Summer Sundae 2011 - Review

Leicester’s Summer Sundae festival may not be a big hitter in terms of giant artists, riotous audiences, high budget aesthetically pleasing artistic direction or a line-up devised to appeal to one particular demographic, but what it does do it does incredibly well.

Summer Sundae appeals because it is an incredibly convenient festival to attend. If you’ve ever slogged your way around Glastonbury, or fought with Reading’s lack of sleep campsite-culture then Summer Sundae will come as a very pleasant easy-on-the-body surprise. Set in a park in a city centre location it still manages to convey a sense of being out in the countryside, even if the second stage is the permanent De Montford Hall and a ten minute stroll will bring you to a Costa Coffee shop with Wetherspoons pub five minutes further. But this city centre location provides many bonuses, none more so than a compact and well-designed site, a second campsite just across the road from the main festival for those who want a quiet night of sleep and excellent transport links which include a big on site cycle park, a train station nearby and car park and on street car parking within five minutes of the entrance. Top this off with excellent management and organisation where stages run on time, friendly and helpful security staff and you have something that Leicester can be really proud of.

Here’s our run down of all the good, with hardly any bad.

Tickets

Early Bird 3 day tickets were £100 with full price tickets being £115. If you wanted to camp in the more spacious quiet Regents campsite there was an additional charge of £12 a person.

The Site

A tree lined park in Leicester. The main stage was set on a natural slope that gave excellent viewing opportunities whatever your height and included a Punch and Judy stall set to the left of the stage which housed a giant bird and a crocodile who appeared to occasionally mime along to the bands as they played. The second stage was indoors in the permanent De Montford Hall, which again gave excellent viewing opportunities with a seated balcony as well as the standing stalls area. Three other stages were more traditional tented festival venues (one of which was for comedy and spoken word). The smaller Musician stage could have benefitted from being a bit higher – those beyond the front rows had difficulty seeing anything on stage when the audience was standing. New for 2011 was the Victorian Bandstand Stage, whose PA was powered by enthusiastic cycling punters and featured oddities such as a penny farthing and bone-shaker display and talk by local cycling historian Roger Lovell and Harp For Hangovers – cover versions played with harp accompaniment. For those with children or for anyone that wanted to get away from the main areas The Garden provided kids entertainment, information stalls and the festival famous Mashed Tea Tent for all your non-alcoholic and cake needs.

The Punters

A varied mix of old, young and everyone in between, many of whom were local to the Leicester area, giving the event a relaxed and less full-on vibe than many other festivals.

The Toilets

The standard festival portaloos were well provided for, cleaned regularly and well located. However for those whose idea of any sort of non-permanent loo is a malicious nightmare, the De Montford Hall permanent toilets provided a welcome alternative.

The Weather

Generally cloudy with patches of sun. Friday saw a small smattering of rain but nothing of any consequence.

The Food

An excellent selection of festival favourites such as Pieminister, Simply Thai and Iechyd Da, with prices ranging between £ 5-7.50. The bars were run by Orange Tree Bars meaning that there was a huge range of real ales to sample as well as a number of cocktails. There was also the more standard range of lagers, ciders and spirits. Festival goers were also allowed to bring their own food and drink onto all parts of the site with no restrictions as long as it was for their own personal consumption, although we understand that next year these rules may change and there may be limits on what you can bring in.

The Music

Summer Sundae is sometimes too heavily judged on its often very average and inconsistent headliners and to a certain extent this year was no different with The Maccabees, Newton Faulkner and McFly topping the bill. The Maccabees may be a decent mid-level indie band, but with a large stage and PA to fill the bands surprisingly subdued performance found them lacking a little, with Orlando’s voice not being strong enough to give the songs weight and their choice of lots of new tunes testing the patience of anything but the most hardcore of fans. However where Summer Sundae wins hands down is with the other cards in the pack, bringing a whole host of new, diverse and talented musicians to the stage on the lower reaches of the bill.

Friday saw the debut UK performance of Other Lives, whose audience size was helped by a momentary rain shower outside the Rising Stage tent, their subtle yet majestic blend of orchestral folk and rock stirring the soul with its note perfect warm execution. More natural beauty was on display just a short while later when Admiral Fallow’s songs lifted spirits even further – with poetic tenderness that felt like your best friend. Yet it wasn’t all organic singer-songwriter traditionalism. For those of a sturdy constitution the intense pummelling electronics of Factory Floor (streaming below) were a ride to the future ghost (g)rave of Giorgio Moroder. Hard hitting, hypnotic and droning the three-piece managed to scare off a number of the small crowd who watched them play, but those who remained were challenged with repetitive beats and stabs that made some sort of glorious noise. On the main stage early on Saturday evening Bellowhead got bums off the grass and feet dancing with their brassy burlesque folk music that gave easy justification to a claim by the Independent that they were the best live act in the country. And as the festival began to wind down on the final night and McFly entertained the screaming girls who had camped out against the barrier all day to see their heroes, Kitty Daisy & Lewis brought a magically nostalgic take on old fashioned 50’s rock n roll, flavoured with ska, disco and the blues to a jiving and smiling crowd.

