Dalliance.co.uk

Meet Me In Vegas, Sound of Guns and The Dharma at The Cockpit, Leeds

The Dharma

The Dharma are not a bad band but they are a pub band and I mean that in the nicest possible way.

First some Meet Me In Vegas who are initially three lads in smart ties and shirts thudding effectively through an introduction that gives way to a set of songs voiced by their slightly Jazzy sounding lead singer who joins them. Singer Caroline Carfrae provides the glamour to but the real star of the show is Chris Dabass's bass guitar which pounds a line of vintage New Order matched perfectly with Josh Toulmin suitably Morris-esque drums. These Spartan elements - albeit not the technically impressive noodling of Guitarist Seb Santabarbara - promise a direction for this band.

Sound of Guns

A direction - or rather a direction which promises uniqueness - is harder to see for Liverpool's Sound of Guns who have a great front man in Andy Metcalfe but seem to be too easily defined in music maths - Oasis plus Arctic Monkeys over the Stones to the power of Julian Cope - and the band are charged with doing what they do very well but lacking that individuality which could make them stand out from the crowded crowd they are in.

The Dharma take to the stage amid an attack of strobe lighting and power through the sort of chords Bon Jovi would shamelessly play.  They demand attention and for their honest play - if married to slightly gimmicky presentation - and they receiving it. Paul Holihan milks the crowd effectively and bassist and backing JB Butler provides a good counterpoint.

They play a heady mix of standards and original material and they play it well as a band hardened by an unforgiving circuit of pubs and clubs who have conquered those arenas would and are enjoying the lofty heights of The Cockpit.

Where they, or any of tonight's bands, can go from there and how they would get there is more interesting.

Slow Club and Brakes The Fuzz Club at University Union, Sheffield

"The Killers also have a single out called Spaceman, but" says the silver suit clad short singer of Brakes Eamon Hamilton "erm, I like ours better."

Brakes are a funny band. The question is what sort of funny are they?

Certainly they are not the funny which Slow Club represent. The aspiring Sheffield based duo are a curious mix of Noah and the Whale style pop/folk and a bluesy edge that sounds straight out of a Dad's record collection. They are good too - bordering on very good - and Because We're Dead has a delicious edge to it with boy/girl vocals pushing around the stage playfully.

One is left with the feeling that Slow Club might end up making an album that is all last tracks from White Stripes records - It's True That We Love One Another/I'm Lonely (But I Ain't That Lonely Yet)/Effect And Cause and wondering if that would be brilliantly amusing or eventually annoying. Or both.

Brakes take to the stage with determination the three instrument men kicking into a new tune before the dominative Hamilton leaps to the middle of the stage rid of the pale, casual jumper he watched the support band wearing and in what can only be described as a shiny silver spacesuit. As he sings he closes his eyes and smiles nervously forward, not embarrassed so much as spiked by the moment and afraid that should he look out to the audience he would gaze on faces who simply did not get the joke.

Hamilton's songs breakdown in two ways. He has a good line in honest love songs - No Return being his best but is sadly missing from the set tonight - and he has a brand spiky politically aware songs the apotheosis of which is the eight second burst of Cheney which is modified with the happy word "Goodbye" appended. The former is standard fair - highly enjoyable fair, but standard - while the latter is rare in indie music which tonight we are defining as being what is played to the kids at Sheffield University Union.

The opening gives way to familiar ground - this gig is a warm up for the tour to support new album Touchdown but only a handful of 2009's tracks are played - so we are quickly into familiar ground with Margarita and The Most Fun. A lively group of lads begin to mosh during Spring Chicken and get jumpy in Cease And Desist and Porcupine Or Pineapple where Brakes are at their most curious, their funniest.

The set ups - God and the Devil playing cards, a war between spined creatures and fruit - are comical but the points made are more political, more interesting. Hamilton's presentation of his ideals as the comical is the musical equivalent of political cartooning seducing one into attention and to his message with a cheeky smile and an amusing bit of imagery. In that way Brakes live - with the built up sound that enables them to do All Night Disco Party lose something in the telling compared to Hamilton's solo shows that draw his cartoons in more sketched black and white than full colour.

However they make up for that with some fine thrashing on the guitar with On Your Side sounding grand and newbie Eternal Return booming brilliantly. Of the new offerings Crystal Tunings closes the set and is menacingly excellent while Hey Hey has an ebullient joy about it that guitarist Tom White revels in. Spaceman - or Don't Take me to Space (Man) to give a fuller name - saddles the two sides of Brakes better than any other song they have telling a story of alien abduction, seemingly friendly, but rejected cause despite all the corruption of the world Hamilton sees he has found a girl to hold hands with.

The guitarist makes a comment about Lloyds TSB being shaping shifting lizards and that David Icke was right after which Hamilton correction to White's laugher "There are a couple of holes in his arguments..."

