2009年 07月 28日 火曜日 08:40

Sun 26 Jul – The 1-2-3-4 Shoreditch Festival

http://www.onthewire.info/1234%20Shoreditch%20Now/slides/Patrick%20Wolf%2001.jpg

Pics here: Shoreditch Festival Pics

Only got a ticket for this the day before. £15 for loads of bands seemed too good to pass up.

Weather was OK to start, and the light drizzle later on wasn't enough to spoil things. I was still OK in a t-shirt. But then I'm no Southern Jessie.

From the off the organisation was a bit of a shambles. Stage times bore very little relation to the website details or free-sheets given out at the entrance. With 2 tents and the main stage to get around this meant I missed most of 2 bands I wanted to catch, in that many bands played well BEFORE the billed times. At least one played a different stage to the billed one…

So that's my only gripes out of the way.

Poppy & The Jezebels were entertaining enough for a first act on the main stage. Some pleasant young ladies with some quirky, simple pop melodies. A keyboard actually being played rather than used to trigger sequences. Cool outfits too.

Lion Club were a bunch of impossibly thin and attractive young gents likely destined for bigger things. Decent melodies and posterboy looks pretty much assures them a bright future.

Hatcham Social I wanted to see, but due to the stage times balls up they were going off-stage as I emerged from another tent…

Polly Scattergood was a highly sprightly and entertaining young slip of a thing though. Fresh, untainted character that came across well in the songs. Ah innocence… Will probably be huge within the year.

I liked The Warlocks Myspace tunes, but their first couple of tracks on stage were pretty boring, so I wandered off elsewhere. I was informed later that they got better. Nevermind.

Patrick Wolf didn't disappoint. Plenty of presence, props and pep. Old and new tracks got fairly equal billing, and the sound was good rather than great, but everyone including me seemed happy.

An Experiment On A Bird In An Airpump (AEOABIAA) were two bassists and a drummer, although they swapped instruments and vocal duties for every track. Getting lots of press as the "new Goth" at the moment. Sounded more like the new Fuzzbox to me. With less tunes. Still pretty entertaining though.

Kennedy played the 2nd tent rather than the dance one. Pleased I caught them as it was a great, fun set with great melodies and lyrics. I plan to buy their album on the strength of it.

Ulterior were balls out rawk. With a tinny drum machine. Yes, that good. Highly entertaining and exuberant performance and very, very LOUD.

Missed most of A Place To Bury Strangers. One of my main reasons for going. Not happy about that. Will hopefully be playing London as a headliner in the future. JAMC feedback frenzy.

Chrome Hoof were pretentious musos who took ages to set up and it wasn't really worth the effort when they actually started playing. Lots of classical instruments but for the bit I stayed for used for rhythm rather than melody. Couldn't be bothered with them really.