Did I use the pun Bank Statement for a previous Riverside? Probably.
RIVERSIDE FESTIVAL, 29/7/12, Charlbury
When we were growing up, there was one of
those “Everything’s a quid” type shops near us, called Kincheap. After a while, some people complained that
this cheeky name lowered the tone of Chelmsford High Street – they’d clearly
never wandered down it on a Saturday night – so the local paper interviewed the
owner. “It’s a pun,” he explained, “because
we’re king of the cheap shops”. The
journalist noted that this wasn’t very obvious, and asked why they didn’t make
it clearer. “Because if we did, it
wouldn’t be a pun, would it?” So, for a
few weeks, Mr Kincheap became our favourite man on the planet.
We mention this, because it meant we were
prepared for King Terrible. We realised it was going to be a joke. What we didn’t realise is that it was going
to be nothing but a battery powered fluffy toy on a chair doing a little dance
for 30 seconds. Bloody funny, but we
reckon they should have gone the whole hog, and had him on as headliner, with a
sea of lasers and an intro tape of “Also Sprach Zarathustra”. If you’re going to do bathos, do it big, and
wait until more than five people have turned up.
Of course, starting a day with a
shockingly poor practical joke is exactly why we love Riverside – it’s homely,
it’ s friendly, it doesn’t care desperately for fashion or good sense. This year, after some torrential rain, the
festival was rescheduled because of ground conditions (the clue’s in the name),
and we’re deeply glad the festival went ahead, even though it meant we could
now only attend for one afternoon. We
feel as though we’ve fallen into some vast Duracell commercial as Blin’ Jonnie, the first real band of
the day, play on the main stage: their set of harmless busker’s fluff is so
drab and lifeless the battery powered toy beats them hands down. If it weren’t for a bit of lively, fluent
flute from Glenda Huish, we’d have trouble staying conscious for the
duration. In fact, we spent most of the
set pondering why they pronounce it “blinn Jonnie”. So, is it not short for “blind”, then? Weird.
Simon
Batten reminds us a little of
Riverside alumna Chantelle Pike, with his rootsy elegance and subtle melodic
twists, but his voice isn’t as enticing, and it’s left to the drum
accompaniment to keep things lively.
Over on the main stage something odd is happening, not only as Secret Rivals play a relaxed set with
the minimum of ADD bouncing and yelping, but as it sounds unexpectedly great. These songs shouldn’t work in a hungover
Sunday afternoon incarnation, but they do.
The vocals twine together well, and the drums are crisp, not longer
sounding like a dog made of snares chasing its own tail round a cymbal
warehouse like in the band’s early days.
It’s highly enjoyable, we just hope they don’t go getting all grown up
on us.
In some ways, the only negative thing
about The Grinding Young is how bleeding
Oxford their polite, ornate bookish
rocking is. Then again, the best song we
hear is “The King And The Knave”, a medieval murder ballad that sounds like
brilliant a cross between Radiohead and Fairport Convention, and you couldn’t
get much more Oxfordshire than that unless you had Jacqueline Du Pre doing a Mr
Big medley.
From across the field, The Shapes (sadly unconnected with
Micachu) have a fruity organ that makes them sound like Squeeze. Up close they’re less bouncy, but they do
have a keen ear for a hook, and some neat mandolin licks, and we’rer enjoying
it, when they blow it all by saying, “We’re going to do an old Bob Dylan song,
don’t know why”. Jesus, if ever a
statement summed up weekend Dads’ bands.
Don’t do anything as an artist unless you can defend it. If we thought they’d done it just to annoy
us, it would have been something...
Now, Undersmile,
they know exactly why they’re doing what they do, and they also know that it
will annoy a lot of people. We love
them, from the unexpected grooves hidden in their deathly slow doom, to the odd
vocal harmonies, that are so microtonally awkward it sounds like one person
singing through a broken chorus pedal.
We’d used the word “elemental” in our notes, and that was before the
cold heavy rain stopped the exact second their set did: metal bands invoking
Zeus are ten a penny, but only Undersmile can attract old Cloud Gatherer
himself.
Swindlestock
are just another in a huge line of
decent Americana acts from Oxfordshire, and we have to wonder whether Arkansas
is clogged with Supergrass tributes and morris sides to balance things
out. Anyway, you’d have to be a pretty
grim individual not to find something likable about Swindlestock’s bottleneck
and fiddle spattered tunes. On the
Second Stage Count Drachma have at
least come up with a new folk music seam to strip mine, playing traditional
Zulu songs. Last time we saw them they
were a well-drilled quartet, but today they’re a duo, playing bass and guitar,
using the odd loop pedal to allow space for some sax and harmonica. It’s a slapdash, slipshod, shoved together
affair, but we find a lot more to like about it than last time. Ollie Steadman (of Stornoway fame) may not
have the most commanding voice ever, but spacious duo arrangements reveal that
he does have a skill in the natural, conversational phrasing that much folk
song demands. Fewer members and less
rehearsal seems to be the key for this band – but don’t tell any others.
The MC tells us that Mogmatic have been trying to get a slot at Riverside since the very
beginning, and they’ve finally relented.
This’ll be good, then. Well, be
fair, they’re better than the intro makes them sound, bashing out some big
boots pub rock with minor Sabbath inflections, but they can’t hold our
attention when Ran Kan Kan are on
the main stage, because big latin bands will nearly always trump clunky blues
rock quartets. With a vast lineup that
almost demands the title of orchestra, Ran Kan Kan prove very adept at
balancing their sound, and never let too much colour swamp the primacy of their
Afro-Cuban rhythms. Admittedly, Ran Kan
Kan are doing nothing new with their material, but as we think it’s never a bad
time to hear a good rendition of Tito Puente’s “Oye Como Va”, we’re very
contented. Bonus points to the trumpet
player, for quoting “Black Magic Woman“ in their solo, offering us two Santana hits
for the price of one.
Right next to the main stage, a Fire
Service tent is offering the experience of being in a burning building, but
from the outside it looks like a giant, surreal dry ice machine. Over near the Second Stage, in a Bushcraft
tent, some experts are showing tiny kids how to start campfires. Some sort of cosmic balance is restored, you
have to feel. Our final visit to that
end of the field rewards us with Skittle Alley favourites Superloose. Their banjo-picking tunes are sloppy and not hugely
challenging, but their onstage giggles are infectious. Having a laugh; there’s a good reason to make
music, if you’re still reading, The Shapes.
Our day finishes with the excellent Brickwork Lizards. As they play a mixture of 30s music hall, Hot
Club jazz and North African melodies, you could easily imagine them tearing the
roof off some NAAFI dance on the African front: not only would their music
sound as good as it does today, but they’d have invented hip hop, too. A brilliant end to our day, although there
were still the pop treats of Dance A La Plage and Alphabet Backwards to go
(Legal note: only one of these bands constitutes a “pop treat”). Great to see Riverside bouncing back, with
better sound than ever before, especially on the Second Stage. Also, any festival that has Undersmile and
Superloose on the same stage is alright with us – Riverside’s booking policy is
a damn sight more adventurous than any number of big trendy promoters around
the county, wouldn’t you say?
Another great day out in Charlbury: King
excellent.
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