Brakes are that kind of funny.

Micky P. Kerr and Chris Helme at The Faversham, Leeds

Micky P Kerr

There is a charm about Micky P Kerr as he takes to the sizable Faversham stage shunning his guitar and sitting on a high chair starting with poetry but he doesn't get anywhere with people talking and laughing at the back he shuns the serious forgetting the second verse of his Credit Crunch Christmas poem and running through the song I'm in awe of you eager to get onto what he calls his silly songs.

The charming humour of the shambling poet is lost and Kerr - who admits a hostility to the buffonlike hecklers - tries to pass himself off as arrogant with tongue-in-cheek but aim askew. One can imagine that on other nights he goes down a storm but not on this Sunday evening in Leeds.

Chris Helme

Leeds's Faversham is - according to Chris Helme so cool you have to wear an overcoat and the former Seahorses front man's new brand of bluesy guitaring is yoked into something altogether more honest.

Helme is an interesting performer in the midst of reclaiming his back catalogue from the monstrous ego of John Squire that haunts his past. He plays through a good chunk of his 1990s offerings musing that Blinded By the Sun was written when he was 23 in Brighton and that he is surprised anyone wants to hear it. He is less pleased to have to play the obviously Squire Love Is the Law but does do to earn the freedom to run through stomp Be My Husband and the Lorali.

It is then that Helme seems most comfortable for sure but he takes requests for Seahorses B-Sides - "Funny, my songs always ended up as B-sides" - and is pleased to play them slowly clawing back as his own each one.

Okkervil River at Academy 3, Manchester

The stage of Manchester's Academy 3 is too small for Okkervil River.

For sure the six Americans fill the stage - a couple of them make up for the brawn lost in the slighter members - and for sure the multi-instrumental nature that sees guys playing keyboard them swapping to guitar and girls playing anything with strings on it adds clutter but this band are barely able to be contained by such small surroundings.

Okkervil River's singer/songwriter Will Sheff - resplendent in cheap funeral suit and a shocked mop of dark hair picked out against the stage lights - has the kind of charisma that one finds in a Morrissey or a Michael Stipe.

Sheff kicks his band into Plus Ones with the same faltering, ethereal way Stipe had around the time of R.E.M.'s fifth release Document. Comparisons are justified but the band's effort - Pop Lie - suggests they have been noted as does second effort of the night Singer/Songwriter.

Honesty is all here - The liar who lies in his song/And you're lying when you sing along - and Sheff exudes it.

The band's weight of back catalogue inspires devotees and so the songs familiar to most - new release The Stand Ins is their fifth - but are imbued with a freshness from phrasing and playfulness that rebirths every one.

Sheff has the air of practised raconteur telling a new story for the first time. Breathlessly, almost struggling to keep order of his thought as they spill into his songs, he brings a relevance and significance to his performance that fills every word, every line, with life.

No Key, No Plan - a hidden gem on Black Sheep Boy Appendix - which is rattled through with exuberance to the refrain Truly, I don’t think you'll find a happier man giving way to the jaw dropping moment of this gig. The stand out moment of any gig for this reviewer.

A Stone is stripped down to a three piece lament which in turn breaks down to Sheff himself, on stage, cast against white back light finishing off first with guitar and then just a voice. I think that I know the bitter dismay of a lover who brought/fresh brouquets every day/when she turned him away/to remember some knave/who once gave/just one rose [silence, pause] one day [silence, pause] and it was years ago

The sound could have been a pin dropping. A heart breaking. A million gigs colliding together into a single moment of perfection.

Then you see the bulbous eyes that Sheff casts over the room pushed out and puffed from crying too many tears. You see the scratches on Sheff's guitar where the pick has dragged on the upstroke in frantisism, in the need to play these songs right now, in the fact that he, that Okkervil River, really mean it.

They mean the intelligence as well as the emotion. They mean the smart and the heart. These are the things that make them exceptional.

That tattered acoustic guitar of Sheff is thrashed through an anthemic version of For Real and a mesmerised audience are wrapped and as requested clap in speedy time, then slower during Our Life Is Not a Movie or Maybe which for many gigs should be, would be the highlight.

Not tonight though. Tonight Okkervil River are a many facetted band. Lost Coastlines' banjo beginning and second singing by bassist Patrick Pestorius hits as close to perfection as any band gets

John Allen Smith Sails's Sloop John B close is the most exciting thing you've ever seen as it unfurls before you. In Starry Stairs they are playful cutting down sound to allow tape recording of Shannon Wilsey's voice haunting the room. No bookend with Savannah Smiles is the closest to a criticism I can manage.

