GGH are five attractive twenty year old girls from Watford who flit between fairly predictable cod nu-metal and tuneful indie rock.  The latter appeals more with a couple of angsty melodic numbers reminiscent of a rockier Smiths or the underrated Echobelly.

Cardiff’s Sal also have a female frontperson but she’s completely upstaged by the antics of a lunatic bass player.  By song two he’s already started on the first of many climbs up the amp stack, vaulting back to the ground like a slack trousered lemming.  He’s bloody good but he knows it, all ridiculous bare chested cock rock postures and crowd jumping  – shame he has hair like the threadbare straw roof of an old cottage.  The opening song “Fuck You”, a storming rock n roll belter is out of place in their rather average rock set and the girl is too likeable, too normal, in desperate need of a lesson in rock star arrogance or aloofness.  She can’t stop herself from grinning all the time which when you’re yelling Fuck You just seems silly.  Besides the girl next door never headlines at the Astoria.

Headliners and SoundsXP darlings, The Suffrajets, are more like the real thing.  Four feisty cockney rockers, they plough through a set of ballsy rawk n roll and show up the Donnas for a bunch of prissy lightweights.  The highlight is the awesome grung mosh monster that is Aphrodite, a song Kurt Cobain would have pulled a trigger for to include on Nevermind.  The new single Distinction is another twin guitar ramraiding noisefest, like primetime Hole.  Plus the ‘jets shed blood for us tonight, literally, as Alex gets hit in the forehead by part of her own guitar whilst on a quick gadabout in the mosh.  Blood and loads of sweat – the tears could only from us at the brevity of their set.  More please!

Set: hello world, shy, Aphrodite, distinction, butterfly, just good friends, universal, all I ever wanted, car crash, fools.

Reviewed by Paul M
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Friday

The madness started with the metal jollity and glam-rock goodness of The Darkness. Despite some God-awful and childlike sound mixing (a feature of the whole festival it has to be said) and the pouring rain the Lowestoft nutcases got everyone slouched in front of the impressive Pyramid Stage up and moshing before even the pubs in down-the-road Bath were open. Not bad and I so love the tassled jumpsuits boys. Meanwhile the cheeky chappies of Athlete were building upon their growing reputation as the shining stars of glowing urban indie-guitar in front of a packed field of punters wallowing in the fresh mud.

The sun came out eventually, as did the ever-improving acoustic minstrels of I Am Kloot on the new bands stage, with a rousing and “different” performance of swooshing acousticness that would suggest they’re still not receiving the praise and recognition they rightly deserve. Ian McCulloch of Echo And The Bunnymen was his usual effervescent and controversial self – this time goading the people of Newcastle about their failed “Capital of Culture” bid between truly wonderous of standards “the Killing Moon” and “The Cutter”, tracks that make you realise why Coldplay admire the Liverpool lads so much. Electric Six gained the love and respect of the energetic crowd including me, although maybe that had something to do with the alcohol. They want to take us to a gay bar apparently. Most people watching are so high they’d go more than readily.

Whilst watching Suede later on in the evening over on the Pyramid Stage the question on everyone’s lips was “What the fuck is this?” Jaded, faded and sounding surprisingly dated I think the end is well and truly nigh for Brett and his boys. Or at least I hope so. The “New Bands” stage meanwhile was resonating with the Scandic popiness of Mew who were carrying on the good work started by the Kloot boys earlier in the day and blessing all present with their own brand of sophisticated indie. Much like The Cardigans only actually worth listening to.

It was left to ill-looking REM to close the day’s proceedings.  It’s fair to say though I’m not their number one fan and this at times ragged performance did nothing to alter my opinions. The receptive crowd lapped them up though and it became apparent that there’ll never be anyone who can hold the entire crowd in the palms of his hands like Michael Stipe did again. Or anyone like Har Mar Superstar for that matter who, at the bar we were enjoying a nightcap in, provided visual reassurance that it wasn’t all strawberries and ice-cream with some fine drug taking in full view of all and sundry. He’s actually a fine advertisement for the anti-drugs mob if ever there was one. Would you want to end up looking like him?  Just say no kids.

