Truckulence

A lot of this review is in the latest Nightshift, some of it is "previously unreleased".  You can decide whether the latter is Richard James Soundcloud or Mike Paradinas Soundcloud, can't you?

The Saturday half will be up in a few days.

TRUCK, Hill Farm, Steventon, 17-18/7/15

There are people who believe that Paul McCartney died in 1966 and was replaced by a lookalike.  The proof has to do with flowers and backwards records and the fact that “goo goo g’joob” is ancient Etruscan for “the bassist just snuffed it”, or something, but mostly because photos from 1967 look a wee bit different from photos from 1963.  But that’s how it works, isn’t it?  As time goes by, features shift and alter slightly, whilst the face remains recognisably the same.  And whilst Truck 18 is in some ways very different from Truck 8, it isn’t hard to see that it’s clearly the same festival underneath.  It may have got bigger in the past decade - haven’t we all? - and has clearly had a bit of cosmetic work done, but what is wonderful over these two days is the realisation that really not much has changed from the great Trucks of yore.

The biggest difference, of course, is that now Truck is part of a boutique festival circuit that it helped to instigate, and as such a third of the bill could have been predicted by anyone with an internet connection and a bit of nouse, but as ever the greatest discoveries are squirreled away on the smaller, more curated stages.  Take the first act we see properly on Friday, London’s Passport To Stockholm, who sing delicate melodies over icily precise electronic percussion, in a winning fashion that reminds us of defunct Oxford act undertheigloo.  Considering they are 40% down, and the PA is limbering up for the weekend by making some odd squeaks, it’s an impressive set.

We can imagine Sulky Boy checking their emails a few months ago.  “Hey, we’re going to play Truck! There’ll 6000 people and we’ll be supporting all these cool bands!”  What really happens is that they perform to a smattering of people, sitting in the Market stage, idly checking their phones and wondering whether it’s bad that there was an extra bendy pole left over when the tent was pitched.  Of course, they could make more of an impact by not playing floppy inoffensive pop that’s a bit like baggy with the attitude, swagger and drugs replaced by some horrible Hale & Pace dungarees.  Said dungarees are inexplicably popular amongst punters this year, only outweighed in oddness by the native American head-dresses that a number of independent people are sporting: it looks like some wires got crossed in the organisation of a Village People reunion.  Still, it’s better than the four guys in Charlie Chan villain get-up, one of whom has come in full yellow-face: Number One Cock.

Raleigh Ritchie are an unpleasant melange of Wham! and The Streets and they sound like Bicester Village, so we scoot over to see Gorwelion Horizons.  This turns out not to be a lost Autechre EP, but a special stage solely featuring young Welsh performers, a line-up addition as lovely as it is unexpected (and, down a little passage, hard to find), and a place we retire to regularly whenever the crowds or predictable main stage gestures are getting too much.  They also have a giant wooden ghetto blaster, which wins them points, as does Hannah Grace, a singer who edges towards blues fire and soul sultriness, but without losing sight of the bullseye of good tunes.  She would do well at Cornbury.

We shy away from the Most Improved award here at Nightshift, as it either looks like a snide backhand or a sop for rubbish musicians who don’t have the decency to give up and concentrate on procreation or move somewhere else.  Praise is deserved for Orange Vision, though.  When we first saw them they were trading in pseudo-baggy and infuriating wackiness, but nowadays they use driving indie-funk basslines as the jumping-off point for woozy, reverb-drenched flights which send half the crowded Virgins stage into a misty reverie and half into a dancing trance.  A satisfying set that has nor pop nor psych, but as it were an after dinner sleep, dreaming of both.

We love Truck, and we’re as nostalgic as the next old deaf rocker, but, really, isn’t it time to retire the Barn?  Surely it has the worst acoustic of any festival stage in Europe, and is a pain to get in and out of, meaning that we miss a number of acts over the weekend.  When it was less busy, there were some fun, unpretentious rock bands on display making it worth the effort to listen through the echo, such as Bloody Knees, whose last tune sounds like “Come As You Are” sung by gibbons, which is just fine and dandy by us.

