motel who had impressed on the CD on the way, and they had some moments of crunching brilliance (essentially whenever the overly full of himself nasal singer wasn't singing - the other guys are all ace).

When they'd finished we went back to the main stage to give The Low Anthem another go, and I enjoyed them much more, not least because they played "Charlie Darwin" really early on and we left after that to go and watch The Boy Least Likely To, who I liked a lot, despite their outrageous tweeness and George Michael cover.

The Broken Family Band were next and were excellent - one of the top 3 sets of the weekend I reckon (and easily the best thing up to this point), I still find it odd that a "local" band (even though I know full well they've outgrown that now) are one of the best live acts around - I'm pretty gutted they're stopping at the end of next month.

We sat in the sun for a while outside the small tent listening to First Aid Kit (they sound great on paper - teenage Swedish sisters singing in harmony, but in practice sounded like they were trying a bit hard to me, admittedly at a distance, through a tent) before going to check out Malcolm Middleton, who I've heard a lot about over the last couple of years but never seen. He didn't sound as miserable as I'd been led to believe - less Cohen, more Ballboy. I'd like to see him somewhere smaller (or be nearer the front) because the sound wasn't great (though it was generally much better in the Big Top than last year).

After some pretty amazing jerk chicken we suffered through Alela Diane to get position for Okkervil River. To be fair, any given minute of her is pretty good, but I was digging my fingernails into my hands after a couple of identical songs about how big mountains are or something, and there's no excuse for playing Matty F. Groves in this day and age - when I am king it will an offence on the same scale as Streets of London. Still, I enjoyed it more than last time I saw her.

Anyway, it was worth it because we were right up the front for Okkervil, and they were absolutely fantastic. So much energy, enthusiasm, and great, great songs. Lyrically I think Will Sheff is way ahead of pretty much everyone else out there (though if anyone thinks different, I'd really like to hear who is). The beer was flowing nicely by this point and I did a nice lot of yelling.

Fleet Foxes were up next on the main stage and the thought of watching them for an hour and a half was actually making me angry (Severine did watch them and said they were very boring and didn't play the two songs she liked until the end), so we went to see Efterklang, who'd been bumped up the bill a bit becaue The Horrors pulled out. Now, granted, I was a bit drunk, but I thought they were amazing. So intense, and so different to anything I could ever imagine making. I've listened to the albums a bit since and didn't like them so much, but live I was completely blown away. They're playing in London with a symphony orchestra next month - I don't know whether to go, or if it'll be ruined by unrealistic expectations.

We saw a bit of Charlie Parr in the small tent, who was a hell of a player, but I'm not into blues really, and then stumbled across Robin Ince leading some comedy round the library round the tree. I was really quite drunk by this point, but I'm pretty sure it was very funny indeed. Especially a rambling story about how jellyfish don't actually attack people from Leeds on account of not having a central nervous system. And a man dressed as a lion doing some dancing. Lion dancing. See? See?

There was still time to accidentally see Darren Hayman again in the small tent, followed by Motel Motel again (much better at close quarters because you couldn't hear the singer so much, though you could still see him unfortunately - he has one of those faces...) before we stumbled back to the tent, talking about how good they'd be if they got a different singer, and collapsed.

It was a good day. I was hoping to fit Sunday into this episode too, but I have to go out, and it would've made it very, very long. One day I'll catch up with life again.