Too quickly the night starts to end. They leave returning for a mellow, heartfelt, touching Girl In Port that seals the evening breathing in the life, the understanding, the reason why people still play live after the intention of the phonograph. Sheff bleeds the lines I'm a weak and lonely sort/but I'm not sailing just for sport/.../these several year out on the sea/left me empty cold and grey/pour yourself into me.

They close with their Okkervil River Song. They could be anything this band - and a new lexicon is needed to describe how good they were tonight - but they will never be so on the cusp again.

Commercially, creatively, critically anything is possible with wells of song writing and performance this deep.

Okkervil River are the stand out live act of this decade. Wow.

Camera Obscura at The Faversham, Leeds

Camera Obscura

Some performances are enthralling. They excite you and leave you breathless as a band bring surprises and come to life in a way that one does not expect. They take the 2D grooves and pits of the record and become sparklingly 3D. It breaks my heart that Camera Obscura are not one of those bands.

They filter onto the stage to start the set with Come Back Margaret and everything is a factor more fuzzed up than on any of the albums which have seen this Scots band carve out an appreciated niche in the world of the cynically twee.

The lack of pop polish lends a rawness that suits Tears for Affairs but on other tunes it sits uncomfortably with a lack of presence on stage. They are cramped onto a stage without filling it. They are lost voices which should be working into every nook and cranny of The Faversham.

They play new tracks which sound very much like the previous material but unlike - for example - the excited life given to New Directions by Jens Lekman these will sound better from CD in a few months time than they do tonight.

They fail to communicate the emotions that go behind songs like Lloyd, I'm Ready To Be Heartbroken or Razzle Dazzle Rose like a playwright who needs word to be read by actors but are warmly applauded for their efforts - they put all they can into performance - and but one cannot help but be left with the feeling that those efforts will produce magic in the studio that is not there tonight.

Ophelia, Modeliste and The Voluntary Butler Scheme Doghouse at The Royal Oak, Halifax

Dalliance was in the Doghouse. It was a chilly Friday night too. What crime or misdemeanour had been committed? None, for this was a treat. A treat that wheedled Dalliance out of it's cosy Bradford home to venture forth over yonder hill to the Doghouse in Halifax.

The Doghouse is a night hosted in the intimate setting of an upstairs room of The Royal Oak drinkery. However, don't go thinking you can turn up on the dot of an 8.30pm doors and be expected to be let in, instead they encourage you out into the night to seek entertainment whilst they set up in apparent privacy.

As it was, it was nearly 9.30pm by the time first act Ophelia took to the stage which was crowded with all manner of ibooks/ipads/iMacs, mysterious boxed stuffed with wires, and even a small screen onto which a Clara Bow film was projected.

Ophelia are a two piece act that really should have never bothered leaving their bedrooms. The music of Ophelia is third rate Angelo Badelamenti-esque, soundscapes over which undeterminable lyrics are affectedly murmured as Clara Bow frolics on screen in order to grasp any of the attention rapidly dissipating from the audience. By the third track of music to accompany pretentious art house movie sex scenes, we know there are no surprises from this "create music by numbers with my ibook" outfit.

The audience thins out and the half hour Ophelia play feels like forever. Tellingly, the greatest volume of applause comes when it becomes apparent it was their final track. They shuffle off stage and we hope that the next band on are something a bit different or else we'll have to brave again the locals' karaoke in a nearby pub until the top act of the night is on.

Happily, and likely all the better received for it, the middle act are an actual instrument playing group named Modeliste. A local three piece of percussion and two guitars - what else do you need? - they opened up with pacy "Misinterpreted" and soon the audience attention was recaptured and there was involuntary bobbing along to the beat. This promising start was further built on with another couple of tracks before the Hendrix/Chili Pepper influenced "Bop Good" swung things round to a 70s feel. Fronted by Ben (who looks like an escaped Sanderson from Le Tournoi) on bass, "Wyld Thing" Ross on waccachacca guitar and completed by another Ben doing the prerequisite "vaguely dark and mysterious drummer" (I cite fourteen corners and the [now defunct] Letters as further evidence...) that is a local band motif, they powered through another four songs ending with another slick slice of 70s "Hot Love".

Modeliste were a real refreshment of the senses post Ophelia, and it was appreciated the way their melodies broke rhythm so that there were different flavours in each track. And whilst soft rock guitar noodling and "Shaft" reminiscent "waccachacca" noises may not be original, it's what you do with it that counts by referencing them well. Modeliste were well positioned to lift and energise the crowd and they really made the most of it and we look forward to catching them again.

Top act of the night that persuaded Dalliance not to climb into it's fleecy pyjamas but instead into the car, was the excellent Voluntary Butler Scheme. Previously seen as a support to the Brakes' Eamon Hamilton at the Faversham in Leeds earlier this year, we were quickly converted to the charm, uniqueness and downright skill employed by one man act, Rob Jones.