Going to festivals always makes us feel old, but it’s amplified by Ags Connolly’s good old days number, “When Country Was Proud” which starts with someone holding a CD.  CDs still few new-fangled to us, godammit!  Mind you, in the chorus poor old Ags tries to put his CD “on the turntable”, which can’t have gone well.  Still, this lyrical slip is the single criticism we can make of an excellent set by a naturally gifted musician, who knows exactly when embellishments get in the way of a song, and when to give his rich melancholic voice space to communicate.   Truck has had its fair share of Americana over the years, but Ags’ country isn’t alt or nu or avant, it’s just fantastic.

Keeping the local flag proudly aloft on the Virgins stage are Death Of Hi Fi, who have tempered their dark and brooding hip hop with some lighter, slinkier songs, pick of which is “Roses And Guns”, wherein punchdrunk electro synths stumble through the picture window of Portishead’s refined drawing room. Top cabaret marks for featuring a lightning quick costume change on a small stage, and throwing flowers to the crowd with download codes attached.

We’ll sadly probably never see (m)any metal bands at Truck again, so having played the other day at Download, Beasts are probably as close as we’ll get.  Big drums, big chords, big soaring vocal lines, a slightly more aggressive Foo Fighters?  Check.  A little bit boring after a while?  Check.

In the past, the main stage at Truck has featured some surprisingly slight acts.  For every Fixers or Bellowhead, there’s been some wispy indie band or subtle American strummer who, although sometimes good, have got lost on the breeze.  This year, the promoters have worked out just what people want, rightly or wrongly, from a festival main stage.  Take The Bohicas.  Nobody knows who they are, we suspect, but they go down a storm with their broad-stroke thumping pop, and chunky melodies that seem to fall somewhere between XTC and Bryan Adams.  The power goes off mid-song, and everyone hangs around cheering till it’s back on, which is as much evidence of winning the crowd over as we can imagine.  They’re quite good.  Pity, really, we were hoping we’d be able to just say they were Bohollocks.

After buying some food from the ever-lovely Rotary Club, we are accosted by a wandering woman from the church snack stall: “You know what goes really well with chips?  Sweets!”  Full marks for dedicated sales patter, dear, but you don’t have to be Jay Rayner to know it’s not true.  Her culinary error comes back to us for Neon Waltz, who are the musical equivalent of a Haribo melting over a spud, having ill advisedly taken the harmonies, the electric piano and the rootsiness from The Band and melded them with Flowered Up’s brash proto-Britpop.  How on earth is this any good?  Nay, rather delightful?  Perhaps because, in pop, character and ideas trump showing off and artisanal moustache stylists every time.  We especially love the singer, a vat-grown Micky Dolenz mini-me who looks as though he literally just got out of bed...and that his bed was made of temazepam and dumplings.

Speaking of character, back at Gorwelion Horizons a trio called HMS Morris provide one of the best sets of the weekend, despite not actually being sailors waving hankies.  Their synth-based pop is held together by charm and Blu Tack, and provides warm fuzzy memories of vintage bookings on the old Trailer Park stage.  One of them is a cute pop powerhouse, what you’d get if Gwen Stefani had been given away free with Coco Pops; one of them is a keyboard player with a croupier’s hat, a bushy beard and a glorious falsetto; the other is a drummer tight enough to keep it all together, but sensitive enough to keep the songs bubbly fresh.  A highlight is a gorgeous plinky skank with lashings of twangy guitar, like Vienna Ditto in dub (and in Welsh), but it’s all wonderful.  Swnami who come afterwards were pretty good, too, in the vein of early Foals, and it’s a pity that so few people see it. 