Saturday

Saturday began, rather surreally with the annoyingly wailed Mexican vocals and hip-hop rap shit of Ozomatli that blended, or should that be blanded, into the crooning and pseudo-trendiness of Jools Holland and Co. What is the fascination with the dwarf-like, foul mouthed and piano bothering twat? The Other stage called but sadly The Thrills went and bored me to tears there – the lightweight material from the album just didn’t seem to work live -  and the Joy Division pastiche that was the Interpol set didn’t do much to raise the roof surprisingly. I spent their entire sets watching Noel Gallagher tell reporters and security staff to fuck off and Shaun Ryder fall over repeatedly. Much more entertaining and at times, more tuneful. Libertines saved the day though and blasted through an energetic set that was a pleasure to behold.

According to my normally sensible girlfriend Polyphonic Spree were “lightweight, too quiet, boring and surreal” over on the Pyramid stage, clearly suffering with dreadful sound and equipment problems. But then again she was ecstatic and moshing away during the irksome Supergrass (Pyramid Stage, later that day, utter shit) so make of her comments what you will.

As for the New Band Tent, Kings Of Leon bounced away with their own brand of hill-billy boogie taken from impending album “Youth and Young Manhood”. One to listen out for definitely. Oh and John Cale, formerly of Velvet Underground, was fucking awful by the way.  Keep your eyes and ears on The Stands who were superb however, if not a little overawed by the occasion. Come on lads, it’s only a tent with a few thousand (or so it seemed) people in it.

Turin Brakes fitted in nicely on the Pyramid Stage, one “young lady” (estimated age 45) even dancing tits-out to “Pain Killer” and “Underdog” making lead singer Ollie forget the words on more than one occasion and quite right too. The real glory though came in the form of The Flaming Lips. OK, they can’t sing for toffee but fucking hell do they know how to put on a splendid show.  This is what Glastonbury is all about – cartoon animals, big fuck off comedy hands, Jo “Whiney” Whiley prancing about, a sunshine falling off the stage, a rabble of dancing kids, a Pink Floyd cover (a surprisingly faithful yet excellent version of “Breathe”) and bucket fulls of fake blood. ‘Av it! 'Waiting For A Superman' and “Do You Realize?” brought tears to my eyes they were that good. Or was it the atmosphere? Truly and utterly magnificent and make no mistake, as a band, the Flaming Lips are simply on fire at the moment

Radiohead were the one band I simply couldn’t wait to see and gladly I wasn’t at all disappointed. People since the gig have been whining about Thom Yorke’s voice during this 18 song set but it was simply sublime if you ask me – like everything else about Britain’s Biggest Band ™ I have to say. If you want to hear a technically perfect vocal performance fuck right off to a Celine Dion gig and leave the real spellbinding Radiohead to those of us clever enough to see beyond the boring tag. Twats. True, Yorke and Co are bordering on early Genesis-like prog rock but even the new material was anthemic on the big stage, and classics like “Lucky” (in rock-out form here),  show closer “Street Spirit” and an almost heartbreaking performance of “Fake Plastic Trees” even had Mr Miserable in chief Yorke grinning inanely and a loved-up couple shagging towards the back of the field. Shagging to Radiohead, fancy that. At Glastonbury I don’t think anyone else will ever be this good again and that’s not hype or hyperbole. It’s true and anyone there will, I’m sure, agree. Unless they’re one of the aforementioned twats of course.

Sunday

Curiosity got the better of me on the final day and, like too many others it felt, I had to go and see supposed indie-upstart and former Sugababe Siobhan Donaghy. Whilst she’s especially pleasing to the eye and seems to have inherited a bad-ass rock chick attitude and some Darkness T-shirts, her music can best be described as faux. A bit of work to do there love I think and certainly no place for you at the SoundsXP Inn just yet. Cerys Matthews on the other hand has gone all nicey-nicey on us and is much better for it too, outshining any of her former bands performances with a summer and country-tinged set. The acoustic tent was so packed during her performance I couldn’t even get in for most of it, though her heavily pregnant belly was still visible above the sea of heads and that voice was, of course, clearly audible above the rabble (and an interested James Dean Bradfield of the Manics).

