Southsea Fest 2010 - Review

When you list famous musical cities it’s unlikely that the words Portsmouth or Southsea will crop up. Too close to London and lacking the artistic bond of Brighton, Portsmouth has always been the UK’s south-central second rate cousin in terms of music. Portsmouth may possess a small but thriving grassroots scene, the hub of which is Southsea’s Albert Road area, but the size of the place, the lack of quality small music venues (the Wedgewood Rooms excepted), combined with the lack of vision and entrepreneurial foresight of many (but not all) local bands and promoters means that Portsmouth often exists in its own little pond, where even the smallest fish can seem like a shark.

Yet last Saturday Portsmouth put itself a little more on the musical map, with the annual event that is Southsea Fest. It’s a multi-gig, multi-venue one day festival where one wristband allows access to everything. It enabled Portsmouth to look outwards as well as inwards, showcasing a significant number of up and coming national bands as well as the talent that lurks within.

There was a slow burning buzz of anticipation for Southsea Fest 2010, more so than similar events in other towns, particularly since the addition of Pulled Apart by Horses who by all accounts played a sweaty and messily fun gig at the tiny café sized Edge of The Wedge. This was a case of Portsmouth’s musical backwater status working in its favour – many of those attending were proud that Portsmouth was putting on such an event – there was no resigned ‘seen it all before attitude’ and good weather helped build the upbeat vibe. Southsea Fest had a d-i-y feel to it, staff mainly being volunteers - which led to a few venues running behind schedule - but nobody seemed to mind.

“Do you ever wake yourself up shouting at yourself?” asked Ollie from Oxford three piece Ute, beginning their lunch time slot in the Edge of the Wedge. Ute were the perfect wakeup call – complex arrangements and intricate rhythms that veered from shouty acoustic thrashes to desolate pastoral pop. Add in Ollie’s comical sense of storytelling – at one point he explained his ‘Pin-up’ labelled belt was purchased yesterday after his old one broke whilst eating pizza – and Southsea Fest delivered a pleasing start to the day.

The Edwardian elegance of the Kings Theatre, with its Italian Renaissance décor and high ceilings played host to four bands who dealt in similar sonic architecture – tunes that filled the space with their expansiveness and occasional bombast. Three of these gropus hailed from Portsmouth and its environs – but it was Londoners Revere who really excelled.

The words “All roads lead south,” sung by The Dawn Chorus seemed highly relevant for the festival. Their mix of acoustic and electric guitars, mandolin, accordion, keys, drums and a trumpet player who at one point blasted out his sound from the balcony had moments of tenderness, passion and melancholy. With a drummer who provided a rabble rousing impersonation of Frank Turner on the uplifting Carnivalesque, The Dawn Chorus filled the space of the Kings Theatre with that good old fashioned virtue of excellent musicianship.

Revere raised the stakes even higher. With their chartered accountant attire of black waistcoats and smart clothes this eight piece played incredible widescreen sculptures that built to huge crescendos like Sigur Ros with more guitars or Mogwai with more strings. Backed by projections of grey landscapes and balloons floating skywards, their music also aimed for the stars, full of sweeping strings and transcendent noise. Words such as euphoric, cinematic and majestic came to mind. This was a band who really knew how to fill the tall space, the power of The Escape Artist virtually lifting the roof off as the projections flashed up the words “Fade out of sight, step out of the light.” Powerful and masterful Revere were utterly incredible.

The B of the Bang had a virtually impossible act to follow. Thwarted by a technical hitch where a spilt bottle shorted out some equipment, the band struggled bravely on, but their sound seemed low-key after Revere. They finally hit their stride with a new song The Forest, the result being a bassy grunge-funk groove that seemed to merge 70’s Starsky & Hutch rhythms and Eye of the Tiger by Survivor into something new. Requests from the audience for the missing Alaska led to boos when it couldn’t be played because of the gremlins in the machine. “Just because we’re in a theatre doesn’t mean this is panto,” responded lead singer Chris Whitear before managing to get the electronics working so that the song could be played out.

