Bestival 2009 - Part 4

After two days of almost incessant main stage hogging, Sunday takes Breaking More Waves to virtually every other point on the Bestival site.

Peggy Sue's alt. folk harmonies give a lo-fi kiss to a large hungover crowd at the Jim Beam Bar. Conveying hippyish ideals with flower garlands in their hair, lyrics declaring that “Love will save the day,” and strong soulful female vocals the group are just the tonic for sore heads. After they finish with a stomping version of The Sea The Sea they sell out of the CD’s that they’ve brought with them, a good sign.

The shadow of a ferris wheel creates rotating patterns on the arc shaped canopy above the stage as Ohbijou play songs from their album Beacons. With silken strings and lush violins tussling with Casey Mecija’s angelic girlish vocal, their folk rock sound could easily become twee and indistinct, but it never does, always falling into something more substantial. Intro To Season sounds like Arcade Fire snuggling up with Joanna Newsom and barely lasts over two minutes, but is so lovely it wouldn’t be strange to be found wanting to give the band a hug.

Over in the Big Top Hockey demonstrate with a beach ball that yanks can’t do soccer, and neither do these lads seem to be able to score any musical goals. The bands white boy indie funk has a fair amount of groove but lacks capacity for tunes. It’s only when the LCD Soundsystem sound-a-like pop of Too Fake gets an airing that ears stir. When one particular loon of a punter manages to get on his friends shoulders and presses his face close up to the camera filming proceedings, his ugly mug covering the large video screens to the side of the stage, and it is the highlight of the set, you know something is wrong.

Delphic from Manchester are much better, particularly when they drop their guitars and let washes of indie dance synths cascade around the tent on the loopy and Orbital influenced Counterpoint. Then there is the monumental This Momentary with its “Let’s do something real,” chanted vocal call to arms, where building percussion creates space and energy that given a later night appearance would have developed into a transcendental hands in the air moment.It may not be staggeringly original, 'indie dance' is the category here, but if they can create a body of work as good as these two songs they will be onto something.

Back at the Jim Beam bar Polly Scattergood (pictured) is resplendent in silver, pink feathers and neon yellow / green. Polly is an unusual creature, although very young she seems much older, her girlish vocal and dark sometimes sexual lyrics confusing the issue even more. “You can spit on my French knickers sir, you can call me a whore, if you roll in, roll out, roll up to the Bunny Club,” she sings in a destitute vulnerable manner during Bunny Club, her next single. On Other Too Endless she utters “And I gave you my body, and when I said I did I meant it, and you gave me your anger, and for that I’m still trying to vent it.” It’s all pretty disturbing stuff, with themes of suicide, abuse and clinging on to long gone lovers permeating her performance. Yet despite these themes Polly sings with a smile and theatrically poses her way round the stage as if she were auditioning for Yo Gabba Gabba whilst unsettling electronics add to her blend of broken Prozac Nation pop. It’s oddly schizophrenic and enjoyable all at the same time.

Doves represent our first and only trip of the day to the main stage. The band provide a functional greatest hits set which is watched by Guy Garvey of Elbow in the wings. Doves are talented and accomplished musicians (even permitting the false start on the opening song they play) but after four albums their sound and set is becoming predictable. We would have bet our lives on them finishing with There Goes The Fear, and indeed they do. We said it earlier this year and we stand by our statement that we wish that Doves would now go and do something to surprise us. Maybe a rejuvenation of the Sub Sub ideas would be a neat twist to the left ?

The Bandstand area of Bestival is virtually empty as The Cordelier Club play with just a smattering of friends and stragglers watching. The Cordelier Club sound is very much one of adult middle of the road pop from the eighties with a powerful female rock vocal. There are hints of Stevie Nicks, Roxette, The Pretenders and Eurythmics circa Revenge - not particularly hip reference points, but it is exactly that and the quality of their songs that makes the band stand out. The group have hook after hook, sharp enough to gut wrench you in. One listen to Fire In The City with its “Don’t stop, we go far, running from the city in a getaway car,” chorus and our head is spinning dizzily. Stolen Lovers is even better with big Radio 2 styled high catchiness, it could easily sneer with vibrant abandon from the top of the pop mountain. In a festival full of oddness, The Cordelier Clubs mainstream position seems strangely leftfield and staggering brilliant because of it.

And talking of odd, we take a brave (many would say stupid) decision to miss Elbow (who as much as we love we have seen many times before) to sample Squarepusher, who we have never seen and on paper sound like they will tick our box. If ever there was an argument for taking risks then this would be it. Squarepusher would blind us with brilliance and we would go away happy. Unfortunately the whole thing is a massive endurance test. Faceless experimentation can be brilliant at times, but in the Big Top Squarepusher barrage us with dirty noise, erratic beats and utter chaos in their sound. Headache inducing tosh. Sometimes there’s an argument for playing safe as well. Apparently Elbow were brilliant. Damn.