The Conclusion

Summer Sundae is one of the most under-rated festivals in the UK. Forget about the headliners and enjoy everything else it has to offer.

Lying by Factory Floor

The Maccabees featuring Roots Manuva - Empty Vessels

Here’s a collaboration that in theory sounds terrible, in but in practice is sublime. Brighton band The Maccabees team up with Roots Manuva to produce Empty Vessels, a reworking of The Maccabees single No Kind Words. Manuva takes the song to a whole new level and combined with the slightly ‘edgy’ video (below) we’d go as far as saying that this is the best thing The Maccabees have ever produced and the best thing Manuva has produced for some time. So far The Maccabees have avoided being thrown into the landfill indie amenity tip by producing a reasonably well received second album that was just far enough distanced from their debut to make people believe that they were a guitar band worth cherishing. With Empty Vessels The Maccabees show that they are prepared to try something different, with high quality results.

Empty Vessels has been available from I tunes for a couple of months now, but has only just recently been released on 12" vinyl, including a Surgeon remix. We thought it may be worth bringing to your attention, even now, just in case it slipped you by. It can be purchased here.

The Great Escape @ Brighton - Day 2

Day two of The Great Escape in Brighton brings more musical highlights than you can shake a treble clef at. The day starts slowly however with a so called ‘Gaymers Grassroots’ gig for The Maccabees at the Pavillion Theatre, a return to a smaller venue than they are now becoming accustomed to. In the same way that other alcoholic drinks producers have marketed their product to live music audiences, Gaymers are campaigning hard this year. Their contracts include a series of grassroots gigs of which this is one, where bands return to their hometowns to play small venue shows and acting as main suppliers of cider to a number of large festivals including Glastonbury and Bestival.

“Good afternoon cider drinkers” announces Orlando to the free alcoholic apple juice drinking crowd, as The Maccabees launch into a relatively straight set, starting with No Kind Words, some new songs, some old ones and ending with a brass enhanced Love You Better. Being an early afternoon gig the crowd are in parts restrained and part buzzing, Orlando identifying which parts of the crowd are being sensible drinkers and which are not. “You lot will be trouble in a few hours,” laughs Felix to the non-sensible. Its a workmanlike set, the group retaining their boyish awkward charm of old, but maybe it’s the time of day, or end of tour fatigue, but The Maccabees do feel a little ‘safe’.

Before The Maccabees, The Lyrebirds warm up the audience, bringing their blend of slightly gloomy but ambitious indie rock to the building as the room fills up. A guitar band with a slightly deeper sounding demeanour, they produce songs that have slight stadium aspirations but not enough originality or spark to be anything but a passing diversion whilst the crowd sup free cider.

After an early afternoon barbeque and DJ set at Audio, a battle with the seafront elements leads the windswept Breaking More Waves crew to the Moshi Moshi showcase at Po Na Na. If ever there was a strong argument for the relevance of record labels, this is it. Moshi Moshi have continued to release eclectic, quirky left of centre pop records, sometimes acting as a springboard for artists to enter the public consciousness. Whatever they put out you know its likely to have some merit. Without Moshi Moshi the world of independent music would be a less colourful place. The line up at Po Na Na demonstrates this perfectly with four superb acts.

“You look a bit like Noel Fielding,” jokes James Yuill to a member of the crowd. Unfortunately they are not quick enough to answer back with “And you look like a scientist or a geography teacher.” Or rather Yuill is the geeky looking, head bobbing laptop minstrel with an acoustic guitar slung over his back. Like a thinking mans Calvin Harris caught in the headlights, James is surrounded by his kit, the set up looking like an Apple Mac updated version of something last seen in the eighties when spikey haired keyboard wizard Howard Jones brought his one man show to the masses. Yuill combines bragging beats with sweet melodies, particularly on Over The Hills which is extended and disenfranchised from the original with a big old techno wig out. The combination of synthetic and organic led Breaking More Waves to choose James Yuill’s album as one of its albums of the year in 2008, and his cool meeting of Aphex Twin electronica and warm melodic folk wins hands down again today.