There’s a military, chest banging, call to arms exuberance to The Strange Death of Liberal England, and this was taken one step further in the Kings Theatre, with an orchestra, marching soldier drummers parading down the aisles and air raid sirens played from the balconies. It was big, a little ridiculous and visually entertaining. Lead singer Adam Woolway’s parrot screech of a vocal was neatly juxtaposed against the bigger orchestral moments – his passionate rasp fighting solo against the orchestra on A Day Another Day, but it didn’t sit comfortably with everyone in the audience, the back rows of the stalls slowly emptying as the bands performance continued.

From the opulence of the Kings Theatre, over the road at The Loft – a grubby worn out pub, Manchester’s Cats In Paris did their very best to confound the indie kids with a set of genre bending oddness. Keyboards that sounded like rock guitars, violins thrown in from nowhere, jittery song structures and a lead singer that could do a good job as a Huw Stephens double act. Schizo-pop strangeness of the craziest order.

Run Toto Run continued the Manchester assault, although in this case it was full of darker jerky synth stabs, breathy feminine vocals and quirky but loveable song structures. Occasionally it appeared the boy-girl-boy three piece wanted to step out and make a big commercial dance-pop song, but are just a little bit more comfortable in their own non-conformity to do so. Run Toto Run are a band who have fully made the transition from sunshine folk tweeness to dark electronic pop eccentricity – the smooth sultry sounds of Out of Order and other new tracks banishing their old singles to the trash can. It will be interesting to see where they go next.

Fresh from their first ever London gig the night before Newcastle’s Let’s Buy Happiness played to a fairly small Southsea crowd. Lead singer Sarah Hall beckoned for the audience to come closer and the band won punters over with their utterly beguiling beauty. Spacious layered guitars formed soaring soundscapes with Sarah’s delicate Cocteau Twins referencing vocals caressing the ears. Let’s Buy Happiness made a compelling case for being your new favourite band with the songs Dead Legs, Six Wolves and Works Better On Paper all confirming their ability to create indie music that is graceful and elegantly ethereal.

From chiming indie to 90’s influenced synth pop, Swansea’s Bright Light Bright Light showed exactly why they’ve recently been signed to the new Virgin funded Popjustice Hi-Fi Label. Gracious melodies, gorgeous smooth vocals and hooky as hell choruses that got drunken girls dancing; they provided an exciting and welcome respite for those who found the likes of Pulled Apart by Horses just a little bit too intensely masculine. Ten out of ten for the way lead singer / keyboard player Rod Thomas assertively but politely replied to one drunk girls question of “Do you do cover versions?” He really doesn’t need to do covers when he’s got a case full of glitzy high-fiving pop monsters of his own such as Love Part II which shimmied to the dance-floor with its jubilant call of “I’m in love again.”

In a bizarre, but quite possibly brilliant piece of programming the act to follow Bright Light Bright Light was Cardiff’s Islet. With not one ounce of melody Islet charged straight into the audience with a rhythmic based core of yelping, growling, screaming and unhinged racket. How a band can be quite so rubbish and yet terrifyingly brilliant is perplexing. They really are exporters of the avant-garde and the extraordinary. Taking instruments off stage into the crowd, straining war cries off microphone, using the walls and implements of the venue as percussion to hit plus on the spot jogging, Islet blistered with energy, challenging ideas of what entertainment, art and performance are about. Who cares what the songs sound like? This is a band to experience, not sit at home and listen to.

With Islet having provided one of the most fascinating performances of the day, Southsea Fest 2010 had provided a rich tapestry of eclectic new music for a bargain price.

NME Radar Tour @ Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms

Over the last few years the NME Radar Tour, formerly known as the New Noise Tour has established a reasonably high hit count of bands that have gone on to bigger and better things – La Roux, Crystal Castles, White Lies, Maximo Park, Friendly Fires and Marina and the Diamonds all being some of the alumni who have trodden the boards. As the latest chapter of the tour calls into Portsmouth it brings three variations of indie guitar sounds and one blast of self-important pop for judgement. The headline pop act produces the goods to suggest that it has the most chance of following other successful graduates to a wider audience.

