Review from JT Wilson
Friday
One of the advantages of Indietracks being held at the delightful Midlands Railway Centre is that it has a large barn which they use as a second stage. This means that if the weather becomes too impossible, they can always retreat indoors with minimal inconvenience. On Friday, as it throws down with rain all afternoon, they take no chances and move indoors for the whole of the first night. I will take on the arduous task of reviewing every single band who played on Friday. Don’t expect it every night.
Kid Canaveral are a sensible choice for an opener: in many ways, they serve as a condensed version of the festival’s sound, without threatening to overshadow anyone higher up the bill. They’re a mixed-gender quintet who’ve played the festival before, and sound like a C86-era version of Frightened Rabbit. They’re afforded an epic quality by the natural reverb of the barn, which gives everything a Phil Spector feel (for better or for worse, as we’ll see).
Chorusgirl, in their white T-shirt and black trousers, have something of a T-Birds look to them. While they twang in a vaguely 50s way as well, they also incorporate 70s punk vibes and 90s shoegazey noise. Would it surprise you to learn one of them was playing a Fender Jaguar? Previewing tracks from their forthcoming album (not named), Chorusgirl are just okay tonight: competent but not terribly exciting.
Martha stole the show at 2015’s Indietracks with their anthemic, empathetic power-pop, and with another album under their belts since then, they’re elevated to tonight’s main attraction. Accompanied by lights that make them look like the Utah Saints or something, they sprint through 19 tracks in an hour, from early single ‘Sycamore’ to last year’s album peak ‘Do Nothing’. They’re not helped by audio gremlins throughout, but the audience stay with it, singing JC’s lines on the almost-perfect ‘Present, Tense’ and literally carrying the band during crowd-surfing encore ‘St Paul’s (Westerberg Comprehensive)’. The band finish their set with Semisonic’s ‘Closing Time’: the opening bars made it sound like ‘All Star’ by Smash Mouth, so imagine my disappointment/joy when it wasn’t.
Saturday
It’s dry when the festival opens for Day 2, and the first band on the outdoor stage is another Glaswegian act, The Pooches. Vaguely similar to Indietracks faves Allo Darlin’ and Indietracks organisers Pocketbooks, they play a mimsy indie which positions them perfectly as Indietracks openers, but which might need another dimension to move up the card. Mind you, given that one of the songs is named after a Magic: The Gathering move, maybe that dimension will be a malignant supernatural one like in ‘Stranger Things’.
The sun comes out, appropriately, for upbeat Catalonian septet Cola Jet Set, whose lyrics are all in Spanish but whose vibrant performance transcends linguistic boundaries. Sounding roughly like a Spanish-language, female-fronted Beach Boys, I can imagine these being Gruff Rhys’ favourite band. Shout out to Felipe, the band’s lead guitarist and bandleader, who looks like Patton Oswalt in a middle manager’s striped shirt.
We switch to the indoor stage for yet another band from Glasgow, the reverb-drenched TeenCanteen, who play swooning, synth-heavy, harmony-laden miniature epics. Diminutive singer Carla Easton, curling her lip at every high note, is the focal point, but the band seem to be having a lovely time up there, none more apparent as when they do a woozy cover of TLC’s ‘Waterfalls’ that sandwiches in the rap from All Saints’ ‘I Know Where It’s At’.
Back outdoors, Chester’s Peaness add choppy Talking Heads-y new wave flavouring and Veruca Salt-ed grunge touches to their own brand of harmony-based indie-pop, but their songs aren’t for everyone: it seems that, inspired by Peaness’ 2017 single ‘Oh George’, a mum asked them for a photo with her son George, who was having none of it. When the band recount this onstage, the mum waves, but George starts crying. The personable all-female trio display potential for upward mobility both on record and today.
Peaness
Did I mention Indietracks has a stage in a restored church which only seats 100? I didn’t? Okay, well it does, and due to the capacity it’s a battle to get in there at any point during the weekend. We get in, however, for Manchester duo Crywank, who are a real change of pace compared to almost anything else on the bill. Going from the festival’s typical whimsical indie to Crywank’s intense, agonised acoustic grindcore is like enjoying a lovely sauna bathed in reverb and harmonies and then suddenly being thrown into an icy pool. It’s a refreshing change but a bracing one. Most of the attention around the band focuses on James Clayton’s desperately bleak lyrics, but drummer Dan Watson gives an unbelievable performance here.
Normal service is restored, I guess, indoors with MJ Hibbett & The Validators, who have a sort of homely wit as if Harry Hill had decided to form a band rather than becoming a comedian. The set today mostly focuses on ageing and/or festivals: a smart decision, as ’20 Things To Do Before You’re 30’ is played a bit too late for most of this audience, your current scribe included. Hibs might have been better in the church as well: the barn’s reverb hoovers up most of Mark’s vocals, in a band mainly notable for his lyrics.