Another “new” act, The Star Spangles were piss poor four chord drivel in the new band tent with those horrid shouted choruses popular only in alehouses just before closing time. The same could also be said for former Prodigy man Keith Flint’s imaginatively titled Flint. Lots of drums hit very very hardly, amps turned up to 11 and a very angry man shouting lots of swear words into two microphones won’t get you anywhere young man-  now back to the Prodigy you go! The Delgados were magnificent on the same stage earlier in the day though with their string laden and hook heavy set that had feet tapping and heads bobbing.

The best way to describe US rockers Grandaddy is interesting. On the Other stage they seem rather out of place for some reason and each song seemed to plod and shuffle by, only the excellent “Hewlett’s Daughter” woke everyone from their final day slumbers. My enjoyment of their set wasn’t helped by the group of three lads next to me shouting “shit” over and over again. I wonder if they thought Thom Yorke’s voice was a bit crap too? Twats. Feeder strolled though a greatest hits set as the sun went down though once again their performance was severely blighted by some terrible technical problems and a hell of a lot of flag waving – mostly by the group of young lasses immediately in front of me. If I ever see a Welsh flag as such close quarters again I swear I’ll fucking burn it. Tolerant? Me?

Another band to equally annoy and please the watching unwashed and probably constipated masses at Glasto were the Manic Street Preachers.  Their performance though was the best I’ve seen from them for some time now and I apologise now for saying, this time last year, that they were finished. “Motorcycle Emptiness” was as powerfully angry as it was beautifully melancholic and oft-overlooked classic “Stay Beautiful” had almost everyone at the entire festival moshing and singing along gladly, with James Dean Bradfield in mighty fine voice indeed. Even new song “Everything Will Be” was highly impressive. I sense there’s life in the old political dogs yet, even if Nicky Wire did tell us all to fuck off more than once. Bet you didn’t see that on the BBC. Bring on the new album, released later this year.

I’m sure you’ll understand that I gave Moby, the questionable closer of the whole she-bang, a very very very wide berth indeed. I mean, Moby for fucks sake? Instead I was basking in the celebratory glory that was the Doves on the other stage. The Manc boys can be a bit hit and miss live at times, almost shambolic in fact but this was a glorious and career defining performance. From “Catch The Sun” to “Pounding” and all tracks in between (especially an awesome “The Goes The Fear”) this was an energetic, resurgent, fun, brilliantly and passionately performed and spine tingling set that surely should have been in Mr Moby’s place over on the Pyramid Stage. It’s clear we love the Doves and, from the look on Jimi Goodwins’ face, it’s clear they love us too. Bravo!

A very fitting loved up ending to Glastonbury 2003 then, all that was missing was a sunset and for Moby to shut the fuck up. And maybe some champagne for those stockbrokers.

(Thanks to Sophie and Dan for being where I wasn’t and helping me write this shite)

Reviewed by Dave B
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Glastonbury - Review #2

The first day of music at the festival and I’m already recuperating from two nights of madness. Oh well, I’m not going to complain am I? This is the best Glastonbury line-up in years, and the only problem this causes is getting to see everyone I want to see in between doing “other stuff”. Oh well, here goes….

Managed to get up in the morning to see Har Mar Superstar, and he’s a great way to kick things off.  Some might see him as a joke, a novelty, but so what? He’s entertaining, and his karaoke Prince/Beck tunes sounded pretty good from where I was stood. Then the rain started and I got this awful feeling of déjà vu. People were suddenly wearing ponchos and Echo and The Bunnymen were playing the Pyramid Stage. We hid in an info point and got interviewed for the forthcoming film to be made about the fest. Which was nice.

Next up, De La Soul. A friend of mine remarked that De La Soul are one of those bands people would expect to make the sun come out, but that that would be impossible as no band has a weather machine. Well, he was wrong, as, thankfully, the sun shone on De La Soul and continued to shine for the rest of the day. I found them a bit disappointing though, not enough from 3 Feet High And Rising and they seemed to spend ages reciting the alphabet.

Mogwai followed immediately after, which I had been looking forward to for ages. It was a pretty strange setting for a band so synonymous with darkness, to be playing at tea-time, but they didn’t disappoint. A transcendental (as always) “Helicon 1” and “Kids Will Be Skeletons” nearly had me in tears and Braithwaite destroying his guitar at the end of “My Father, My King” will stick in my mind for a long time to come.