And with that Bestival begins to draw to a close. There is more dancing to be done still, but in terms of live music that’s it. Bestival 2009 was the biggest yet and in places (Kraftwerk particularly) was the best it’s ever been. There is no doubt that Bestival as a festival has changed. The quirky randomness that the original first two events in particular had still exists, but it has been pushed to the side through its sold out 40,000 capacity popularity. There will be some who will say that the festival has lost its vibe or soul, and certainly the respect for the site at the end of the event seems to have disappeared with the camping areas resembling other large festivals in terms of littering (see video below) and some graffiti terrorism spoiling the hand crafted artwork in the main arena areas. However there will be others who say that there is now even more fun to be had and that the organisation of the event gets better every year. Purely in terms of live music (sound issues from the main stage notwithstanding) and bill quality Breaking More Waves is of the opinion that Bestival 2009 was the best yet. God knows how Rob Da Bank and crew are going to top Kraftwerk next year, but we’ll be looking forward to finding out.

Doves - Kingdom Of Rust

Kingdom Of Rust by Doves is by most bands standards a very good album. So why after repeated listens does it leave us with a slight sense of disappointment ? We suspect it is because after four years away it doesn’t feel that there is that many years of evolution in this record. There’s a warm safe familiarity with Kingdom Of Rust, no matter how good some of the songs are. It feels like Doves being Doves and no more.

Recorded on a Cheshire farm, Kingdom Of Rust is an album created from a musical geography and landscape of big widescreen melancholy anthems. Opening song Jetstream is a fine example of a band doing what they do incredibly well. All pulsing synths and throbbing bass it is sonically adventurous and vast. Elsewhere 10.03 starts with a spaghetti western bassline before the song becomes a firework display for the ears, with exploding distorted riffs. But despite these carefully crafted songs, tracks such as Winter Hill and Spellbound could have come from any other Doves album. Part of the problem is the vocals. Jimi Goodwin has a distinctive voice that is both sad and sweet in equal measures, but the lack of variation of his mournful tone seems just a little too over familiar after four albums.

Unfortunately when the band do take musical risks and step out of the box significantly the results are not particularly good. Compulsion is one such example. An experimental and certainly brave funk meets reggae work out, the song mixes elements of Blondie and The Clash circa Sandinista. The outcome of this doesn’t really gel, jarring with the tone of the rest of the album.

Kingdom Of Rust has received significant critical acclaim, and there is no doubt that it is immaculately produced and will please many fans. But for Breaking More Waves we just wish there were more songs that surprised us.

Doves @ Portsmouth Pyramids

Doves occupy a similar ground to Elbow, in that they are both unaffected by fashion, hype or the whim of the music industry. Having first come to the public attention at the start of the decade, both bands have everyman lead singers who possess a dour but beautiful tone to their voice, and release consistent and constant bodies of work defined by quality. At their best each bands music is powerful, uplifting and life affirming.

Portsmouth Pyramids is sauna like in its heat and humidity for Doves return to a venue they last played in 2002, the mechanical services of the next door swimming pool clearly thinking the mainly male crowd here should be dressed in swimming trunks.

Backed by five large white circular lights and a series of sometimes rather obvious projections (Sea Song for example shows the sea) Doves are here to show that after four years of domestic upheavals and loss they are back, doing what they do best; making music together. Showcasing a variety of new songs the band are, except for one false start, musically tight and competent without ever being revelatory.

The new songs the band play consolidate much of the sound that they have become known for on their previous three albums; big, epic soaring guitar anthems. There is no huge change in direction, just a hint of an ambient electronic spark here and a pinch of rhythmic experimentation there, but otherwise it is business as usual. This familiarity of style fails to ignite or deliver the excitement of the discovery of the new, but it is comfortable and presumably satisfies the bands fan base. New single Kingdom Of Rust is a perfect example of this, a road trip into the past lyrically with a sound that could only be this band.

It’s not all about new material though. There’s the superlative Here It Comes where lead vocalist Jimi takes a backseat on drums rather than standing stage front with a guitar, and Pounding also sounds unsurpassable. Maybe it’s the environment of the Pyramids - the heat in the air and the carpet on the floor, but the audience fail to respond with the energy or euphoria one would expect from such an established band and sound. Even the carnival percussion on final song There Goes The Fear receives only a muted cheer rather than a deafening roar.

Doves continue to make widescreen sky reaching music. Tonight it just didn’t fly quite as high as it could. Bridesmaids rather than brides, for this evening at least.