Using a series of layered looping pedals and variety of different instruments that would make any music teacher proud, Jones produced quirky, original and beguiling tunes about love and life. Dalliance was delighted to have the chance to see him again after tracking his quite prolific output of new material released via his MySpace site.

Tonight was not merely a rerun of the previous gig but actually the first gig of Rob playing with his two new compadres. He has recruited a percussionist and another multifunctional friend to tackle various instruments - apologies for not catching their names to credit them accordingly.

Credit they indeed deserve though! Rob mentioned that he was tired of assembling both instrumentage and tuneage and explaining to bemused audiences the nature of his act‘s name. When taking into account the complexity of assembling his music as one man then deconstructing it to make it fit for three whilst building it up more, it really was quite an achievement. In total they played eleven songs. Some newer like opener "Multiplayer", some more downbeat like "Country Lanes to Motorways", a short fun thing like "Dancing with Ted Danson" and some familiar favourites such as "Alarm Clock". The audience had a significant proportion of pre-converts and they lapped up, as did Dalliance, each tune rapturously. None more so then towards the end of the set when recent single (and BBC 6Music favourite) "Trading Things In" was released into the room. It was interesting to hear a fuller arrangement of the tune and one of the new recruits did a sterling job on the trumpet, rewarded well with whoops from the audience.

Whilst their set didn't run entirely smooth, suffering from technical problems, and new recruits dashing about slightly unsure of what instrument to grab next, it felt very organic. The audience warmly supported the band and the relief and smiles of the new line up spoke volumes, that despite it being a bit unpolished, they had most certainly ridden the wave of their first gig together triumphantly! So much so that they were strongly encouraged to perform an encore and despite their protestations that they had no further practised material, they did oblige by playing their opener again. And the audience loved them all the more for their shy reluctance and honesty.

With the recent success of the not too dissimilar sounding Noah & The Whale, as well as strong support from such forces in music as Steve Lamacq, hopefully it's only a matter of time that an album is released and The Voluntary Butler Service are rewarded with the fans they deserve. But please don't let them get too popular, for it's these tiny venues that Rob and new sidekicks really shine.

Andy Whittaker, Owter Zeds, Atomic Hooligan, Dizzee Rascal, Seven Seals, Serious Sam Barrett, Becky Taylor and Paul Cowham, Maupa, Flamboyant Bella, Chris Helme, Lava, The Wierd String Band, The Witch and Robot, Brandon Steep, Eamon Hamilton, John Byrne, The Bookhouse Boys, O Fracas, EMF and British Sea Power Kendal Calling at Grate Farm, Kendal

I've put off this moment, dear reader, for some years now.

This is Kendal Calling 2008 and it is the first festival - which is to say field based more than one day event - of my thirty four years.

I've avoided them previously initially because of work and then because of football but always because of an image that became fast in my head of the atmosphere of one of these events.

I imagined cliques of people in tie-dye. I imagined drunk sixth formers on a kind of weekend long third Thursday in August. I imagined people eating tofu burgers and talking about the environmental cost of hot dogs being offset by the fact they drove a hybrid car. Probably called Christian. I imagined people with glow sticks called Phillip or Juniper. I did not think much of it.

I imagined that these people would turn up to an event like this not to see whichever bands were on but more just for the outing. It was relive your student days weekend - I surmised - and I cared for that not.

Nevertheless there I was - persuaded by the girlfriend - and so the night fell hard and rain came down with the mountains of the Lake District on one side and the open fields of Grate Farm on the other. I wore Wellington Boots and a rain coat. Me. At a festival.

Late too. Traffic had us arrived past time and the thick mud that were the fields was rapidly becoming arduous navigation on the legs. Wandering into the main field to get our bearings of the site, our ears discover the electronic and dance tent, “Traffic“, care of Andy Whittaker who was studiously spinning disks in the dry ice and darkness for the dance heads.

Owter Zeds

Dance heads we are not ,so up field we travelled to discover Hebden Bridge’s Owter Zeds kicking out some ska, reggae and the like into the folksier, more relaxed, “Kaylied” (adj. A high state of inebriation. F.Y.I) tent which was also full of people hopping about in appreciation.

Atomic Hooligan

Dizzee Rascal

Watford duo Atomic Hooligan are on by the time we persist through the rain to find the “Main stage” (sadly lacking an alternative name, perhaps Big Top would have worked due to it‘s red and yellow stripes). Their spirited fusion of electro, hip hop and breaks fill the main tent with energy which is well received, supporting their Best Live Act 2008 accolade at this years International Breaks awards. I am struck by how into the music these festival goers seem to be. I am taken aback, I am surprised. They lap up the sound of the Atomic Hooligan which will segue smoothly into the UKs premier grime artist and also this week, responsible for the UKs Number One selling single. They await the headline act of the evening and tonight that act is Dizzee Rascal.