Mind you, perhaps they were all just queuing for the toilet.  What happened, Truck, has Steventon been hit by Dutch Bog Disease or something?  The only downside to a lovely festival is the acute lack of portaloos.  At one point, we take a walk along the entire length of the campsite to try to find a short toilet line, and it can’t be done.  Mind you, one in five tents have a bunch of Truckers sitting outside, and a bit of eavesdropping reveals that lots of them are planning on sitting about killing time until Clean Bandit come on.  That’s the spirit, kids, stick to bands that have been on telly adverts, otherwise you might see something new and exciting, which would hurt your little heads.

You know a band are pansy-arsed panty-waists when they set up the drums and keyboards side on.  It’s a just a fact. But here at Nightshift we like bands who iron their socks as much as bands who lose their clothes each night fighting drunken tigers, so long as they’re good.  William Joseph Cook and his band are good, for the most part, especially when he edges towards strength-in-delicacy Jeff Buckley territory.

We’re not sure whether Aberystwyth’s Mellt have an infuriating Google-maximising spelling, or whether it’s just Welsh, but they’re worth a visit, with strong basslines pulling sweetly against bookish new wave vocals, something in the ballpark of The Lemonheads, with Sebadoh as jovial groundskeepers.  They’re good, although may not have quite found that magic ingredient to be truly special.  Speaking of ingredients, beware of the coffee stall, where an espresso is a pound, and an Americano is two; just to check, the difference is still some water, right?  Thank Christ they don’t sell squash.

Good Will Punting

Here's my review of this year's Punt festival. Fragments of it were used in Nightshift's roundup, but obviously only the nice bits, because they booked the acts.  Music In Oxford didn't do a review this year, sadly, so most of this is being seen for the first time.  Calm your thundering heart and read on.

Random thought for today, has anyone ever made this awful joke?  Cartoon frame of Minnie the Minx or similar, clearly the last one on the page, in which she's tucking into the traditional pile of mash with snorkers sticking out at angles having a "nosh up" in a "snooty" restaurant.  She's looking at us, saying.  "Reader, I married him *Chortle*".

THE PUNT – Purple Turtle/Cellar/Wheatsheaf/Duke's Cut/White Rabbit, 8/5/13

Like cultural futures market traders, some people go to see unsigned acts so that they can spot successes early on: “I saw them before you’d ever heard of them, chum” is a common cry, and might be one familiar to anyone who caught Young Knives, Stornoway or Fixers at previous Punts.  Tonight’s event is odd because, although it may well source a few similar anecdotes for future pub raconteurs, for those of us who live in the here and now the bill is chock full of potential, but a little short on match-fit performers and finished articles.

The Purple Turtle PA, sadly, doesn’t seem to be either of those.  As an engineer battles gamely throughout the night, the timings fall further behind schedule, and the sound becomes more and more wayward.  For Phil McMinn (who has played the Punt previously as part of Fell City Girl and The Winchell Riots, despite his cheeky onstage claims) this is a minor issue and, although the mix might be missing some laptop trickery, his acoustic songs with violin touches cut through technological difficulties. We’ve always admired rather than loved his previous acts, finding them too bombastic and desperately emotional to truly embrace, but this outstanding set hinges on his fantastic, ruby port voice, and a knowing way with melody and dynamics.  If the music is more down to earth than his old bands’, then the lyrics certainly are, touching on mountains, tents and, quite possibly, pony trekking and Youth Hostels, with a wordy dexterity that occasionally recalls Joni Mitchell.  Give that man a gold star, and some Kendall mintcake for his napsack.

More veterans stripping things down next door in The Cellar, as Listing Ships take to the stage for the first time as a trio, having lost a member to parenthood (which has probably killed more bands than drink, drugs and gate reverb put together).  No offence to the departed guitarist, but the band is a revelation as a threepiece, giving the compositions enough space to add a cheeky sashay to what was once a clumping krautcore goosestep.  Tonight keyboard parts reveal new squelchy qualities, and basslines suddenly exude the aromas of dub and New York punk funk: seriously, we can suddenly hear ESG in there, along with the predicted Tortoise and Explosions In The Sky. 

