Dalliance.co.uk

Dananananaykroyd, Manchester Orchestra, The Virgins, The Airborne Toxic Event, Little Boots, Funeral For A Friend, Deftones, Fall Out Boy, The Big Pink, Placebo, Friendly Fires, Jamie T, Kings of Leon, Faith No More, Mariachi El Bronx, Fightstar, The Rakes, Eagles of Death Metal, Them Crooked Vultures, Patrick Wolf, Ian Brown, Maxïmo Park, The Prodigy, Arctic Monkeys, Broadway Calls, Noah and The Whale, Lethal Bizzle, The Living End, Metronomy, Brand New, Vampire Weekend, Yeah Yeah Yeahs, Bloc Party and Radiohead. at Reading Festival

August Bank Holiday, and once again thousands flock to either Reading or Leeds to wear silly hats for three days of binge drinking, post-apocalyptic camping and occasionally a bit of music too. Here is your whirlwind guide to that latter part, starting with Dananananaykroyd, who are worth the stupid name. They’re gloriously chaotic fun as a live act and wake up the early attendees in the NME tent with their double drummers and tendency to play skipping games with lead wires or attack each other with microphones. Pity Manchester Orchestra can’t really match up, their slightly dull rock thudding on until the much hyped Virgins come onstage. Heard of The Virgins? You know, the oh-so cool New York band who play guitars and sing about girls and stuff? Don’t bother if you haven’t. They’re actually quite ignorable, but let the hipsters have their fun.

The Airborne Toxic Event are more interesting, even though they look a bit like they’ve been constructed from Arcade Fire’s cast off clothes and leftover instruments. They also share a similar taste for expanding pop rock into something a little more grandiose, but not quite epic yet. They do have a sizable cult following, so hopefully its A Sign Of Things To Come. Next Little Boots – seemingly the runner up in the current Pop Female epidemic – sings nice Kylie Minogue type songs that she wrote all by herself on a thing that looks like an etch-a-sketch with little bleeping lights on it (it’s called a Tenori-on, it makes music, it costs £789, I want one).

Now we move to the mainstage, only to find Funeral For A Friend playing stroppy sulky music to stroppy sulky kids – a surprise to those of us who assumed everyone must have grown out of them by now. Deftones provide a similar sort of thing, only louder and a little bit more metally, bless them, until Fall Out Boy arrive. Now, I’m 17. I know far too many people who think Fall Out Boy are the voice of our generation, with a sharp wit and some killer tunes too. I personally think they are shit, and the set they play at Reading seems to satisfy both sides. Kids in Vans shoes and skinny grey hoodies go wild at finally seeing their heroes, while I just feel old. I don’t get this. It’s whiny, dull, and nothing special, ok?

Time for something more obscure and credible, so off to the Festival Republic stage to see The Big Pink, who specialise in trippy guitars and cool noises, like My Bloody Valentine with the safety on. It’d be interesting to hear them on record. But then back to main stage for yet more teenage angst from people way past adolescence, as Placebo are providing a slightly older generation with their own whiny songs about girls and boys and painkillers via a grown man in eyeliner. Their set is thick with new material, unwise to play for a festival, and so they fall a little flat.

Back to NME to get some colour kicked into the veins, as Friendly Fires prove to be enjoyable, with crowds bouncing around and basslines throbbing, and then Jamie T comes on. Before Faith No More were announced, Jamie T was the Friday headliner for this second largest tent, even though he was the sound of three summers ago and has never really made a lasting impression on the general public, but he turns out to be better than expected – his songs are upbeat and he clearly is more talented than his cheeky busker reputation would allow.

Sadly once he finishes, the tent drains as everybody goes to watch Kings of Leon, but as I don’t really want to listen to a band whose biggest hit will be turned into a thrush cream advert one day (you know the song I mean), I stay for Faith No More. Smart plan. Although they are chiefly a heavy rock band often verging on metal, they are smarter than the average band, with a wealth of musical styles at their disposal – as anyone who knows them by that Lionel Ritchie cover should know. So while they open with their melodica-driven version of the theme from Midnight Cowboy, they then blast through a selection of pulsing, adrenalised classics, thus bringing proper rock to the festival on a year where it has been a little light, and still throwing in the Eastenders theme (twice) or a singing lesson when they feel like it. Superb.

Incidentally, Kings of Leon were apparently terrible. It says something that when the thrush cream song gets played over the speakers later in the week, the entire crowd boo so loudly they are forced to change the track before the singing even starts. Oh dear.