They chant his name, this Dizzee Rascal. They chant.

I try to recall the last time I saw the UK's number one act live. I never have but I will soon with this London MC - oh yes I at least am familiar with the terms - occupying the once hallowed slot for four weeks now.

Dylan - as his mother probably calls him - works the audience as well as just about anyone can aided and abetted with an equally enthusiastic foil in his relentless rapping. The audience is mostly collected of white middle class studenty types and there is a line or vicarious living going on as the black guys ring about East London grime and crime whilst stood in the fresh air and sedate open fields of Cumbria.

This is no cultural cringe though and perhaps Dizzee is grime for the Kendal kid. The set is popular as he cherry picks from his material including Fix Up, Look Sharp, Jus’ A Rascal, and others that keep the crowd moving and participating and in the song Jezebel - sadly not a 10,000 Maniacs cover - it feel he really has something to say. After more than an hour (in which even the casual Radio 1 listener would probably recognise about seven tracks), the crowd were rewarded with the finale of the chart topping Dance Wit Me which was truncated by merging it with David Bowie’s Let’s Dance before Dizzee and friends exited the stage to negotiate the mud in their pristine white trainers - probably by a lit.

His DJ makes much out of the fact that despite rumours of a last minute pull out, he did not miss the show - never missed one yet he says (take that! Amy Winehouses and Pete Dohertys of the world…)- and with the increasing volumes of mud, you have to give him credit for risking his white trainers in a place so far removed from his natural habitat.

Seven Seals

Seven Seals

Piling out, back into the rain and mud, we find an island of grass located by the “Club COG” stage - a more “indie” tent sponsored by once Kendal based Check Out Gigs crew. Advantage is taken of the island and we stop to watch a few tracks of Kendalian five piece Seven Seals - including double A single Black Drop and Cake (Guiding Hand) - who are entertaining enough playing the kind of eighties twinge indie that no one ever listened to in the eighties but is getting popular now. However weariness, early starts, traffic jams take a effect and I'm heading back towards bed through mud the likes of which I've never known.

Next day and the rain has come down in sheets over night. What was mud is now just liquid which makes almost canals instead roads between areas on what is a promisingly sunny second day.

The day for us kicks off in the mellow Kaylied tent with Leeds bluegrass man Serious Man Barrett who is ten minutes into his mix of obscure American folk, skiffle classics and self penned songs that fit into this cannon. His version of Lonnie Donnigan’s Gambling Man is a favourite and is a great start to the day and his ability to captivate is never stronger than during a traditional song from Skipton about a girl running away in disguise as a man to join the Navy.

Barrett's folk style celebrates the wide world of music if draws from - honest, personal tunes - and his own work adds to this. Stella is about his guitar, White Rose a paean to Yorkshire. He plays with an open heart and wins other.

Irish folk fun Becky Taylor and Paul Cowham follow with Uilleann (or Irish) pipes and guitar respectively. Led by Becky, they course through various reels, jigs and some more melancholy tunes, many of which she confesses she doesn’t remember the names of. Cosy and merry in the tent though it is, we have heard enough towards the end their set and so move on before the cider sets in and we take root on the precious patch of grass at the side.

Maupa

Maupa are more par for the course offering the poppy end of post rock combined with probably a bit too much Editors inside the emptier Main stage. The four stage guitars in the Accrington sextet create a full and rich sound lauded by the NME amongst others but for me they lack something to move them over the morass of bands in their class.

Flamboyant Bella

Flamboyant Bella in a packed Club COG tent are in the same class as Los Camposinos sharing the shrill tweeness of the Welsh nine piece. They are in love with couplet writing and deliver them in a little too mockney a way via Flo Kirton’s and James McBreen’s vocals (reminiscent of Kate Nash and The Lodger’s Ben Siddal - if he was southern) but to be honest to Northerners, all of the South sounds like that and they are indeed from Hitchin.

Bella mine an idea that eighties music saw Duran Duran and The Smith side by side and that The Cure and Culture Club were somehow interchangeable which was never the case however that kind of fusion results in fine, synth lead tunes. Single Touch is such a track with bizarre Casio keyboard sounds meeting bedroom poetry.

Next a treat.

Chris Helme

Unexpectedly, Chris Helme - one time man of The Seahorses and The Yards - plays an acoustic set in the Main stage to fill a set time that The Long Blondes were now unavailable for. He plays a heartfelt couple of songs alone on stage with his guitar and it‘s not until he ventures Hello and with some resignation Blinded By The Sun from The Seahorses days, that the penny drops exactly who he is. He is not comfortable with either of the old standards and prefers his cover of a Soldout Brothers song.