The Music, unbeknownst to many, replaced Zwan, and though it has been reported otherwise elsewhere, they put in a pretty damm good show. So Rob Harvey didn’t say much in-between songs. Why should he? Remember what the name of the band is, idiots. I did miss the end, however, to catch Electric Six. Maybe it was because, by this point, I was leathered, but they were better than I expected them to be. Especially when you consider they’d sacked and replaced half the band just before this show. A storming garage rock band, with something sorely missing from others of their ilk. Namely humour.

No bands saw I for the next few hours, my mates and I were busy dancing like goblins in a sandpit playing bizarre Russian music. This set us up nicely for tonight’s headliners, REM. A little older and slower then when they played last in 99. (Stipe looks so old I felt the need to shout Skeletor at him, which I apologise for). It doesn’t matter though, as they give us a classic Glastonbury moment, lots of hits and early stuff from Reckoning. Stipe seems genuinely touched, and though his voice gives way during “Everybody Hurts”, everyone in the field helps him with it anyway. Very moving. And so off we trundled, eyes like dinner plates, to see Donnie Darko. But that’s another story.

Saturday

The eyes of the music world were on Worthy Farm today. The day that Radiohead returned to try and top their headlining performance back in 97. I was there then, experiencing one of my first Glastonbury moments, and I was definitely going to be there tonight as well. First things first though, and I had to deal with Fridays hangover and comedown.

After 10 minutes spent waiting for Tony Benn to arrive in the Leftfield tent, the pressure got too much. Much as I wanted to be there, I didn’t have the concentration span necessary to really take anything in. Sorry. Instead, a friend and I decided to tuck our T shirts tightly into our trousers, grab our belt buckles and go a-wandering. I can only recall the afternoon as being one of stoned bliss, in what must have surely been the hottest day I’ve ever spent at a festival. But anyway, you want to hear about the bands don’t you?

I didn’t even get round to watching any until late afternoon, and this band were “the band created specifically for Glasto” etc etc. Yes, The Polyphonic Spree. And they didn’t disappoint. Following a poetic introduction from a bearded town crier. Delaughter and his team of red-robed loved-up choir descended on the main stage. The setting couldn’t have been better as the Spree erupted into “It’s The Sun”. Another Glasto moment, definitely, along with “Hanging Around The Day”. And the new material was excellent, particularly “2000 Places” and the stunning closer, which seemed to go on forever, in various sections, before climaxing in an utterly joyous rendition of “It’s The Sun” once again. There was no better place to be then there in that corner of time, at that moment.

I’ve been to Glasto five times now, yet never made it to the Dance Tent, so I finally went there to catch DJ Swamp, better known as Beck’s DJ, but a gifted guy in his own right. Only a short set, but good nonetheless, particularly the mixing of Nirvana with Afrika Bambatta. I would have liked to have seen Kings Of Leon again, but it was frankly impossible to get in the New Bands Tent, so instead we asked a fat hippy to play us a song on his guitar. He was great.

One of my top must-sees of the festival had to be Flaming Lips, who were surely going to provide at least one “Glasto moment” themselves. It only took their entrance to the stage to achieve this. Coyne and co took their now traditional stage setting of an insane party involving large furry animals to the extreme. At this exact moment, strange chemicals were beginning to take hold of my body and brain, which made the Pyramid Stage one of the most hilarious and slightly worrying things I’d ever seen. The Lips were on top form, Coyne, like Stipe before him, appeared to have trouble with his voice but he used this to his advantage, getting the crowd to sing as loud as possible. “Do You Realize?” was probably the most depressing and uplifting song of the whole festival, all at once. Could have done without the frankly scary nun puppet though, I’m just glad I wasn’t on hallucinogenics.

And Radiohead? I didn’t even see them. I didn’t want to chance my mood being brought down, no matter how much I wanted to se them, so I decided to catch Aphex Twin in the Glade instead. Yes I know that isn’t very logical but there you go. Not quite as good as his storming hardcore gabba/MC Hammer set of last year, but he did play “Analogue Bubblebath”. Anyway, its not about the bands, maaaaan.