Up next is Slow Club . They are utterly fantastic. They remind old cynical heads why we go to gigs in the first place. Starting from the back of the venue, they sing unplugged and walk through the rammed crowd to the stage. With them they bring country styled acoustic pop, charm, great songs, humour and tales of dropping beer from balconies of Paris houses that look like seventies styled coke dens. Every song they play makes hearts swoon and leap clouds. Most perfect is When I Go (video below) which questions the spark in a relationship “If I get to thirty and I don’t have a wife, I’ll ask you nicely but won’t ask twice,” they coo before questioning at the end “Will you hold my hand when I go?” It’s simple, beautiful and perfectly harmonised. Rebecca stands and bashes the small drum kit with real energy whilst still somehow managing to sing perfectly. Even when a song falls apart at the start their radiant charm makes it seem like something special. So wonderful are they tonight that Breaking More Waves almost has a tear at the end as they finish back in the middle of the crowd playing unplugged again. Consider ourselves smitten with Slow Club. Maybe even love.

Casio Kids (pictured) from Norway swing from the beams of the ceiling, have a singer that looks like a younger version of Beck, a bass player who sports a ruffled shirt and maroon flares, another singer that looks like a surf dude and sings falsetto and sound like an indie electro claypso version of Royksopp dancing drunkenly on the tables with Hot Chip. The vibes are happy, happy happy and the grooves are delicious. Twenty four hours later Casio Kids country will win the Eurovision song contest. We need to watch out for these Norwegians you know.

It’s left to The Mae Shi to mess things up at Po Na Na. The Mae Shi are like nothing you have seen before and nothing you will ever see again. A brutal, screaming, barking chaotic melee of different sounds that punch, pummel and party the air so hard it’s a wonder that they don’t leave holes in it. When they’re not trying to detonate the room with their noise art they’re throwing a parachute over everyone to cover heads or climbing over speaker stacks to the higher levels of the venue. There is a raw intense energy to what they do that connects with the crowd and depending on your perspective it's either scary, entertaining, funny, savage or just plain stupid. Or maybe a combination of any of these. A ferocious band that will one day probably spontaneously combust as they play. In the words of a certain Mr Rascal "Bonkers."

After such mayhem in a small space the vast 1200 capacity Corn Exchange is Breaking More Waves last stop for the evening. At this event last year Mumford & Sons were third on the bill in a venue a third of the capacity. Shortly after we arrive we hear that security is now operating a one in one out policy, such is the increased popularity of the bluegrass influenced group. The band look a little over whelmed by it all, but still manage to get the crowd to shout the word “Down” after they say “Hoe.” And a hoe down it is. This is a whole new experience for Mumford & Sons. There are people moshing near the front and young girls are screaming at the band. The group still deliver a note perfect soulfully harmonized set however, even if the huge space loses some of the subtleties of Marcus Mumfords beautiful croon on songs such as The Cave and Little Lion Man.

It leaves Metronomy to finish the evening. With a new line up Metronomy seem to have deserted the band they once were and attempted to become a more organic live act with two new members, including a female drummer. Unfortunately the updated model sounds like they would have been better sticking with the old banger. This new vehicle seems to have little mileage. The music fails to connect in any way feeling staid and lifeless. It's the only low of the day. Time for bed again Brighton.

The Maccabees - Wall Of Arms

The Maccabees second album Wall Of Arms is an accomplished piece of indie guitar work that certainly won’t alienate their existing fan base, but is unlikely to bolster their following significantly either. It takes a subtle step away from the boyish charm of their debut Colour It In to a slightly darker place displaying more maturity. Markus Dravs, who has previously worked with Coldplay, Arcade Fire and Bjork brings a bigger sound to the bands repetoire, but the sound is still undeniably The Maccabees. Brash, frantic, repetitive guitar lines are still the order of the day and Orlando Weeks still turns a fine hand in delivering charming lines such as “I grew up in the bosom of my family, eight strong arms around me.”

The jewel of the album is No Kind Words. Here the band sound melancholic and restrained with Orlando’s bleak recital of the chorus “Alone alone alone, Not alone at all.” It’s designed to be chanted by indie rock fans in church like concert halls throughout the country. Elsewhere The Maccabees show that they can sound joyous without being overly pop in the same way that bands such as The Futureheads and Maximo Park have managed. On William Powers, they charge through with a blistering guitar workout, with Dravs surging Arcade Fire production at the forefront, as the song reaches for the stratospheres at the climax with its “Now now now now there’s something in it,” rabble rousing call. The Maccabees have obviously been doing their Arcade Fire homework with Dravs as the teacher on the song One Hand Holding with its exuberrant Win Butler styled "Oh Oh" backing. Sometimes however the songs are just too similar to the debut album, single Love You Better and Can You Give It being particular victims, but title track Wall Of Arms makes subtle steps away from the template with a carnival feel before ending in a solidly noisy way.

Wall Of Arms has enough tense dark guitar thrills to see them grow as a band with their audience. Maybe there is not quite enough originality, experimentation or creative commerciality to see them step outside the safety of the indie Brit guitar band ghetto, but there is enough to suggest that The Maccabees have left the door open and are tiptoeing over the threshold. The Maccabees are one step closer to delivering something of heavier musical weight.