His eyes are sad and it saddens me at the thought that someone could not enjoy doing something that brings pleasure to others. There’s a feeling he is almost being rehabilitated back into performing and his family sit in front of him supportively and he seems visibly bolstered by the presence of his two young sons and his wife to be. He is emotional and while the sound of a tremble in his voice might not be for the same reasons as he trebled when he first picked up a guitar but it is touching and warm. None more so when he later puts down the guitar and asks the audience to accompany him with claps and foot stomping as he sings his final song about his wife to be and becoming married which he dedicates it to her with his eyes.

Lava

The afternoon draws out in the sun that belies the mud and bands play second to relaxing in whatever area one can find to sit in. The next act to register are are Lava back in the Kaylied tent, selling themselves as "Hot Latino; Soulful Blues; Funky Flamenco"…all the way from sultry, erm, Lancaster. They certainly have enthusiasm - and some of their longer pieces would fit well as background music in a tapas restaurant - but the exuberance of one member as he weaved around the audience to stir them up did smack slightly of the keeness of your dad to get involved in the dancing at a wedding reception after several glasses of wine…Indeed, they are not as much fun to watch as they are to be in no doubt. Striking the balance perfectly of fun for both audience and performers were the The Wierd [sic] String Band who are a riot.

Having cropped up supporting British Sea Power in Kendal Brewery Arts Centre last year, they were on a list of bands to see at 'Calling and they did not disappoint. They are three native guys - double bass, acoustic guitar and fiddle - playing daft songs and odd cover versions (e.g. Kids in “Aspatria” - one for the locals, there!) and sharing a laugh. The free form joyous dancing, especially to their unique take on The Time Warp, is lapped up by the middle day crowd and the end comes too soon. Truly daft but guaranteed to get you laughing and jigging along and is essential to stave off mud induced fatigue as the evening builds toward the headliners.

That middle day crowd seem to have adopted a kind of “rugby team” night out mentality of drinking, good natured lairyness and dressing in tutus - the men at least - and they are full of good spirits but one senses not especially here to watch a band but rather to enjoy atmosphere around them.

Super Furry Animals

On then to second day headlines the Super Furry Animals who fill the main stage and engulf the audience with a powerful set of strong guitaring. They certainly have devotees - hello Esther and Ian - in the same way that a band like The Wedding Present do, and like that band you probably have to 'get it' and I don't but I know a band who can belt out a tune when I hear one and SFA are that. A frenzy of excitement has built up at the front before Gruff Rhys enters the stage last in an oversized bikers helmet from within the vocals for the first track emerge slightly muffled. The helmet rapidly disappears and Gruff is liberated for the rest of the set, his unveiling inducing whoops from the audience. Several songs in, including the popular Rings Around The World, we reluctantly exit during Juxtaposed With U which sounds immense in the humid, sticky atmosphere of the Saturday night main stage and one of us murmurs the chorus whilst negotiating the foot deep mud in the dark.

They are delighting the crowd when I'm heading home to a warm bed.

Which is my confession. With the future Mrs Wood's parents living a mile or so away I'm scrubbed and clean for return each morning and not emerged fully in the festival atmosphere but as it‘s my first one, I‘d better ease myself in gently.

The toilets are foul, men pee against anything that stands and the pools of urine that collect are looked on and judged as not that bad compared to some festivals. After day two I'm having fun but nearest I’ve been to camping here is chatting to some friends stood outside their tents. They are a bit hardier and I probably would be if I had to sleep in this mud hacked field.

The next day starts off late because houses are nice and warm. Local lot The Witch and Robot try too hard on the Main stage to be strange and end up coming off like a sixth form music project. They churn predictably through chose changes without much of a spark.

Brandon Steep

Possessed of lots of spark are quintet of lads Brandon Steep who are up from that Hereford via London - a fact evidenced by the way one of them is wearing a years old Arsenal away shirt - and have attracted a good few followers in the Club COG tent. They have a good pop sensibility and know how to write a hook. They get shouty once or twice but they are kids so that is forgivable.

Eamon Hamilton

Bands that can carry create intelligent, good pop are rare and writing some of the smartest pop of recent years are The Brakes. Brakes main man Eamon Hamilton is doing his solo acoustic set in the Kaylied stage and having spiked a few new tunes in the set has freshness he takes a ramble through the array of short, sharp classics.

Porcupine or Pineapple is roughly ace and Eternal Return - a new track - wets the appetite for the third album. Slower numbers like No Return are a bit lost in the atmosphere today on an audience who are a mix of British Sea Power fans - indeed “Yan” of BSP came to watch his ex-band mate too- some Brakes people, wanderers and in a large part, the battle worn.