Sunday

I awake to find myself in a green oven pegged into the ground. It feels as though the skin is slowly melting off my face, and my moth tastes and probably smells like the pits of Hades. I’m trying not to complain about the heat, considering the conditions here in the past, but all I want is a place to hide for a while.

Being forced to watch the Waterboys didn’t help, to me they seemed not a million miles away from The Corrs and all that “riddle me ree” doesn’t go down as a history making gig in my view. “Whole Of The Moon” was good though. Perhaps I should have stayed and watched Asian Dub Foundation, then  I wouldn’t have felt like the only angry person around for miles, but I crave shade.

Alas, this was to no avail, I eventually find myself stumbling back to my tent on my own, nearly being ran over by Phil Jupitus in a golf buggy in the process. It’s not very often you get to say a sentence like that is it? I rest my head in a tent flap and prepare to die, before being rescued by a steward. Apparently I have sunstroke, and so have to face the humiliating task of walking to the Medical Tent with him. Because of this I miss Grandaddy, but they sound great from where I am, on a mattress with a fan blowing in my face next to a pan of sick. I’m simple, I’m dumb, I’m at Glastonbury.

By the time I leave the care of the lovely medical crew the heavens have finally opened and I feel like going back in there and complaining I’m now too wet, but I resist and go watch Sigur Ros instead. The way I’m feeling, they provide a fitting backdrop to the close of my festival, as I lay in the rain and let the gorgeous serenity emanating from the Other Stage wash over me. By the end of their set I wanted to be at the front, lost in white noise, but instead I stay where I am and watch Doves, who surely will be in one of the top slots on the Pyramid Stage next time they come here. I’d pick “There Goes The Fear” over Moby.

And so I survived another Glastonbury without losing my mind or wallet. As I lie in my tent watching an amazing firework display over Pennards Hill, I know its going to take more than some new ticket scheme from Michael Eavis to stop me being there the same time next year.

Reviewed by Robert B
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The relevance of the music is questionable at best. While I have no problem in admitting that singles ‘Power Lunch’ and ‘EZ Pass’ are what are commonly referred to in music snob circles  as ‘Choons’, it is hardly Har Mar’s most endearing quality. With that in mind, what is? Having secured our places on the front row (not, I might add, through expending a vast amount of effort), we have the opportunity to analyse the man, myth and legend in one felled swoop.

Ron Jeremy comparisons are inevitable, and up close and personal with the man himself, I can confirm that his pot belly does spill over his thong in a way that can only be construed as suggesting both ‘Italian’ and ‘Plumber’. What we are looking at is basically the drunken-uncle-at-the-Christmas-party version of Prince, yet much like a motorway car crash, you can’t help slowing down to peer out the window and check the damage, pausing for a brief moment to consider the victims and their families.

Mid-set he tears his sweat drenched shirt from his ample frame and (after three attempts), manages to launch it in to the crowd. He climbs down in to the pit to meet his audience, thrusting out his clammy palm to make physical contact with a few hundred lucky punters. Puncturing the sacred wall between performer and spectator, it seems, is not without its creepy side.

In full awareness of our backstage access we place a £5 bet for the first of our group to shag one of his patented Manumission Dancers (this was unfortunately never actualised at any point) who add hope to all that you too can be surrounded by half a dozen barely clothen vixens/harlots (delete as appropriate) by simply knocking out a few power soul ballads and a cover of Stevie Wonder’s 'Sir Duke'.

Backstage Har Mar mulches around with a plate of chips, and we applaud him for his wise decision to reclothe himself. He seems like a nice enough bloke, although his almost alarmingly constant presence at the bar and eagerness to speak to low-life, bottom rung journos like ourselves (many times) gave birth to the weekends most amusing phrase, "Christ, look busy, Har Mar's coming over again!". Bless, he's probably lost, hungry and frightened outside the bourgeois bedroom setting, and for the underlying innocence, we love him. The endearing quality? Obviously the mullet.

Quite frankly, I am hoping, or rather praying to the Almighty, that my ex-flatmate Andy never gets to lay his eyes on this review because after a year of mercilessly lambasting his less than covert penchant for Iron Maiden, Yngwie Malmsteen and other such cock-rocking luminaries, I have found myself in the rather unfortunate position of having developed something of a serious soft spot for The Darkness. More worryingly, I’m almost embarrassed to admit how long it has taken me to get ‘the joke’.