Candy Says...relax!  They might as well, they’re still soundchecking back at the PT.  Oh, they’re about to start...oh, no they’re not.  Must dash.

Beginning to know what a ping pong ball must feel like, we nip back to The Cellar for a bracing waft of Duchess.  We enter to a delightful bit of summery, Afropop fluff, which bears a marked resemblance to Bow Wow Wow.  It’s often lovely stuff, but they could do with going a little more wild (in the country) to lift these promising songs.  Perhaps if they swap one of the percussionists for some gigging experience, we’ll have a great band on our hands.

Limbo Kids have made some superb recordings, which is what you’d expect from members of Ute and Alphabet Backwards.  In the White Rabbit, though, the glacial fragments of late 80s chart hits they arranged into delicate towers of song seem to topple like so much icy pop Jenga.  The vocals are cheery but thin, the band look a little uncertain, and the whole affair is tasty, but somewhat undercooked.  This is their debut gig, we understand, and the conclusion is that they could well have been the best act of Punt 2014, but for now they’re just providing the hold music before our first visit to our favourite Oxford venue.

The Wheatsheaf, apparently held together by scraps of tattered carpet and the accrued tar of ancient cigarettes is not only our Oxford bolthole of choice, but also the most fitting venue for some proper rock in the Punt, making its rock ‘n’ roll case from the tattooed boozers in the downstairs bar to the leaking toilets in the venue above.  In the darkness with a pint of cheap ale is perfect place to see Bear Trap, a scuzzy quartet of grungers who look as though they should come from Oxford, Michigan, making mall rock in the back room of the local Lutheran chapel to kill drab small town weekends.  There are backwards baseball caps on- and offstage, all nodding vigorously to greasy rock that kicks like an irate lumberjack, but whines like a petulant teen.  We’d be lying if we said that these thrashed chords and raw snarls were in any way original, but we’d also be lying if we said we don’t sup back that cheap ale at double speed, with a dumbass grin on our silly face.

If Bear Trap look American, Ags Connolly doesn’t half sound it.  Not only is his music old school one-man melancholy country – or Ameripolitan music, as he and his fellow Shaniaphobes like to call their sound, to differentiate it from whatever stadium schmaltz is being labelled country this week – his voice is pure Midwest drawl, which is odd as when speaking he betrays his West Oxfordshire home.  Normally this would be an unforgivable crime, but Ags’ voice is just so damn good, unhurriedly lolloping along the melodies like a cowpoke taking an easy stroll back from church on a glorious day, that all is forgiven.  Like Bear Trap, his music isn’t going to break new ground, but if it’s looking to break a few hearts, it might just succeed.

Fearing that we’d neglect The Duke’s Cut if we didn’t make the effort to walk there now, we make the rush there to check out The August List.  Thankfully, it’s not as punishingly busy as last year, but it’s still hard to make out much of this enjoyable duo’s music from the back of the crowd, in the doorway of the Ladies’.  Experience tells us that the music is a sweet, smily balance to Ags’ lachrymose laments, with unhurried porch-swing ditties drifting in from some mythical Deep South farmstead.  There’s an unforced connection between their voices that you only get if the singers are brother and sister, or husband and wife.  Or, judging by their musical reference points, both.

We have thoroughly enjoyed Death Of Hi-Fi’s recent album, but live, and shorn of many of the guest vocalists, their music feels like a functional backdrop, rather than a main event.  Like the paranoid feeling that things keep happening in your peripheral vision, the music always seems as though it’s about to usher in something big - whether that’s a stunning guest turn or a brash corporate pep talk, we’re not sure – but it never quite does.  Only rapper N-Zyme really makes a mark onstage, and he displays a nervous energy that seems to hamper his performance a little.  A strong band best suited to the studio, perhaps.

