If they push that button, your ass gotta go

Published on Wed 24 Nov 2010

A few of us went to see Midlake at The Junction the other night. It was a gig that divided opinion, with some people thinking they were inspirational and some finding it really boring. Every time I've seen them before I've not expected much and then really enjoyed it. I'm not sure why I forget that I like them in between times - probably from listening to the albums. Even this time I was more excited about going to Nando's before the show. Anyway, I did enjoy them a lot, though it was a little lacklustre compared to their set in the theatre next door in January. I guess they've been touring a while. It's also pretty obvious that they're jazz musicians playing at doing folk/country (3 flautists out of 7 people - really? And that's not to say the others can't all play it too) and I can see why that might irritate, and there's no exucse for any instrumental section to last more than 8 bars in this day and age. Nobody likes watching guitar solos. Apart from November Rain. Probably the real highlight (other than maybe "Head Home") was when they did a Grandaddy song with the guy from Grandaddy (who'd been the opening act, and was really good for a few songs - I think I'd have really enjoyed the first 4 he played, whichever order he'd played them in), which is interesting.

Also interesting was the other support act, John Grant. He even divided my opinion by mixing funny, clever lyrics ("I feel just like Winona Ryder in that movie about vampires, when she couldn't get that accent right, and neither could that other guy") with really awful ones ("I wanted to change the world, but I couldn't even change my underwear..."). Maybe there's not such a distance between funny and awful. He was completely deadpan, so it was impossible to tell if he was serious or not. I think he may have been. Some of the synth sounds illicited the same feeling. Either way it was memorable, but he seems pretty damaged and afterwards I felt a little bit like I did when I saw Daniel Johnston. I read up about him the next day and he does seem to have had a tough time of it.

So... I thought I'd finally write about The End of the Road Festival, easily the nicest festival in the UK. The journey there was riddled with errors and bad luck. First of all the National Rail website flat out lied about when you can use network railcards, so we didn't get to Ciaran's house until 2 hours after we intended to. Then the front of Ciaran's car fell off in Sainsbury's car park, just after we stocked up on alcohol, cookies, kinder eggs, alcohol and monkey nuts. Luckily he'd brought some gaffer tape, for some reason. In case I snored maybe.

Then we changed our route because Andy had told us about a traffic jam, but roadworks in the Clapham area meant that there was a diversion that took us to the location of the supposed traffic jam, 20 minutes later than we'd have been there otherwise. Then Ciaran got the letters 'A' and 'M' confused and we nearly ended up in Portsmouth. Things went well until just after Stonehenge, when the turning we needed simply wasn't there. Or possibly Ciaran and I were both fiddling with the bottles of coke we'd just got from a garage. None of this would have mattered if there hadn't been a band that Severine wanted to see on at 4pm. She just made it. Ciaran and I had a good time pitching the shitter (see last year's End of the Road) in reasonably high winds, and I realised that the tent that Andy and I went to Glastonbury in in 1998 that I'd brought for Severine to use was really starting to be past its best. Our work done we sat and had a beer for a while, before going over to see the Mountain Goats, who we very nearly missed due to some programme misreading. We got there just as "You or your memory" was starting. They played at the same festival 2 years ago but that time they got off on the wrong foot by breaking a string in the first song, and never really recovered. This time was exceptional. It's funny how much of a singalong "No Children" is, considering. "I hope you die. I hope we ALL DIE". I love how dark all words are. It just goes to show that if the music is upbeat hardly anyone even notices what you're singing. Not that The Mountain Goats are nearly as popular as they should be. If it hadn't been for Wilco on the last day, they'd have been far and away the best thing I saw at the whole festival. To be honest, it made everyone else a bit of an anticlimax.

After a wander round I watched Here We Go Magic for a bit, who I saw at Primavera, but now, as then, I can't really remember anything about them other than what they look like. Headliners, Modest Mouse were ok for a bit, but I couldn't take how out of tune everything was after a while, so I had a wander round the woods, caught the end of the Edwyn Collins song (you know the one), and tried and failed to get a game of table tennis, before retiring.

The next day, after a breakfast burrito, the crossword, and a small amount of messing about with the toys from the Kinder eggs

Ciaran and I watched Anvil at the cinema tent. It's a great film. Funny, sad, uplifting. For anyone who doesn't know, it's about a Canadian metal band who nearly made it in the 80s and were still plugging away into their 50s, doing terrible jobs and playing in bars. The main guy came from a family of lawyers and bankers and was obviously really bright, and the drummer who was a lifelong friend was a gifted, if slightly misguided, painter (a turd in a toilet bowl?). The film started off with them being given the chance to tour Europe, and documented everything that went wrong along the way (missed trains, a few disappointing crowds, not being paid). It was amusing, but I found it hard to feel too sorry for them about it all - if I got the chance to go round Europe for 6 weeks playing to what seemed like 50 people a time, it'd be amazing. The second half of the film focused on them making a new record with the producer that worked with them on their almost-breakthrough album in the 80s. It seemed to me like he'd fallen on hard times and was taking advantage, but they were all very excited about it... The most moving parts were when you saw the guys in the band with their families and the effect that it all had on them. One thing that struck me was that they still seemed to be a really good band (as far as stupid 80s metal goes) - it's not like they were deluded back in the day when people liked that kind of thing. It'd really highlight the dangers of not knowing when to stop, if the success of the film hadn't apparently given Anvil the break they needed.

When it was over we dashed across to the tipi tent to watch a bit of Eagleowl, who played a couple of shows on the mini mini tour I did with Small Town Boredom a couple of years ago. It seems like they're doing pretty well these days which is nice.

We returned to the tent to recharge our bags with beer, and missed Phosphorescent, who I heard good things about from Andy. We got back in time for Deer Tick, who reminded me of a less good Dr Dog with even more meaningless lyrics. I wasn't a fan.

The Unthanks aren't really the kind of thing I generally like either (altogether too much sailing, consumption and 18th century murder) but were excellent - the kind of spot on harmony singing that gives you tingles (even the a capella one was brilliant) and a nice big sound when the band came in. I even enjoyed the clog dancing. The only fly in the ointment was the odd presence of a multi-instrumentalist who couldn't really play anything (particularly the drums) but seemed to think he was very important. Presumably he's dating someone in the band.

Iron and Wine was a pleasant surprise, after being a big disappointment in Sweden a couple of years back. He'd done away with the awful jazz piano player and weird guy playing steel drum (and almost everyone else) and was much better for it. The standout song was admittedly a cover, but it made me want to check out more of his records. Shame the only one on Spotify is the one with the jazz keyboard player and steel drums.

We watched a bit of Yo La Tengo, though they didn't make it easy on us by playing a 10 minute song consisting of the line "A nuclear war, if they push that button yo ass gotta go, and what you gonna do without an ass" interspersed with noodling. I actually really liked it but liked not being on my own more, so we watched some of Black Mountain, who seemed to be at the wrong festival to me. Caribou were the last of the main acts that I saw, and I thought they were excellent, though I've struggled with the recordings I've listened to since. Ciaran and I stayed up a bit, hanging around the flashing dance floor in the woods and seeing some terrible brother and sister duo from New York in the tipi tent. The brother visibly shrank every time his sister sang (or said) anything. I didn't catch their name. Probably for the best.

I'll talk about the last day next time...