Away
from the hustle, bustle and general manic excitement of the major festival
contenders a sub-culture a smaller, summer, musical events is growing
in the UK. Now in its fifth year Leicester’s Summer Sundae could
make claim to being one of the finer examples.
Friday
August 10
Kate
Nash’s assertion that Summer Sundae would involve lots of free
ice-cream, is unfortunately, not a reality. Shame, as in the first real
heat of the summer, this would have been a welcome addition to this
quaintest of musical gatherings.
Hiding from the sun in the Musician tent Daisy
B’s pop-blues is a nice start to the day and
not at all unlike the trademark sound of one KT Tunstall.
Colum
Regan is not, as I had misheard, called Gollum and
doesn’t do a nice line in Middle-Earth related acoustic narratives
– which disappoints me rather more than his inoffensive, MOR tunes,
which are nice but a little dull. Still he does enjoy the best use of
a ships horn I’ve ever heard, even if it is caused by unintentional
feed-back.
Local-lads Fazed
won a BBC Radio Leicester battle of the bands, obviously voted for
by angsty adolescents. Their mediocre indie-rock balladry could soundtrack
a thousand teen-drama sob-scenes. An unimaginative cover of ‘Ever
Fallen In Love Someone You Shouldn’t Have’ sees off any
notion that this band is any good.
Good, doesn’t quite cover Kate
Nash……her set shows exactly why she
is one of the UK’s top-pop priorities. Often compared to a certain
other pop-poppet, Nash staves off lazy comparisons and, in her live
persona, stands out as an interesting and vital performer. ‘Foundations’
is an obvious highlight, in a set of many – it’s minimalist
piano, heavy, driving beats and floating strings provide the perfect
backdrop to Nash’s musings on doomed-relationships. Her modesty
and genuine shock caused by a mass sing-along shows that she is oblivious
to her obvious talents. Nash is a stunning documenter of the everyday
who sits comfortably in the seat of classic British pop-eccentricity.
It would appear the Musical Spacetime Continuum has split and fractions
of musical history are spilling onto the main-stage or maybe it’s
just the manic sound of The
Aliens. The first two numbers are straight-forward,
psyche-rock which, whilst being mesmerising are nothing special. The
inventiveness of their otherworldly warped rock becomes apparent during
‘Robot Man’s’ future-dance-psyche-out with the band’s
collision of genres taking recognisable sounds into new realms. ‘The
Happy Song’ is fittingly joyous. The boys from the Beta Band return
to Summer Sundae in style.
The
Concretes make lush indie-pop which promises much
but delivers little more than a one-dimensional exercise is background
music. The performance adds nothing to the music’s mundanity.
A man is playing a Hawaiian Barbie with glowing red eyes whose heads
makes pulses and whose arms bring forth a woosh – this is inexplicably
bizarre, this is the Modified
Toy Orchestra (which does exactly what it says on
the tin). The Orchestra is what you get when techno-geeks let their
childlike tendencies run amok. Five suited ‘musicians’ play
a range of teched-up toys much to the amusement of those gathered. Once
the curiosity surrounding the concept subdues the actual brilliance
of the Orchestra’s music hits like a sledgehammer to the head
– regardless of the source the deep electronic soundscapes make
for an enthralling and foot-tapping spectacle infused with blips and
beats. Coupled with the bands own humorous understanding of their own
novelty and arty video backdrop this makes for one of intriguing happenings
of the weekend.
The
Divine Comedy are being suitably ‘divine’
on the main stage, but inside a man is causing pandemonium dropping
the Cheers theme-tune into a hip-hop set – ‘Yoda, Yoda,
Yoda’ come the shouts from the sweaty hoards (man, it’s
hot!) as for an hour and a half DJ
Yoda drops an unbelievable DJ set. Soul, hip-hop,
rock, indie, drum and bass, new rave, house – you name it’s
there. Any man who can drag the Match of the Day theme into the height
of credibility (without it seeming like a gimmick) deserves a bucket-load
of praise. This is awesome stuff.
by
Chris Marks
Saturday
Sunday