Our experience of tonight’s Punt has been of people doing old things very well, and people doing new things that might need a little nurturing or rethinking before they’re great, but that doesn’t mean that any of the performances are bad.  Except Nairobi’s, that is.  It’s a little unfortunate for them that both Duchess and Limbo Kids have nodded towards the post-Foals African influenced rhythms they favour, and we try to bear in mind that the PT sound system is shot away, but even with these byes, what we see is clumsy and disappointing.  With guitars doing an ugly Hi-Life widdle over clunky drums and a vocal that sounds like a disconsolate moose, it’s as if this set has been put together solely to annoy Andy Kershaw.  Sadly, the wonky world music jam happening in the doorway of Moss Bros as we wend our way back to The Wheatsheaf is more satisfying.

Like a hideous breeding experiment between Stump and The Peking Opera, The Goggenheim bring some much needed theatricality to the Punt.  Everything about this band is grating, from the unjazz skronk of the sax to the repulsive Man At C&A striped vests to the shrill declamatory dada vocals, and yet, against all logic, their songs feel like glorious pop nuggets. Whilst the band nail the wayward blowouts of improvisors Bolide to trashy backbeats and Beefheartian trellises, matriarchal abstract diva Grace Eckersley wails and coos barely coherent mantras.  There’s an otherworldliness about The Goggenheim, as well as a love of the cheap and brash, as if it were the sort of thing two-dimensional sci fi monsters might listen to on their night off. 

And so, we leave the frugging Macra and boogying Aquaphibians and make our way to The White Rabbit for the Punt’s denouement.  In a way, the biggest revelation of the night is how well this works as a final venue: the Goggenheim provide a mystifying climax, and this welcoming little pub acts as a come down party.  We slurp down a nightcap and enjoy After The Thought, who starts off in the style of Artificial Intelligence electronic acts such as B12 or early Black Dog, and then adds a sizable tray of guitar pedals.  There’s a sparse, almost systems music feel to the loops and rhythms, and a lot of the set sounds like the third Orbital album with half tracks turned down and someone playing guitar over the top.  The effect is hypnotic but, just maybe, it’s not quite as good as the third Orbital album without half the tracks turned down and someone playing guitar over the top.  Like much of tonight’s bill, After The Thought is an act with a relatively short gigging history, and we’re sure that soon this enjoyably textured music will become even more encapsulating.  Whether Matt Chapman will become an “I saw him first” topic for future boasts we don’t know, but we do know that we’ve explored a varied set of local acts, and supported a bunch of excellent Oxford venues that should be cherished, which is perhaps enough of a boast for anyone with a real love of live music.

Funeral For A Spendor

According to the Stasi-like methods with which I observe your activity, the last person to come to this site through an external link came from the website of an early music ensemble I reviewed in two sentences 8.5 years ago.  That's kind of fun, isn't it?  They were a good act, too, so far as I recall, and I'm glad to see they're still going.  Go to http://www.wildruby.co.uk/skeletoncrew and repay the favour.

DEATH OF HI-FI – ANTHROPOCENE (BG Records)

Death Of Hi Fi.  Whether we’re meant to make this connection or not, it’s a fitting name for a hip hop act.  As more and more music is listened to on mobiles and tinny laptop speakers, many producers are mastering their tracks to work best when shared on someone’s phone in a bus queue, not spun on 1200s attached to a fat sound system, and it’s the post-hip hop diaspora that’s leading the game, changing the sound of the genre from the bottom up.  The hallowed boom-bap has been replaced by the airy piff-paff.  Whether this is a harmless step in the evolution of music distribution or a sonic tragedy is a doctorate yet to be written, but it’s certainly interesting in this instance, as this album is lush, deep and layered, yet doesn’t tend to rely on a booming kick drum or a blue smoke bass fug. 

