No Direction Home Festival 2012 - Preview

One sign of a successful festival is expansion. Reading took its ‘bands and not a lot else’ chaos to Leeds, Bestival took its visual aesthetic and made it more family friendly with Camp Bestival and now End Of The Road with its organic vibe, attention to detail and non-hype band musical ethos is about to do the same. The result is No Direction Home, a smaller (5,000 capacity) version of its bigger brother with a similar musical output (much of it folk / rock based) but a more northerly location on Welbeck Estate near Sheffield.

The festival promises three stages; The Lake Stage, The Electric Dustbowl and The Flying Boat Society and headlining acts are The Low Anthem, Andrew Bird and Richard Hawley.

Besides music there will be comedy, literature, the lost picture show cinema, food workshops (including brewery, baking, butchery and dairy) and possibly our favourite idea - the secret post office. The concept is that in the age of twitter, email, text and facebook there is something extra special about receiving a post card, so attendees are being encouraged to take some time out and write to friends and loved ones. The festivals postmen and women will be doing their rounds all day in the distinctive uniform with bicycle and megaphone. The idea is to provide an address as specific as possible (campsite, tent colour etc) or offer a clear description of the recipient and their likely whereabouts.  If a letter cannot be delivered it will be returned to the post office where the sender can visit and arrange a redelivery. 

There will also be (like End of the Road festival) a range of quality festival food and drink providers including Welbeck Farm Shop,  Pizza Tabun, Wide Awake Cafe, Barnaby Sykes Pie Maker, Moorish, The Tea Stop, Le Grande Bouffe, Anni's Breakfasts, The Sea Cow, Luardos & Bhatti Wraps plus a real ale bar and the famous Somerset Cider Bus, who’s hot spiced cider is a treat and a half.

We’ll be reporting back from No Direction Home Festival shortly after it finishes (and the blog will also be taking a few days off before and during the festival), but in the meantime you can catch up with many of the artists playing an excellent Spotify playlist (linked below) as well as listen to and / or watch 4 bands that we recommend watching.

Spotify Playlist For No Direction Home

Django Django (Lake Stage – Friday 19.15)

The last time we came across quirky indie popsters Django Django and their Beta Band influenced style of oddball pop on the blog was back at the start of 2010 when they were halfway up an alldayer bill in a Camden pub. With critical acclaim behind their new album now the band find themselves as serious main stage contenders.

Other Lives (Lake Stage – Saturday 19.30)

The sweeping panoramic musical vistas of Other Lives found us proclaiming their album Tamer Animals as ‘so immaculately crafted that once your ears have heard it once, they’ll want to be treated to its elegance many, many times more,’ as we put it at number 6 in our top ten albums of the year list for 2011.

Slow Club ( Lake Stage – Sunday 18.00)

Sunday’s Lake Stage line up is pretty special. Besides the likes of Cold Specks, Richard Hawley and our next recommendation The Unthanks, there is also the wonderful  Slow Club. This is a band who we’ve watched gradually develop over the last few years from a shambolic but charming mess, into a rather exhilarating and enamouring act.

The Unthanks (Lake Stage – Sunday 19.45)

Going 5 better than Other Lives, The Unthanks album Last was our favourite album of 2011. Therefore this recommendation should come as absolutely no surprise to Breaking More Waves regulars. The beauty of The Unthanks live, besides their incredible talent is that for every tour they play they do something different. For No Direction Home The Unthanks will be playing with the Brighouse & Rastrick Brass Band rather than their traditional piano and strings line up. Bring your hankies, so beautifully sad are their songs they’re likely to have you in tears.

Xfm Xposure All Dayer @ Camden Barfly (Part 2)

As day progresses into evening so things begin to get a little rowdier at the Camden Barfly. Kill It Kid may have been nominated by Xfm listeners as one of the debut albums of 2009, alongside the likes of The XX and La Roux, but as the band wryly observe today “La Roux couldn’t make it.” Quite what Elly Jackson would have made of the primitive, kick you in the gut, raw-deep bluesy growl that Kill It Kid make would be anyone’s guess. Their brutal powerful sound is a hard satisfying shag against the mainstream, the mix of fiddles, guitars, keys and drums giving two fingers up to those (like us) who argue that pop music can be as forceful and exciting as so called ‘real music’. For half an hour we are proven very wrong. Delta-blues shafted us big time. And even though we’re bleeding, and understand why our veins look blue, we’re pleading for more.

In the same way that our paths keep crossing with Tinashe (see part 1), likewise with Goldheart Assembly, who have also journeyed the couple of miles from Notting Hill to Camden (see previous gig review here). Although Goldheart Assembly may produce bearded muso perfection, today a wrong chord leads the band to announce “That was the bit that sounded shit – well shitter.”

They may be well-mannered and almost stuttering polite, but Stornoway (pictured) play perfect acoustic pop. As we’ve said before in previous blogs there are hints of James in the vocal and the gentleness of Belle and Sebastian circa If You’re Feeling Sinister in the melodies. It’s not all fey and nice though - Coldharbour Road has a boldness to it that raises hairs on the back of the neck with its hostile drumming and fiddle. Then there’s the barbershop harmonies of Zorbing, a pop song that seems to effortlessly capture the first flushes of romance in a very real way. It is absolutely spot on. Lead singer Brian still stares resolutely straight ahead when he plays, but this just adds to the bands charm. Who can resist the allure of a band that between songs tell you how the first escalator was installed on the London Underground in 1911 and finish with a tale of Iranian honey finger sucking women. Wonderful.

Having already received Goldheart Assembly, those who have been enjoying the all day drinking a little too much may be a bit confused by Goldhawks name, thinking this is the second time for the band on stage. Differentiations can easily be made though as Goldhawks plough into a series of masculine guitar riffs and fists in the air stadium-lite anthems. It’s the nadir of formulaic, familiar and dull rock music. Predictably a good percentage of the audience love it.

The programming of the running order at the Xfm All Dayer seems designed to contrast. After the anonymously dire Goldhawks, Django Django at least offer something a little different with their pastel short sleeved suits and spacey oddness, even if their slightly curveball approach to making music doesn’t always work. Surf guitar, Beta Band styled druggy percussion and vocals combine with sixties underground musical styling to position Django Django out there in the experimental art-pop world. Maybe their sound is a bit too trippy for this time of night, and lacks any emotional core, but we’d take this over Goldhawks any day.

Then we’re nearly done. Eleven bands in one room in one day. There’s no big Band Aid style finale for the occupants of the Barfly to enjoy. It would probably be a bit too much anyway, as a good percentage of the crowd are looking a little frazzled. A hard days drinking has to take its toll at some point. So all credit to We Have Band for finishing those who can still take it off. Their shamanic percussive drive and mix of electro and rock influences brings on the last dance, the robotic groove of Honeytrap being a fitting end to what has been a gratifying musical marathon.