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home » festivals » Dot To Dot Festival » Dot to Dot festival (Bristol) 2008
Saturday reviewDot To Dot Festival (Bristol) 2008Thursday 29th May 2008 While Bristol was experiencing an exodus of 40,000 people to Wembley to, ultimately, suffer the heartbreak of play-off final defeat at Wembley, the city welcomed an influx of talent from across the globe for the second annual Dot to Dot Festival. Bands from these shores, France, Canada, America, Australia and numerous other locations and an even wider spectrum of genres, played to hundreds of people at six venues and ensured that Bristol City's failure to reach the promised land of the Premier League on Saturday went almost entirely unnoticed among the city's music lovers. From the homely environs of the tiny Louisiana to the cavernous Academy, the menu was expansive, fulsome and for those trying to cover as much ground as possible, slightly daunting.  First on at the Trinity Centre Bristol's own Countryside, start 15 minutes before kick-off at Wembley and appear to have lost the battle for attention to the local pubs screening the big match. Their crowd starts at eight people and peaks at 12. It's frankly a shame, as they're one of the City's finest acts and were crowned 2007's band of the year by a local music magazine. Sounding a little like Granddaddy, a touch like Maps, they deal in dreamy synth rock, underpinned by driving bass and floating atop a wave of surf-pop harmonies. Despite the paltry crowd they stick to the task admirably and songs like 'Trippin Sunshine' and 'All The Lights Are Out' are filled with good ideas and unexpected u-turns that stop things becoming dreary or predictable. They've recently been getting some airplay from Radio One's Huw Stephens and you'd hope will soon be playing to crowds consistently in double or even triple figures in the future. Set to follow them at the Trinity are Ontario Canada's The Most Serene Republic but five minutes before their set is due to begin one of their number shuffles onstage and quietly announces that "We're having some technical problems, so the gig's cancelled." It turns out that a keyboard has blown up and quite what it feels like to have travelled halfway round the world for nothing, one can only imagine. Hopefully they'll be back soon because their inventive and epic music, built on layers of snare-heavy drumming, piano, guitar and a brass section, would have been a treat. Meanwhile, after a quick journey across town Example, who refers to himself as a 'white rapper from Fulham' and is signed to Mike Skinner's The Beats record label, is nearing the end of his set and seems to be struggling to get his rhymes across in the largely empty main arena at the Academy. The raps sound fairly basic and crude, but In his defence the size of the venue doesn't help his delivery as the vocals echo around the sparsely-populated hall and the boomy sound obscures the lyrics.  He's followed on stage by English/French five-piece The Teenagers. The opening moments of their half-hour set feel like a joyous rush of infectious guitar pop but it becomes clear a couple of songs in that there's nothing particularly inventive going on. While they draw a fairly large crowd and get the first few rows of, fittingly, mostly teenage girls dancing, there's more style than substance to their synthy pop. Singer Quentin Delafon, complete with grey and neon 80s-style T-shirt and skin-tight jeans, dances in a minimal and mechanical fashion between vocals - like Peter Crouch doing his robot dance - and the droll, conversational style of his delivery does little to inject any further interest into songs like 'Scarlett Johansson' and 'Homecoming'. You begin to find yourself wondering what they'd sound like if they had a truly charismatic frontman with a better vocal range and, well, more ability. Much of the lyrical material is about girls, sex and lust. They finish with 'Homecoming', inviting half a dozen of the girls from the front row to join them on stage to help out on backing vocals and repeatedly howl the line "I fucked my American cunt". Nice.  Up the stairs and through the double doors into the far smaller and much sweatier Academy 2 it's time for The Death Set. Originally from Baltimore, they're now residing in Australia and their single 'Negative Thinking' is one of the most joyful, carefree and riotous songs released in the last year. They stumble on stage, looking as if they've spent the previous night sleeping rough in the multi-storey car park out the back of the building, or not sleeping at all, and guitarist and co-vocalist Peter O'Connell announces, "We're going to do a really quick set because I need to take a shit." I think he means it. Seemingly entirely unconcerned by the migraine-inducing feedback that is ever present throughout their set, they keep to his word and thrash out a dozen hell-for-leather songs in 25 minutes, careering around the stage, re-writing the songs as they go along and slugging from two-litre bottles of Strongbow. It's a vicious, wide-eyed sonic assault, consisting of ear-shredding guitar and distorted beats and samples and you can see the confused looks between the band members as they wonder which direction these crazy, runaway trains of songs are going to bolt off in next, and in equal measure appear not to care one iota. In between numbers main man Johnny Siera plays us songs from his mp3 player, which adds to the squealing mania and O'Connell confides, "Ah man, there's so much fucking feedback, I don't know what to do about it", before tearing into another song regardless. It's at the same time absolutely brilliant and absolutely unlistenable. 