The concept behind the record is that various aliens have interpreted earth culture based on snatches they had picked up on radio waves.  To be honest, after the international collage of voices that makes up “Hello From The Children Of Earth”, that brings to mind OMD’s speaking clock sampling “Time Zones”, this conceit is unlikely to remain at the forefront of your mind, but on a simpler level, interpretation is paramount here, as DOHF have drafted in a wide selection of vocalists to augment their tracks.  These range from prevalent local names like Half Decent and Asher Dust, to proper coups, like Dizzy Dustin from California’s Ugly Duckling.  Dustin’s track “Bullspit” (no relation to the Shaodow single) is possibly the pick of a very impressive album, throwing some excellent rhymes and a ridiculously infectious hook over a lolloping left hand piano line that isn’t a million miles away from a soulful take on Talk Talk’s “Life’s What You Make It”.  It’s an example amongst many on Anthropocene of raps with real character – whether or not anyone can imagine dial-twiddling ETs on this record, there’s no shortage of mic-troubling MCs, with a variety of accents and angles, which makes a change from the identikit bars we hear so often on hip hop albums, in Oxfordshire or beyond.

The downside is that this record dips when the vocalists take a backseat.  There’s nothing at all wrong with the instrumental cuts, but they sound as though they’re backing tracks in need of a strong vocal.   At least there’s plenty of variation, from the epic “Entering Orbit (Intro)” to the cheeky chiptune scuffle of “Anthropocene (1UP Overture)”.  Like so many good hip hop producers, DOHF are at their best letting subtle tweaks and touches bring out the flavours of their MCs, rather than composing instrumentals with their own cohesive narrative: it’s the Prince Of Persia synthline on “Manamals” or the mid-80s Tangerine Dream chug of “Until I Stop Dreaming” that we love, rather than the slightly over-egged pomp of the title track (plus there are the ghosts of some cheesy Highlander guitar wails haunting a few dank corners).  So, perhaps the record is a touch overlong, but it is still deeply impressive, and comes highly recommended.  Anyway, what does it matter?  Who the hell listens to whole albums nowadays, anyway?  No time, bruv, the bus should be here in a minute.

Charlbury 2011 Sunday

Hello, good people of the internet. And wankers; a big "hi" to the evil wankers. To be honest, you're relative moral merits are irrelevant to me, just read the reviews and enjoy them. If it turns out you steal nuts from squirrels immediately afterwards, it's no concern of mine.



RIVERSIDE FESTIVAL, CHARLBURY, 19/6/11


As much fun as Saturday was, Sunday packed in a few more surprises for us, not least with Grey Children, the new project for Dave Griffiths, once of Eeebleee and Witches. As befits a first live performance of songs played by a scratch band, there are hesitant, uncertain moments in the set, but the material is very strong, with a muscular poeticism that’s something like a cross between Tindersticks and Sugar, with some excellent baroque curlicues from Benek Chylinski’s trumpet and Chris Fulton’s violin. Not a project we expect to see gracing the stage with great regularity, so it’s a real treat for those who turn up early.

After discovering him last year, we have to hang around to catch a bit of Sonny Black’s performance. You see so much hollow showboating in blues, it’s just great to see a relaxed, unhurried musician who lets his technique serve the music, and not the other way round. Hints of Davey Graham and John Renbourn abound, as well as the greats like Doc Watson. Sonny also plays some nice bottleneck national guitar, a gorgeous instrument which is only spoilt by the fact that just looking at the thing reminds us of Brothers In Arms.

A complete change of style at the other end of the festival, with thumping drum machines and squelching 303 basslines. We have an admission: we have no critical faculties in the face of acid house. None whatsoever. Honestly, just the sound of it immerses us in a wash of serotonin-drenched euphoria, taking us direct to cloud 909. So, for us to observe that Manacles Of Acid are very good indeed is probably meaningless, but they do a bang up job of reliving that wonderful space between Phuture and early Orbital. There’s a lovably ramshackle edge to the show, as lines come in at different volumes, and jack leads are swapped on the fly, but really if you do this music well, it always sounds good, you don’t have to rewrite the rulebook. So, not that dissimilar from Sonny Black after all.