Because it has occurred to me that the festival crowd of Kendal Calling - and no doubt other places - mutates over the weekend as if battle weary. They seem to start with some focus on who they want to see and they seem to watch the with a reserve on the opening night but by this final Sunday it seems to me that great gangs are wandering the site in dire need of things to enjoy. They are done with selective. Warm cider, aching legs and sleeplessness will see them enjoy anything. Quality control has gone out into the mud with the countless lost flip flops and while every man, woman and child in this land should enjoy Eamon Hamilton one suspects for some of his audience they would be as entertained by a cow breaking wind. I do not wish to tar all with this brush - although even I am guilty of being more into mood than music on this final day - but such is the experience.

We were keen to see The Wildwood Band as they contain two thirds of the riotous Wierd Sting band we enjoyed the day before but failed due to possible rescheduling and so we saw instead Barrow-in-Furness singer John Byrne takes to the Kaylied stage in a snappy striped suit with an entertaining tune or two to be received like the return of the Beatles. Peppered with local area references, there is a something a little “Arctic Monkeys” or “The Streets” about his lyrics concerning minutiae of daily life. His song about not liking your Chav neighbour - Scummy - is lapped up and in the thick of the throng are probably the very type of person Byrne wants to move away from.

The Bookhouse Boys

O Fracas

EMF

Back in the Main tent, the stage is filled with the nine strong group The Bookhouse Boys who are entertaining but not as epic as they seem to think they are. Named from David Lynch series “Twin Peaks”, the Londoners wear their Angelo Badalamenti inspirations of their sleeves but also extend their filmic influences to include The Surfaris, etc. as heard in Tarantino films. They are worth further consideration but once again they seem to be drawing an audience who are punch drunk and applaud anything. O Fracas over from Leeds are less entertaining but get the same response in Club COG tent. Meanwhile, Seven Seals get a second bigger bite of the cherry by filling in on the Main stage for the also ill Mystery Jets and play to a thinner crowd. So called legends EMF play the Traffic dance tent. EMF are no one's legends with little more than a single catchy chorus to their name but the name recognition value is enough to see them attract a healthy - well, large - crowd.

British Sea Power

On then to British Sea Power who headline this third day having come 500 meters from their familial home in village Natland next to Kendal and playing the ultimate in home town gigs. Having seen Sea Power in Kendal and being impressed I hoped this would be more of the same and less like the indulgence of their show in Bradford a year before but I am disappointed with a band that on vinyl can lay claim to the title of “The English Arcade Fire” once again being rendered uninteresting in a large venue.

I struggle to know why this is and I know I am in a minority as many people wave flags and go wild to a band who are genuinely different and incredibly interesting record but the detached and diffident style that makes albums like Do You Like Rock Music? curious and fascinating makes the live shows distant and unengaging. They are a band with whom one can stand one to one with but who seem to fail - for me anyway - in a multitude of people. One's relationship with British Sea Power has to seem personal or it is - sadly - nothing at all.

So they play Remember Me and it is a highlight and No Lucifer sounds great but nothing hits me on an emotional level in the way - for example - Canvey Island does on the third album or thrill me like It Ended On An Oily Stage did on the second. Many others enjoy them. Many do. I wish I could.

And in a way I wish I could lounge in the festival atmosphere again. The slow afternoons are lazy delights and the people on the whole, friendly. It was unfortunate that the secondary headliners at the 8pm slot on both Saturday and Sunday had to cancel at short notice and this provided a bit of a lull in proceedings, however it gave opportunity to other smaller acts to be noticed and a bit of chance to rest your ears before the main headliners of the evening. Kendal Calling is a wonderfully small size (about 4,000 capacity) and next year I will probably be back.

I might even bring my tent next time.

This article, and weekend, only happened with the immense contribution of Ms Ria Wilkinson.

The Wedding Present at The Tower Lounge, Blackpool

Wedding Present

David Gedge is in a good mood - so much so that I have the second conversation in 15 years with the notoriously grumpy Wedding Present singer and make him laugh - and takes is out on his audience.

In the middle of the one hour twenty set - always good value the Weddoes - the band blast through ten minutes pre-George Best material that leaves a mosh that is getting older breathlessly tired from exertions.

This night in Blackpool's tower lounge - "Bottom of the Tower, story of my life" Gedge comments - is rearranged following cancellation and the reward for persistence is a set that mines the older material in the band's lengthy career.

Gedge tells us that his parents live eight miles away but will not be coming to the gig because the seasid resort is a bit rough - it is - and this is typical of the wry comments and sly witticisms that dot tonight's performance.

Cinerama

I'm Not Usually This Stupid gets a run out but there is no Soup for anyone and this is greeted well by the mosh but undersells the quality of the output of the last - say - decade and a bit and highlights of tonight were Cinerama track Wow and latest album song The Thing I Like Best About Him Is His Girlfriend where bassist Terry De Castro shares vocal duties.