Saturday brings the sunshine, and Mariachi El Bronx set the mood with some vaguely flamencoey stuff, including the jackets, which does make the whole thing look a bit like a tacky side project (it is. The Bronx proper are playing another stage later). It isn’t bad though. Fightstar arrive, where the one with the eyebrows out of Busted tries to play grown up music, but fails – at least Busted could write a tune, even if they did have lyrics like Year 3000.

The Rakes come on, and are an improvement - their catchy indie guitar music is pretty good but they sadly ignore their more complex work like Suspicious Eyes. Eagles of Death Metal prove to be utterly pointless – the singer may as well shouted ‘I’m friends with Josh Homme, y’know’ and walked off. The biggest cheers are when the crowd see Dave Grohl lurking by the sides on the screens.

This proves to be the giveaway that the rumoured supergroup Them Crooked Vultures really are the mystery band playing NME later. They feature Dave Grohl, Josh Homme and John Paul Jones – all of whom have been in better bands than Eagles of Death Metal. There is a mass exodus to the tent, but first Patrick Wolf has to play, pretentious idiot. He looks like the opening act on a Spinal Tap gay cabaret tour. It’s possible that he can only fit into those outfits after tearing his own genitals off from the sheer thought of himself. No matter, he preens about the stage, climbing the lighting rigs, singing Madonna covers and other things with bleeps and strings and stuff that probably don’t sound as good as they did in his head. Never mind, because Them Crooked Vultures finally come out to a sea of camera phones and shrieks of ‘OhMyGodIt’sDaveGrohl!’(a living member of Led Zeppelin and the world’s only cool ginger are simply not impressive enough for these people). But the group do impress – these are still three very strong talents – and there will be hundreds of people pretending they came to see them later on.

Ian Brown proves to be a little saddening. It’s not that the music is bad – the solo stuff is pretty good, if unfamiliar, and the rolling bassline of Fool’s Gold makes the crowd do a ‘wow, a Roses track!’ double take. Sadly, it’s this old classic that highlights how poor his voice has become in the past twenty years. It sounds like a strained man attempting karaoke instead of the smooth whisper-hum of glory days. I’m sure my own inner 15 year old isn’t the only one feeling a little let down.

But cheer up, because Maxïmo Park are here to grab the attention of a crowd bored with the appearance of just-another-indie-band. Paul Smith gyrates around with his bowler hat, occasionally reading from books on stage. They’re a little more captivating than the Rakes were, anyhow, but this is a trivial comparision when compared to The Prodigy. My god, they’re even raving it up in the gourmet noodle stands. Far from pot bellied embarrassments, they still have the ferocious energy to make everyone from the age of twelve to sixty attempt to kill each other in large, wild circle pits. And if you think the set is crazy, try surviving the rush for water afterwards.

But now is the time for Arctic Monkeys. It seems like just yesterday they were those lovable northern scallywags, posterboys of the ‘MySpace Revolution’, who sounded like the coolest band in history to have ever played a youth club. But now they’re all grown up, with long hair and albums recorded in deserts, and the transformation really comes through. Allthough Humbug was only released the day most people arrived on site, the songs are well received, with a darker and more complex tone than the earlier hits, though those are of course the ones that get everyone singing along. The exchange of favourites such as Mardy Bum or A Certain Romance for obscure Nick Cave covers and large amounts of new material causes murmurs of agreement when somebody shouts ‘PLAY SOMETHING DECENT, YOU C***S!’, but never mind them. Arctic Monkeys have proven that it is possible to remain both fresh and well loved for years after that initial terrifying rush of hype. Well done.

Sunday is grey weather and a bleary-eyed collective hangover. I wander from stage to stage for the first bit, and the ones I stayed for thirty seconds of I’m not going to mention here. Broadway Calls are a bunch of Green Day rip offs – even their posture reminds me of their old videos. Noah and The Whale really surprise me – I couldn’t stand Five Years Time, and thought that the rest of their material would be the same. In fact, their music sounds like pale blue waves crashing on silvery grey pebbles, and as they don’t play any ukulele songs they alienate everyone in the crowd but win me over.

Lethal Bizzle’s moron rap keeps the crowds happy, but I instead make a few visits to the alternative tent for some comedy (Andy Robinson is one of those middle aged grumps who actually cross the generation barriers, Daniel Townes has his own obscene brilliance, and Jeremy Hardy should go away back to Radio 4). The Living End I didn’t see a lot of either, not that I seemed to miss much, but Metronomy’s furious maths rock beats make them the most attention grabbing band of the day so far – though Brand New’s use of feedback and guitar noises also prick up the ears.