Main stage engineer Jimmy Evil disappears at about this time, so we follow him over to the second stage to witness his progcore outfit Komrad. Since we last saw them, the tracks have been rearranged a little, and the music is less the unforgiving technical metal of old, and has a lighter, post-Zappa bounce: it’s not the all-out jape of Mike Patton’s more leftfield projects, but there is definite humour on display, not least in the genius song title “Parking Restrictions In Seaside Towns (Strongly Worded Letter To The Council)”. At moments the set is a little approximate – with intricate arrangements like these there’s nowhere to hide the odd fluff – but this is a band well worth watching.

People might look at Steamroller and call them dinosaurs. That would be forgetting, of course, that dinosaurs are COOL. An unreconstructed power blues trio will send some people into frothing excitement (especially those who remember the younger Steamroller from their Corn Dolly days), just as it will bore others to silent tears, but even the most vehement critic would have to admit that Steamroller have more than earned their place in Oxford music history, and that drummer Larry Reddington’s lyrics have a knowing humour: he could probably pen a witty lyric like “Back In Ten Minutes” whilst most of his peers were still trying to find a rhyme for “Cadillac”.

We’ve never quite managed to warm to Gunning For Tamar, for some reason. Their music is equidistant between Hretha and Spring Offensive, but for us they don’t have the rigorous elasticity of the former nor the emotive beauty of the latter. Solid, twitchy Oxford artpop, played very well, but not much else to our ears.

The Prohibition Smokers Club have developed in the past year from a random jam session to smooth, stadium soul party. Sort of a mixed blessing, as some of the set is too polite, but the highlights are excellent: “Graveyard Shift” is a smoky sketch of urban night owls, like a collaboration between Tom Waits and the Love Unlimited Orchestra, and the final track is a spicy open-ended funk workout. Really they’re the sort of groove revue that can only be judged after two 90 minute sets and a gallon of Long Island Iced Tea, it seems as though they’re just getting warmed up when the gig finishes.

One great thing about Riverside is all the children in attendance who seem to actually love the music. We saw a lad of about four moshing away to Gunning For Tamar, and by the time Alphabet Backwards come on, he’s rounded up a whole bunch of chums, all right in front of the stage. “Oh God,” observes an audience member to us, “they’re flocking. It’s like The Birds”. But then, Alphabet Backwards are a band for the unabashed child inside us all, an improbably joyous froth of pop melodies and chirpy keyboards. The closing track, new to us, sounds like a mixture of The Streets and Supertramp. Brilliant.

We thought Every Hippie’s Dream was world peace, with perhaps the chance to smoke a joint and look at a lady’s boobs taking a close second, but apparently what they like is 60s and 70s rock covers. So, look, when the sun’s out and someone’s playing “Foxy Lady” and they’re not completely rubbish the world can never seem an entirely awful place, but someone’s clearly been bogarting the originality round at EHD’s commune, as there isn’t much character to speak of on stage. They also seem to run out of steam a couple of numbers before the end of the set: if getting from one end to the other of “Sunshine Of Your Love” is a terrible chore, perhaps the covers circuit isn’t for you, lads.

Death Of Hifi give us instrumental hip hop next, which is a tribute to Riverside’s diversity. There are some nice mid-90s beats and some cheeky samples, plus decent scratching and guitar playing, but none of the tracks go anywhere. A rapper hops up to freestyle over one of the tracks, and whilst he’s not quite got the flow of Half Decent, who guested with Prohibition Smokers Club, his presence lifts the music from a moraine of unconnected ideas. A blueprint for future developments, perhaps.