You know how Scritti Politti were originally this really abrasive, Gang of Four deal doing songs like ‘Skank Bloc Bologna’, and then went really poppy and sounded like Prince on stuff like ‘Wood Beez’? Can you imagine how awkward a set during the transition might have sounded? Well, you’ve kind of got Lucky Soul, who’ve reformed recently, but have decided to go down a Daft Punk-ish disco route while still playing their old Belle and Seb-esque twee indie. It’s very polished, at a level rarely seen here, but also kind of bland, as if they’re here because Derby Pride got cancelled.
Hiding unplugged in the merch tent are ONSIND, doing an acoustic set with no microphones as a road test for a pair of new songs from the next album. The new songs are hard to gauge in such an intimate setting – the volume is so low it’s as if it was streamed off a phone – but the bookends ‘Pokemon City Limits’ and ‘Heterosexuality is a Construct’ go down as well as ever. One of the audience is wearing a Vote Conservative T-shirt, ironically or otherwise: hard to know if he enjoyed Pokemon City Limits and its chorus/punchline “Never trust a Tory”. (Other acts playing the merch tent over the weekend include electronic dream-pop act Deerful, who plays sat on the floor with a miniature keyboard.)
Headlining the indoor stage, Joanna Gruesome have had a line-up change since their last appearance, now wielding three guitars and two vocals. Imagine if Slowdive and Bikini Kill had done a split 7” back in 1991, and imagine if due to a manufacturing error, all of the songs played at the same time: that’s roughly what Joanna Gruesome sound like. They’re still weirdly uncharismatic though; they’re energetic and aggressive during their songs, but almost catatonic between them. Yeah they’re still young, but they’ve been playing gigs for years now, and they’re headlining this stage. Their gigs will seem loads more dynamic if they can more successfully marry up these elements.
It’ll probably have been beaten by Justin Bieber or some shit now, but at one point, the “semi-legendary” The Wedding Present held the record for most Top 30 singles in one year, thanks to some skulduggery where they released one single every month and charted every time. One of those went Top 10, and they were still having Top 40 hits as late as 2005. Yet they’re not really regarded as a big name from the era in the same way as some of their contemporaries: nobody lists them as an influence, they have no indie disco classics, and none of their albums are ever on Greatest of All Time lists. They feel like a legacy headliner, maybe better suited to a Sunday closing slot, in a way that maybe The Smiths or Pixies wouldn’t. Indietracks, however, has always kept faith in Gedge, maybe trying to single-handedly elevate the band’s reputation; this being his second Saturday headline slot in three years.
While Dave’s drily ironic self-aggrandisement isn’t particularly appealing (“I forgot how many good songs we did!”), luckily the band’s aggressive jangle is. Maybe it’s because late-80s/early-90s sounds are hip again, but it sounds pretty fresh, with Sonic Youth-ish ‘Kennedy’ a highlight. Perhaps the unexpected exuberance is due to the band’s latest line-up: mostly recruited in the last 12 months, both the guitarist and bassist look younger than the Weds’ 30-year-old album ‘George Best’.
The Wedding Present
Sunday
We woke up to news that the Y Not Festival had been cancelled due to adverse weather conditions, despite it being in the same county and the sun beating down. While the news seeping out of the festival was at Fyre Festival levels of pandemonium, Indietracks just got on with it; it wasn’t even the rainiest Indietracks!
The first thing we catch is Daniel Versus The World in the Church, where he thanks Indietracks for being “the queerest it’s been” and making an effort at better representation (the 2017 festival also seemed more racially diverse too). This is the second time I’ve seen DVTW playing a Sunday afternoon set at a festival, but it’s a position which suits his glittery Stephen Trask-ish piano pop songs, and the trio line-up (there’s a rhythm section too) works fine in the intimate surroundings of the Church stage. He reminds me of Fiona Apple: perhaps he needs a Jon Brion production.
Most of the booze at Indietracks is served in cans, and these cans have to go to the recycling, so they get a steamroller to crush the cans flat every few hours. The can-crushing steamroller always draws a good crowd. There’s something oddly satisfying about watching it being faced with a massive pile of cans and smashing through them all: such an inspirational character. We caught the 13.50 set, but I’m sure the sets elsewhere in the weekend were not dramatically different. Maybe it’s like seeing The Fall, where it’s always different but always stays the same.
Luby Sparks are an impossibly young Tokyo quintet who, according to one interview, are playing their first ever gig outside of Japan! So shoegaze that even the drummer looks at his shoes for the entire gig, the band’s boy-girl vocal exchanges and blissed-out noise is like being guided through a busy city while on opiates. These are really pretty, both to look at and to listen to.
Luby Sparks
We remain indoors for Cowtown, an aggressively energetic Hookworms offshoot who take cues from Krautrock and post-punk and whose 12-track, 22-minute album ‘Paranormal Romance’ came out last year. The Leeds trio’s high-octane, Korg-driven performance ends with the guitarist holding his guitar to the sky, which is hilariously mirrored by the keyboardist and even the drummer (holding the hi-hat up!). The band’s boisterous drones are more fun and melodic than Hookworms were when I saw them.