Now we reach the Big Bands, the final few acts that everyone has heard of. Vampire Weekend are still cool, bobbing about with their second generation afro beat rhythms, and most of their new material promises much of the same (though there’s none quite like A Punk or Oxford Comma). Yeah Yeah Yeahs are mostly centred around Karen O’s bizarre costume (It’s a parrot! It’s a boiled sweet zebra! It’s a giant beach towel!), but the music itself is worth it. Although their new album drifted more into electro-pop, all aspects of their career are squished together wonderfully in one stomping performance.

Bloc Party have played roughly this same spot on the Reading/Leeds bill for several years – some wristband-toting veterans are getting a bit sick of them (as are most of the people who ever heard anything off Intimacy, let’s be honest), and while Mercury sounds even worse than it did on record, no one really minds – there are lasers and circle pits and those good old fashioned angular guitars and everybody is happy. Turns out that this is the 10^th anniversary of key band members meeting each other at this very festival, and even though I can barely see the stage, they have got their act together live again with this homecoming, which is reassuring considering what that new single sounds like.

The final – and probably best – band of the weekend is Radiohead. They are unpredictable and surprising – they even start off with Creep – mixing all their styles and eras together. So the set may seem to concentrate on the later, electronic stuff, until you count up and realise they’ve played half of OK Computer (and just when you think they’re never going to play a certain song, they do). Their songs are filled with wonder and power, ever impressive and dazzling. And their stage set looks like they’re playing in the giant CCTV room of a lighting warehouse. There are moments for staring at the stage in awe, followed by songs where the audience all jump and dive at each other, disproving the idea everyone spends Radiohead shows with their arms folded, waiting to be impressed. But then, they are impressive.

Wonderful, exhilarating, beautiful, whatever, finished. The speakers tell everybody we’ll meet again next year, then turf us out into the Millets wilderness of the campsites on Tent Burning Night. This year could easily have fallen flat – a lot of recycled bands from recent years and a huge proportion of recently released material are not a good combination for any festival – but instead some superb headliners, strong supporting acts and nice surprises from the more obscure acts meant that 2009 has not been a weak year at all. Of course there’s been plenty of rubbish too – but half the fun is in mocking them, isn’t it?

Black Diamond Bay supporting a joint headline of Clinic and Shearwater at Brudenell Social Club, Leeds

This does not really work - this double headlining of curio Doctor dressed bassists Clinic and Austin, Texas atmosphereist Shearwater - but it is a noble experiment and one that serves the Brudenell Social Club well on this the final week before the influx of new students.

The aim hangs with that expectation - in a week's time countless eighteen year olds will bring a glorious newness to Headlingly in Leeds which serves as their City locked village but tonight those of us who are more permanent residents enjoy something more mellow.

First though - before the offshoot of the Okkervil River family tree that are Shearwater take to the stage - come Black Diamond Bay who style themselves as Electro-Folksters. They are fun in many ways most of which they probably do not intend to be. A chorus that runs "We'll stop carrying knives/if you stop bombing the fuck out of countries you don't like" is always going to run into criticisms for being a little too fourteen year old discovers politics but the singer - who dances purposefully - and his two backing singers who cut a Human League thrust - seem to really mean it and being earnest will always win points with me.

Besides at one point Black Diamond Bay make a noise thus: Bewoooewp! We really will always be together in electric dreams.

Clinic take to the stage dressed as Doctors and it almost seems like a bad joke when they tell us that the lead singer is ill but it seems that it was not and normally they have lyrics between the funked up sound which was pleasing enough.

More pleasing though are Shearwater who are a much more post-rock beast than the aforementioned Okkervil River with whom they share members playing out what sound to be a thousand different takes on soundtracks to Hitchcock's The Birds with last album Rook concerning itself with themes such as an avian conquest of the world of man.

It stirs the blood and focuses the mind with sharp picture framed lyrics picking out moments and freezing them. Auteur Jonathan Meiberg's rich, near pain near dread voice warns through the tails with the band and Clinic switch between two sets which breaks the atmosphere Shearwater create but leaves enough of an impression of a band with a vision and the ability to project it.

Okkervil River at Academy 2, Manchester

Three things you can count on:

In Manchester it will rain. This is the first thing and sounds like a tired cliche but is true and this afternoon the rain has been heavy, filling the drains and bringing about a sewer smell to pervade the city and fill the lowest floor of what Will Sheff will call a "four level music processing facility."