I am champion of the introverted underdog, the tortured artiste and the prophet of human alienation. Put simply, I want to hate them for their unashamed attempts to refashionablise the spandex jumpsuit. In this day and age it’s just not right for a band to be able to kick off their set by demanding the crowd “Give me a D! Give me an ‘Arkness!” but at 10.45am (where, in the interests of journalistic science, I am five cans of lager in to the day to savour the ‘Glastonbury Experience’) it seems almost criminal that the band aren’t headlining the Pyramid Stage, or at least haven’t built their own larger stage next door, allowing them to play twenty-four hours a day at a volume loud enough to drown out potential competitors.

Lead singer and self-proclaimed guitar God (probably) Justin Hawkins is quite possibly the ugliest sex icon to have ever graced my visual senses, yet in the midst of another extended solo, this time from new single ‘I Believe In A Thing Called Love’, I find it impossible to refrain from waggling my arse like an idiot. This, it seems, is the very essence of their genius. The power to revel in a level of extroversion lost in amongst a decade and a half of post-feminist Morrissey clones and Cobain-inspired social consciences.

Penultimate track, an eighties metal stylee cover of “Street Spirit by The Radioheads!” is yet another stroke of brilliance. Surely it must have Mister Yorke himself wondering whether the latest ASDA George range stocks butt-hugging leather flares, tight enough to fully accentuate his groin, for every note is met with the kind of ear piercing screech, guitar squeal and physics defying, friction free, knee slide across the stage we all wet-dreamed of achieving in a Ferris Bueller-esque teenhood.

‘Love On The Rocks With No Ice’ will close the set, we are informed. “But you have quarter of an hour left?!” we panic unanimously. Relax, the seemingly endless eight minute outro eases us back in to an altogether less electrifying reality of impending rainfall. Hawkins’ arm stretched skyward, he thanks us for our applause. The Darkness, we salute you.

Reviewed by James B
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Three great bands for a fiver!  Best deal since 1986.  Even if “The Music Industry” is dying on its venal, corrupt, exploitative feet, as long as independent musicians promoters can offer up a night of quality, effort and above all fun for so little folding stuff, Clear Channel and the like can rot in hell.     

I was told that Comet Gain had a single rehearsal before tonight's gig and it showed!  They're almost pebble-smooth in presentation and performance.  Feck's between songs banter is reduced to a quick linking commentary rather than a way of hiding all the gaps in the set.  Feck himself sounds like a more jagged, acerbic Robert Forster.  Excitingly, they rely on songs from 'Realistes'.  My Defiance is machine gun jerky pop while Why I Try To Look So Bad is soul-strippingly, wrist-slashingly sad.  They cover Northern Soul in a Go-Betweens meets the Temptations sort of way on Teardrops and Heartaches while Ripped-Up Suit is them playing primitive Velvetty rock n roll.  The brothers Rademaker join the Gain for a slightly unhinged rendition of Movies, complete with Brent Rademaker rap.  It builds a momentum that could have lasted all night but ends then, probably for the best, with them high as a...err, comet.   

The Clientele play Love songs, whose soft sixties essence turns them into slinky, shimmering fairy steps of pop-psychedelia.  Alistair's emotive, resonant voice slips between an impassioned Arthur Lee wail and a more delicate Nick Drake coo.  The Clientele are a band who sing about summer from the nostalgic viewpoint of autumn.  The new single Doors of Summer is sleepy and captivating and has a decaying grandeur, while other numbers remind you of a limpid Galaxie 500.  Meanwhile their closing tune, a cover of the West Coast Pop Art Experimental Band's Tracy Had a Hard Day Sunday, proves they can make a noise when they please.   It’s an English psychedelic daydream and mine’s a cup of mushroom tea.       