Outdoors, The Orchids are playing. They’re a quintet from Glasgow who released a bunch of records on Sarah Records in the 1980s and have now reformed. You already know what they sound like, right? No? Augmented by two percussionists for this show, the band’s jangly Triffids/Go-Betweens sound is fine for the last of the Sunday afternoon sunshine.
Grace Petrie is completely unaccompanied on the Indoor Stage, but fills it completely with her passionate protest songs. After touring around for years, and being spurned by the Guardian and by Whitby Folk Festival among others, Petrie’s developed a self-aware, ironic streak even when trying to coax the audience into participation (“that’s about 52% of you keen, which as we know is an overwhelming majority…”). A sudden downpour causes Petrie’s audience to literally double as everyone rushes indoors, essentially creating a captive audience for the Leicester singer-songwriter. Petrie’s stuff, however, warranted a decent audience anyway.
The inclement weather causes a temporary stage reshuffle, and forces Monkey Swallows the Universe into the indoor stage for their “last ever” gig. The odds are against the minimal folk quintet: they’re chucked onto the indoor stage with essentially no soundcheck and have to follow Grace Petrie’s rambunctious songs to the disinterest of the crowd. Using instruments like the glockenspiel, recorder and double bass, this must be the most low-key quintet ever, so quiet that they’re virtually inaudible at times. But it’s hard to know how this would have translated to the main stage either: another band who in hindsight were probably better off in the Church.
The forced line-up switches cause a few awkward schedule pile-ups so we forego The Wave Pictures (who suddenly start on the main stage with no pre-amble as soon as it stops raining) to catch sullen Hole-ish duo Skinny Girl Diet, who play super-heavy tracks off the aptly-named ‘Heavyflow’ despite some technical issues (a malfunctioning distortion pedal) and the stripped-down line-up. A Karen O-style echo effect is applied three tracks in, which suits the band well, oddly enough.
Lilith Ai
Back in the Church, Lilith Ai is playing with a slightly reduced line-up with her drummer on compassionate leave, but her songs are strong enough to captivate even under these circumstances. They’re melodic and soulful enough to convince in this environment and gritty and authentic enough to fit more urban bills: essentially, Lilith can go in any direction she wants from here. ‘Riot Revolution’, played with a drum machine and digressing into breakbeat-driven electronica, showcases her potential as a frontwoman unencumbered by the acoustic guitar she plays for most of the set. Ai got a lot of Twitter attention for this set, and rightly so.
Effervescent London trio The Tuts peculiarly announced on Facebook that they were headlining Indietracks on Sunday, but are on earlier than Cate Le Bon and play the second stage. Whatever their thinking, the effort involved in their set indicates that they’ve decided to treat the gig as a headline slot, either to upstage Le Bon or to announce their own potential for the role. It works, too: this is probably the most memorable set of the weekend. Introduced by a vicar in front of 4ft balloons, entering in bridal gowns, playing a cover of ‘Wannabe’, the band are going all-out here. There’s the occasional dud: a song with the refrain “give us something worth voting for” seems like an unfashionable opinion in 2017, and the new song is more Tuts self-mythologising in what sounds like an unsuccessful attempt to emulate Beyonce. On the encore (!!!), though, the various parts coalesce: singer/guitarist Nadia talks openly about her struggles with depression before the vicar comes back on to marry the band to themselves (because if you can’t love yourself…) and the band bring out an assembly of pals for an acoustic cover of Linkin Park’s ‘In The End’. They’ve always been a fun proposition live, but this was a statement of intent.
Top that, Cate Le Bon. Wearing a black pyjama suit and holding her guitar like a machine gun, Le Bon’s superior quirk would have caught the eye had she been lower on the bill, but this is the death slot for her and her band. There’s a difference between headlining your own gig and headlining a festival, a difference that Le Bon gives little indication of understanding: she treats it as just another gig, albeit one of the last for the band before they go to record the follow-up to ‘Crab Day’ (which is her newest release, despite being fifteen months old). It’s a bummer, as while it may not be a festival headline show, the music is still pretty good: a fringe associate of final-days Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci, Le Bon has a similarly skewed take on indie-pop as they did, a cross between John Cale’s chamber-pop and Canterbury scene lysergics, a sort-of psychedelia indigenous to Wales (seicedelia’r?). The set finishes with ‘What’s Not Mine’, which takes the ‘Mr Blue Sky’ chug to its logical, fatal conclusion. And that’s it: there isn’t even an encore.
So that was Indietracks, a fine mix of vintage Peel-era indie outfits, modern-day whimsy, energetic girl and/or queer outfits, and Crywank; a festival which courted a younger crowd of grrls while retaining the nostalgia crowd it’s always played to. It’ll be interesting to see which direction they go in next year, but with its eclectic line-up and affordable price, Indietracks is usually worth a look.
(If you’re going for a headliner from the Peel era next year, see if Urusei Yatsura or Gorky’s Zygotic Mynci will reform and you’ll guarantee my ticket.)
Cate Le Bon
Like what you see? Why not stick around and check out the other articles and interviews!
Don’t forget to follow Birthday Cake For Breakfast on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter!
Birthday Cake For Breakfast 