You can count on Red High Tops too - this is the second thing - and I broke out a new pair for the wander up Oxford Road to the gig and although it is over twenty years since I first wandered to a gig in Converse. Chuck Taylor, Eddy Current, McCarthy's Larry. They are - or were - Americana.

Crawling out of Americana come Okkervil River. Okkervil River are a third thing you can count on. Will Sheff and his band are an unremittingly excellent collective in all they do. Five albums of intelligent, articulate and fascinating music and a string of live shows that take those songs further than one could have thought.

My definition of a good live performance is that a performer is able to take a song heard hundreds of times and breathe a new life into it, change intonations on lines to tweak context, alter the focus of narratives by dropping or raising vocal sections, embowering surprising and effective emotional layers onto what is already familiar. A good gig sees this happen three or four times. Okkervil River deliver such near magic dozens in occasions measured in dozens.

The band play a very similar set to the last time they played in this venue and while Sheff has not a beard and bassist Patrick Pestorius has shaved his off they look much the same as they did ten months ago. The acoustic guitar that Sheff strikes often and hard, throwing over his back on a well worn strap, is the same well scratched piece which played here last year.

Not reinvention then but rather invention. Invention coming in a performance that never goes beyond the remit of being a rock 'n roll show but rather celebrates the form.

Will Sheff uses a rich understanding of the rock n' roll performance to pull off all the tricks he can to beguile and audience that shows gig experience through it's part greying hair.

He drops to speech leading the audience back to "pause and add your own intentions/right here". He slows a song down to near still lingering over "just one rose/one day/and that was years ago." which cuts a swathe of silence through those collected here tonight in a genuine and affecting way.

Affecting too is the unsettling undertone underlying the Okkervil River catalogue and Sheff's battle torn lover is replaced by a seething menace who "thirsts for real blood/for real cuts..." stalking the centre of attention making you complicit in his crimes.

The beat of "a bad movie/where there is no crying" is pattered out in hand claps while "we sail out/on orders from him..." is intoned by Pestorius stepping out from bassist shadow to share Sheff's stage.

It is Sheff's stage though and he takes it for encore picking his beat up guitar and returns as the devastated lover "to cheat/on Maine Island" slowly, delicately, setting his voice against the embers of the evening.

Ultimately though Sheff lifts the mask a final time concluding the encore out at Westfall with easy murder and examination. Playfully he begs to be examined, to see if you can see the truth in his performance, see the legion in his swollen eyes. "Evil don't look like anything" he finalises daring you to carry on an investigation of what this occurrence, to analyse.

New insights gleaned, the night relies on that.

Grammatics vs Blue Roses at Nation of Shopkeepers, Leeds

The word "verses" is ill picked. Owen Brinley and Laura Groves - one of Grammatics, the other who is Blue Roses - combine intriguingly on the evening dubbed as Grammatics vs Blue Roses but ultimately is creates a potion mixture of both.

Blue Roses are a wonder, of course, with Groves having graduated from the pubs of Bradford and area into a fully fledged artist. She shows her abilities by melding the distinct style of her richly produced debut with the four piece she shares the stage with allowing a the depth of Emilia Ergin's Cello and the harmonies that Brinley provides to create new versions of I Wish I, Coast and especially Does Anyone Love Me? which is the best of the three songs from the eponymous album.

Owen Brinley's voice swoops alongside Laura's on her songs but on his own - Grammatic's are interleaved - is restricted to a more melancholic simplicity. Time Capsules and The Great Truth and Inkjet Lakes both benefit from Groves adding a texture but when covering The Killing Moon Brinley's voice comes to life in warmth. One wonders why he does not explore that more in his own band's songs which are lachrymose and lucid.

The seven song set is an idea of both and illustrates the differences - Blue Roses are the emotion, Grammatics more analytical - while celebrating the similarities which are in the craft that goes into music, delicately crafted, and beguiling.

The Lazy Darlings, The Crookes and Swimwear Juniors at Cockpit 3, Leeds

It’s a Friday night and we are stood upstairs in room titled “Cockpit 3” – an intimate venue with the stage squeezed into the corner of a room reminiscent of bomb shelter.  A curved, metal lined ceiling can cause potential havoc for particularly tall band members which was not an issue for the delightfully diminutive Laura Groves who performed here pre-Blue Roses and no doubt many other up-and-coming acts over the years.

Leeds based trio The Lazy Darlings take to the stage and quickly establish they know what they’re doing with their sound. It’s a fusion of the twangly with the jangly.

