Great Escape Festival Diary: 17/v/08

Esser braves the Saturday afternoon rain at Jubilee Square, but I miss it. I’m girding my loins for a struggle to see Santogold and a possible 2am gig if we miss her at Digital earlier in the evening. But all bets are off when she cancels both gigs. So we head for the nearest venue: Komedia for the Corrections.

Pretty good middle of the road guitar stuff with some needless chalk scribbling from the lead singer that I guess was supposed to be cool. They save it all for their last song (which I reckon sounded like the Who) and their gig later in the evening. Competent but mostly unexciting.

Allons-y! The Barfly. Cut off your hands! These dynamic, sharp and exciting indie lads showed us how to rock. No blasé boredom (viz Noah and the Whale) or ‘we’re too cool” disdain (see Yeasayer) from this kiwi gang. The just give it their all, playing and singing with passion and even a good leap in to the crowd. An electric, edgy, frenetic performance and a festival highlight. It should have been louder. Much louder. They weren’t up at 11. Not quite even 6.

And we stay put for the much praised Lightspeed Champion. But, unbelievably, they seemed to have turned the PA down and it was kinda hard to enjoy the nuanced performance. Damn good nonetheless.

Crystal Castles at 2am? We decide not and head for a local boozer where we slag off Yeasayer (well, I do anyway), praise the good, damn the weather, rue missing Vampire Weekend and declare the Great Escape, with caveats, £35 very well spent.

1 thought on “Great Escape Festival Diary: 17/v/08”

  1. Pingback: Noah and the Whale: I was Wrong. : Dan Wilson : eBay expert, social networking, online community, ecommerce, stuff

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