Local group The Strange Death of Liberal England have a lost-in-their-own-world shouty intensity that forms a substantial racket. Performing mainly new songs they’re like a melodramatic cartoon rock band, each member formed with a different hairstyle (a cleaners mop of frizzy ginger, bald, long black) and moving in different ways on stage (jittery leg twitching, focussed haughtiness, head slamming energy). Calling them cartoon is a disservice though for there is no humour or gag with Strange Death of Liberal England - they obviously mean everything they do. Even though they sometimes lack in melodic edge they make up for it in passion - guitar riffs fight against each other to become victorious. Older song A Day Another Day is their best moment, with its chiming xylophone introduction and thrashing climax. The Strange Death of Liberal England sound is invigorating but the absence of a commercial edge means that they are unlikely to step their public profile up further than where they are now

“You guys came here to see a show,” announces curly haired New Yorker Darwin Deez, and so a show is what Portsmouth gets. Albeit this is a geeky, wacky kind of show with amateur choreographed dance routines in between songs to a variety of cheesy backing tracks such as Walk Like An Egyptian and Do The Bartman. It’s fun, but only in the same way as watching a Butlins holiday camp cabaret performed by the redcoats. When the skinny Deez and his band are not pulling shapes they knock out medleys of their poor mans Weezer / Strokes referencing songs and go down a storm with the crowd, but ultimately Darwin Deez are nothing more than a hipsters bad joke. With the exception of the chirpy and aptly named Radar Detector they simply don’t have the tunes to match the humorous performance.

The last time hotly tipped Manchester art rock band Everything Everything played in Portsmouth was just over a year ago, in a small pub just a few hundred metres from the Wedgewood Rooms. (Reviewed here) Boosted by a significantly more substantial sound system than that night they are taught, tight and deliver their tunes without gimmick. Songs such as the percussive whistle topped groove of Schoolin’ and the warped harmonies and rhythms of Photoshop Handsome are complex and not immediately accessible, but verge just on the right side of eccentricity.

Hurts (pictured) may be a rather mismatched booking for the NME Radar tour - a number of the audience drift away into the night before they’ve even played a note - but their grandiose 90’s influenced electronic pop is the best thing on stage all evening. Lead singer Theo has star quality written all over him, every action and move full of restrained emotion and aloof composure - his eyes piercing, his slicked back hair and face handsome. Suited in the style of Berlin alternative meets English gent coolness he caresses the lapel of his jacket before bowing his head and staring intently at the floor, placing one hand behind his back. If his minimalist performance is for real or carefully constructed and acted out matters not one jot - it’s mesmerising to watch.

Of course it wouldn’t matter how carefully constructed this visual aesthetic was if the music was poor, but Hurts have the songs. Big bombastic ballads such as Illuminated and Stay are incredibly portentous - like Vienna by Ultravox for a new worshipful generation. Lyrics such as “We don’t need your cheap salvation,” hint at power and arrogance, yet after new single Better Than Love ends in a frenzy of strobe lights Theo quietly and humbly thanks the crowd with the words “Thank you Portsmouth, the pleasure was all ours.” It’s the only sentence he says all night but it dispels any question of contemptuousness. Yet whilst Hurts dazzle it seems that the public at large may not yet be ready to engage with the band. Someone in the crowd shouts a few swear words of abuse at them and other punters stand arms folded looking somewhat puzzled. It may be that Hurts will find a niche audience who adore them, but that the average man on the street passes them by.

The previous time we saw Hurts was in a decrepit East End Music Hall (review here), and whilst The Wedgewood Rooms may not quite match up in terms of a sense of occasion, Hurts managed, for some, to transform the place into something heroically romantic for half an hour on a Sunday night.