The simplicity of guitar, bass and drums is occasionally spiced up with some harmonica that enhances the county or blues influence over some of their tracks that are mostly routed into the original ‘90s indie sound.  A particular stand out track is Lover, Come In – with vocal stylings and lyrics that Graham Coxon would happily swipe for himself.

The creative centre of Lazy Darlings is Dave James, a veteran of the Leeds music scene and the continuity of the band’s line up. He crafts considered, and often uplifting songs that treat the ears by not having a monotonous rhythm. He is joined by relatively new recruit, a Texan called Rod Castro on bass who uses his exotic drawl to attempt to lure people upstairs to further populate the audience.

Rod is also responsible for manning the video loop backdrops that are projected during the songs that give The Lazy Darlings an audiovisual style that is more memorable than most similar acts of their size. The projections add to the music without overpowering or distracting from it.

The Lazy Darlings are too lazy to mention they have an EP out - Life Is Easy - and on which the eponymous track and some others are sprinkled with some female backing vocals reminiscent of Throwing Muse Tanya Donnelly - further rooting their sound into the 90s indie. The Lazy Darlings produce an aurally easy going noise that I’d describe as laid back, not lazy, for there is effort being made here.

Suddenly we are zipped through the time tunnel to the 1950s. Buddy Holly, Bobby Darin, Elvis Presley and Bill Haley are alive and well and have all just graduated from Sheffield University. Not really, but close your eyes and you can certainly hear their influences alive and kicking inside the youngsters who take to the stage in front of twelve people.

Open your eyes and you will see in the sharp 15 minutes stage turnaround time, we are now suddenly inside the kind of British bedsit Morrissey would dream of.  There is worse-for-wear portrait of a youthful Queen Elizabeth, a Lowry print propped up on the amps and a couple of table lamps warm the underlit stage. A small battered suitcase customised with tape spells the name of the act on stage – The Crookes.

Named after the student area of Sheffield where they resided and met, The Crookes are a very fresh faced group of four. They were recently lauded with high praise from Steve Lamacq on BBC radio 6Music as “definitely one of my top three unsigned acts in the UK today”.  Lamacq knows his musical onions.

This is their first visit to play Leeds.  Their attention to detail includes dressing in the style of clean cut boys of the era – buttoned up plaid shirts, trousers a little short to show off their moccasins, etc. However, the bassist has a quiff that droops into his eyes – clearly the sign of a potential ‘50s bad boy – and sure enough it is he that starts proceedings with some finger clicking as he launches into his croon.

Half an hour later we have been treated to some ukulele and banjo in addition to the nostalgic sound of guitar drenched in moody reverb, not forgetting some energetic “legs in braces” dancing.  The set is over and songs such Yes, Yes, We’re Magicians, A Collier’s Wife and Backstreet Lovers will linger as we digest the erudite and imaginative lyrics. Perhaps if Bobby, Bill and Buddy had just graduated in English Literature, they may have had lyrics like this. Elvis? He studied Geography...

The night ends with the interestingly monikered Swimwear Juniors. Immediately you can hear there is something “good” about them. That sort of initial gut feeling that this set promises to be of a quality that sets them a bit apart from the hubbub of regionally sourced music. However it’s too early in the set to put your finger on the exact words to yet describe how they are better than average. The vocals of Oliver don’t always “fit” with the music but are spit out Los Camposinos style like breathless notes from diaries hurried to the beat.

The third song in and people are turning to each other nodding and simultaneously mouthing “this is good”. However, soon after that the crowd becomes a bit distracted by the giving out of luminous wrist bands (woo!) and shortly after, free vodka samples.

However, you can’t ignore music which is as well crafted as this. There is something thoughtfully folkish, a leaning towards, say, Noah and The Whale but Swimwear Juniors are navigating more into their own waters than following in the wake of others. They too have an EP out (eponymously titled I believe) but fail to mention this at the time. I go and ask them if they have a cd (The Lazy Darlings came prepared with sample cds to give out) but sadly they have not. This is a shame because there is relatively little of them about on the internet to listen to – their mySpace has only three tracks on, one of which is a Radio 1 jingle. I am even unable to determine where they are from – I assume somewhere Yorkshire – and therefore kick myself I didn’t ask when enquiring of a cd.

In short, for a hard earned £5 entry, tonight has yielded three acts that are really worth seeing again for their own individual merits. Steve Lamacq has indeed pointed us to a new band breaking the current musical mold in the form of The Crookes and in return we’d like to offer him Swimwear Juniors. And so our journey through the Twangly Jangly Time Tunnel finally deposits us back into the damp Leeds evening.