Blue Eyes is purred to perfection and Loveslave growled with the former an example of why it is this band of all those who emerged in the indie scene of the eighties were retailed with heartfelt, honest lyrics and powerful, strong guitar. The latter never impressed and shows the band and the man's tendency to meander haphazardly through the back catalogue.

Someone shouts for He Looks Daft - "Not one of mine that" - and is corrected at one point by the singer then asked with reply if he didn't hear that when the full George Best album was played on the last tour. He couldn't make it - "No my fault that is it?" smile Gedge back.

Nevertheless most bands who would be The Wedding Present's peers would never leave out songs like Kennedy, My Favourite Dress, Shatner, California, I'm From Further North Than You out of their set for the sake of playing the odd B-side from the early 1990s. Such a song - Gone - get a great reception live.

Nevertheless with quality in depth it is no wonder Gedge keeps performing and performing the back catalogue that in a very real sense is judged as classic material. Brassneck is brilliant - always has been, always will be - and the growled, enthused closing pair of Dalliance and Dare end with Gedge dropping guitar on floor having said an honest sounding thank you to those who did brave Blackpool.

I think he enjoyed himself.

As mentioned previously I - Dalliance man Michael Wood - have spoken to David Gedge of The Wedding Present once before but now that exchange has been added to:

Michael: So, do you miss the Duchess of York in Leeds?
David: No
Michael: Really? Are you sure that is not why you left?

David laughs as Dalliance's Ria Wilkinson clicks...

The Mirandolas, Le Tournoi, Laura Groves and The Tempus Granadaland at The Love Apple, Bradford

Granadaland exits stage left after three, four years when it has become the definitive night in Bradford guitar music. Promoter Mark Husak will be moving on to another venue but this - coupled with Adam Simons stepping back from his night - suggests that the times for music in Bradford are a-changing.

For years the most interesting bands in the area have played under some interesting more well known acts but the night has become bigger than the bands and the final spot is dead weight with the increasingly popular Wave Machines playing to a half dozen not long ago while the outer room buzzed with talk and people. It had become the way.

The Mirandolas

The Mirandolas are the type of band that have been doing well at Granadaland all these years. They are locals and they play indie pop on guitar pretty fast. They are fresh faced in that way that sends your brain trying to work out what their Dad's were listening to and how it might have influenced the tunes.

Le Tournoi

Perhaps they borrow the bass from eighties tunes the heard growing up and spliced it together with some Libertines putting a dash of freshness in. The Mirandolas are a tried and tested combination and they bounce along throwing out the odd interesting hook. They are worth a second look and are well received by the appreciative ranks. Le Tournoi's William Sanderson is impressed. He calls them tight, well practiced.

Le Tournoi went through a shift about two months ago with extra guitarist Kez joining the family Sanderson and now they are the talk of Bradford - or at least the train from Bradford to Leeds on this morning - with the buzz that was generated when they burst from the bedroom returning with vigour.

They take to the stage and within seconds front man Will has shirt off - there is a shirt off theme that surrounds the band - and Kez joins him. The tunes thrust with the same unity. Christmas Eve has emerged from the early CD-Rs as a fine work and is infectious tonight.

Infectious too is the enthusiasm that emanates from the stage and for a moment I think about the first time I saw the band and how they seemed like ill fitting pieces. Today they are smooth, at ease. James on drums wears shades and a beatnik hooped shirt. Emilie oozes sexy cool and offers harmonies that add a depth to the sound, Robert's bass is stable, Kez lively standing on a chair to play guitar, Will is eccentric and during It's Only A Power Station edges into David Byrne territory of entertaining intelligence.

They are there - Le Tournoi - and if the end of Granadaland pushes them into new territory they have the power to storm it. Storm it.

Laura Groves

If Granadaland has given us Le Tournoi as a son then it's daughter is the brilliant Laura Groves who - as she records her debut album - has a confidence grown in the over talkative atmosphere of this night. Tonight she projects forcefully taking control of her audience as she starts off with Bridges which is picked sharply and rings around the Love Apple. She laments wistfully "This is the last Granadaland. We've had some good times. We've had some bad times..."

This is one of the good times. The buzz of voices is overcome as much as it ever can be in a pub venue and this is her apprenticeship. Groves has been adding to her set over the years since her first Granadaland and augmenting her standing material. Imaginary Flights benefits from her move into album style production and has a deeper, richer sound. For a moment the song softly drifts us back to St George's Hall and her finest triumph that night.

She finishes her set with I Wish I and both song and set are perfectly formed. She is the best thing to come out from this night and - apologies to The Tempus - she closes off for event for me.

Husak will be back in September. The bands that Granadaland pushed forward are a fitting legacy for his efforts.