The Tyde catch a wave tonight and ride it to the max.  The double helix of old and new songs works perfectly to emphasise the line of sunshine melancholy that started on ‘Once’ and continues on ‘Twice’.  Even their slower songs tonight have the vitality and presence that maybe the recording process sucked from them on ‘Twice’.  Breaking Up the Band is an end of summer/’Big Wednesday’ song while Blood Brothers is as perfect as the first day I ever heard it, worldweary yet resolute.  Shortboard City makes a lot more sense live than on vinyl as they bulldoze the venue with it, all saloon bar piano and Status Quo riffing.  The good clear sound brings out the best of the band, highlighting the warm, bubbling keyboards, particularly on the Felt-ish Crystal Canyons.  Lawrence was in the audience and I hope he was (a) flattered and (b) very impressed.  Meanwhile Rik Menck is the only drummer I can think off that I’d ever, EVER, entertain a drum solo from.  As I left, the encore of North County Times and tinnitus still ringing in my ears, I reflected that here’s a band for whom music = life and a couple of hundred people who feel the same way loved them for it.    

Set list: A Loner/ Henry VIII/ Go Ask Yer Dad/ All My Bastard Children/ Crystal Canyons/ Improper/ Memorable Moments/ Blood Brothers/ Breaking Up The Band/ Shortboard City/ New D/ North County Times

Reviewed by Ged M
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The bohemian sits impassively reading undoubtedly pretentious prose he probably doesn’t really understand whilst the antifolk troubadour sits and strums his acoustic on the small stage. It’s soooo New York.

Unfortunately for the singer in question, the lesser-known Moldy Peaches member Toby Goodshank, it seems nothing is going to make the book-reading beatnik lift his gaze from the text, no matter how hard he tries. Tracks from his homemade album,  ‘Put The Devil Where You Hang Your Hat’, like Change Yr Ways and Jack Rabbit fail to disturb him with their understated charm and even the shouting and howling unleashed during the closer fails to elicit a response.

The Larval Organs try a different tack and immediately succeed where Toby failed. Granted, making the opening lines of your set “It doesn’t matter how pure or righteous you are; they’re going to piss on you!” helps you grab the room’s attention. So does singing it over great slabs of woozy stoner guitar noise though and they rarely let the pace or quality drop in the next half hour. If the power-that-would-like-to-be at Kings Reach Towers got a hold of the band and their thankfully less-retro Kings Of Leon hair they could be next on the dusty highway to indie-rock fame.

Kimya Dawson will probably never achieve more success than she did by dressing up as a giant rabbit as a Moldy Peach and, on tonight’s performance, it’s a crying shame. Slimmer than before and with her unwieldy afro fashioned into a neat sprawl of bleached dreadlocks, her performances are steadily maturing into the realms of breathtaking. She still scrunches her face up into her gorgeously girlish grin when she screws up the start to Chemistry twice but otherwise it’s a perfect show. Behind the rapid-fire rhyming and clever couplets lies an aching sadness; exemplified by opener It’s Been Raining, a heartbreaking tale of losing loved ones, but later perfected on a crushing rendition of anti child-abuse number Hold My Hand that could move a grown reviewer to the verge of tears.

It’s by no means all doom and gloom though. Hadlock Padlock and Velvet Rabbit are as warm and witty as ever and there’s a happy ending with a new song about a New York parade and a storming rattle through Everything’s Alright. The boho bozo may not have stuck around to see it but he missed a set to treasure. Serves him right.

 Reviewed by James S
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One of those in-store playings/signings events, which I never thought Tricky would ever do.  Yet, notwithstanding the promotion angle, the intimacy of the set up makes sense. It strips away any bombast, the PA doesn’t seek to blow you away or lose the music in a cavernous mix.  The band are cramped on stage with Tricky in full croaking voice twitching topless at the mike, chips are flying off flailing drumsticks, and the electro-acoustic guitars just hit the right balance of complementing rather than overpowering everything/one else.  Here, the claustrophobic rhythms are allowed to brood and menace, beguiling you until you barely recognise the tune bubbling under – The Cure’s Lovecats survives only lyrically, Tricky having stripped it down and spun it around to fuck around with its direction.  And when a nu-metal riff emerges on How High it is a sense of holding onto something solid (rather than it bludgeoning the tune) before being brought back to rhythmic bubblings like geysers ready to blow.  It is a terrific performance and proof that Tricky is anything but a spent force. Tricky himself is positively chipper – lots of thank yous between songs (only the paranoid part of me thinks he may be taking the piss) and is equally pleasant in person – amiably posing and chatting with punters like me. Another preconception demolished.    

  Reviewed by Kev O
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