'Negative Thinking' is saved until near the end of the set and torn through relentlessly before they hang their guitars, still producing aural agony, from the roof beams and stumble off, presumably to find a toilet. I'm concerned for their mental and physical wellbeing, but I want to go wherever they're going with them.  Back downstairs on the 'main stage' Frank Turner, formerly of punk band Million Dead, is halfway through his slot and you'd struggle to find a bigger contrast from what's just occurred in the smaller room. Undoubtedly a talented and intelligent songwriter, he reels out a string of folky ballads but it feels as if his backing band weigh him down and muddy the water, making it harder to pick up his clever, observational lyrics and perhaps he'd be better sat alone, centre stage with an acoustic guitar. On anthem to not wanting to grow up 'Photosynthesis', he declares, "No one's explained to me exactly what's so great about saving 50 years away on something that you hate." Amen to that Frank.  Over at the Trinity Centre things have thankfully begun to get a little more busy and another Canadian act, the remarkably musically-adept Caribou are taking to a stage awash with trippy, projected visuals. With enough instruments on stage to open a small, independent music shop, their drummer sits centre stage while a second kit is set up alongside for members of the band to infuse the songs with additional percussion when they see fit. Their music is ambitious in design and length and executed to perfection, dominated by the wonderfully inventive drumming, all fills and rolls, powering along dreamy, psychedelic soundscapes. When their singer moves over to the second kit and hammers away gleefully on the snare as the music builds and the visuals go into overdrive it really is an impressive spectacle. They do, perhaps, fall a little too readily to the trappings of over-indulgence, but when you're so musically gifted and your ideas are this good, it's forgiveable.  They're followed by another act to whom self-indulgence is far from a foreign concept. Spiritualized's songs of religion, redemption and rehab seem a fitting match at the Trinity Centre, a former church. Dressed in white and wearing a T-shirt adorned with a picture of Jesus, singer Jason Pierce's face portrays absolutely no emotion through a grandiose 90-minute set which draws heavily on new album Songs in A&E. They launch into 'You Lie, You Cheat', from the new album and it explodes into a seven-minute assault, with twin slide guitars and pounding drums before slipping, seamlessly, into the beautiful, tender 'Shine A Light' from the seminal album 'Ladies and Gentlemen We Are Floating In Space'. Two gospel singers harmonise Pierce's tender vocals and it builds into a glorious cacophony. The hymnal 'Lord Let It Shine' and the fuzzy guitar of upbeat limited-edition single 'Cheapster' follow before another new song 'Soul On Fire', which opens with delicate, yearning vocals before bursting into a giant anthem with the line "Baby you set my soul on fire, I've got two little arms to hold on tight and I want to take it higher." 'Walking With Jesus' floats on clean, organ chords before being given the full Spiritualized treatment and then, mid set, some of the momentum they've built up begins to slip away. Each of their songs, individually, is a beautiful, expansive piece of work, but the blueprint for a Spiritualized track - delicate opening, haunting vocals, followed by a transition into a lengthy, intense jazz-like workout - becomes a little repetitive in a headline-length set. That momentum returns, though, with a vengeance when 'Take Good Care Of It' is brought out, with Pierce howling the mantra "I've been thinking about not coming down" with true fervour, before the glorious rolling bassline to 'Come Together' ushers in the final song of the evening. The gospel singers help build it into a towering, powerful giant of a song before the band slip through the gears and tear into a 20-minute improvised ending, finishing with swathes of feedback and, at last, signs of emotion, release and satisfaction break through from behind Pierce's stony poker face. For the final show of the night it's a late race across the city to the intimate Fiddlers, where Glasvegas play a 30-minute set packed with power-pop choruses and catchy anthems. They seem a little subdued, uniformly clad in black leather and clouded in smoke and dim red lighting, but they are an instant hit with a capacity audience despite the vocal melodies in many of their songs sounding somewhat samey. The shimmering forthcoming single 'Geraldine' and the poignant, regretful 'It's My Own Cheating Heart' draw massive responses before the blunt, tragic 'Daddy's Gone', with vocalist James Allen looking mournful and lost in his words, sees their set end and leaves their crowd longing and calling for more. It takes Allen three or four minutes to make his way off the stage due to the number of hands being thrust in front of him to shake and then he's gone and an exhausting first day of the festival draws to a close. It has presented us with a fascinating and diverse mixture of acts. Day two will have to go a long way to better it. review by Gary Walker photos by Steve Palmer and Gary Walker |
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