Connect Festival - day 1
Inveraray Castle (31st August)
There’s been a lot said about Connect - and not just from the organisers either, a welter of press that would make you imagine that Rupert Murdoch, SMG and Mirror Group had set it up rather than it being a DF production.
And yes, there are efforts to shake off the enormous big red T that hangs over every festival like a pissed-up albatross (indeed, T stands for Tubourg). And, the epithet that this inaugural Connect is awarded will be largely in the mind of the beholder - whether it’s “boutique festival”, ”ned-free”, “Indian Summer killer”, or “a triumph” (the latter probably courtesy of most of the aforementioned media outlets) will depend on the experience had by the attended.
“Teething troubles” isn’t one for the press pack, but that would sum up day one - which is more like day zero, with stages still under construction, it seems, and running orders put back an hour or 2. This is to accommodate late arrivals - which is everyone, thanks to the mile-long hike from car park to campsite, which has some comedy value as unsuitably-clad punters drag their Luis Vuitton luggage through 4 inches of mud in scenes like something out of The Long March.
Somehow however, I still manage to miss opening act Amy MacDonald (“me too, and I threw twice” japes a passing journo) as it seems impossible to find either the press tent, or a running order - well, unless you can (a) locate a programme seller and (b) find £7 for it. A map - one with a built-in light if we’re doing the wish list - would have ben useful after dusk too).
So instead, Make Model - who we missed at Indian Summer thanks to press pass-related shenanigans - are our first act of the day. For those who’ve heard their myspace tracks, ‘Check Neck’ sort of fits the ‘angular’ blueprint which fits in with their Fickle Public lineage. However, in reality they’re much more ‘pop’, more Aberfeldy (or a cultured Purple Munkie?), exhibiting crafted songwriting with 4 guitars, a slew of vocals, and a confident manner as the band get the “festival vibe”.
The first of the teething troubles comes home to roost - it’s an odd setup where we can heard the all-day DJ sets from the Manicured Noise tent at the back of the Guitars and Other Machines ‘arena’, but the Oyster (main) stage is a good 5-minute run away. That and the skewiff timings means that we catch precisely 3 Steven Linsday tunes. None from his previous Big Dish catalogue, though his cover of ‘Monkey Gone to Heaven’ gets heads turning once the clever acoustic version has sunk into the heads of the age-wise, very wide-ranging audience.
A gap the before the next act, which at least gives us time to check out the site. We all know that T in the Park, to be charitable, is an ‘experience’ as much as a musical extravaganza, with bands secondary to the partying. Connect is more sophisticated, but it seems almost that the organisers are desperate to come up with ways to keep us entertained - like 30 bands per day wasn’t enough. Several sponsored tents with DJs, a vast amount of fairly sophisticated food stalls (whisky, oysters), an enchanted garden-cum-camofulage tent with renassssaice actors in powdered wigs, the ubiquitous Silent Disco and probably Human Sudoku - oh, and give it half an hour and there’ll be a band on. Why there’s no Yoursound bandstand on the Friday is unclear but it would have made from a diversion from, er, the diversions.
I encounter a writer who was ’assigned’ Stephen Fretwell‘s album to review. I was unimpressed with it (hence him being sent it). When I catch Fretwell’s unassuming acoustic set, I’m reminded of a Crowded House ad campaign - not just musically, but the jist was “you’ll be surprised how many you know”. And yes - 3 tunes at the end of the set sound like old friends - ‘Emily’ and ‘New York’ are there in my subconscious as Scunthorpe’s finest just about manages to command the attention of a field roughly the size of a one of the Balado airstrips.
Another mad dash to the castle where, the Trashcan Sinatras are, yes, just winding down their set. On the way there I’m sure I can hear the strains of ‘I Know What I Like in Your Wardrobe’. Whether this is a Trashcans cover version or if it’s coming from one of the DJ sets in the cider garden I can’t be sure, but it does reinforce the notion that Connect really is a festival for the more ‘mature’ festival goer.
My DJing set at the Kopparberg Cider Tent/garden is brought forward 30 minutes. This is good as it means there’ll be no awkwardness when Aereogramme come on i.e. me leaving the decks unattended for the last 10 minutes (though a CDR of Boards of Canada is at the ready, just in case). Bad from the point of view that I miss the Aliens AGAIN, but needs must. As it happens, it’s Mig from Nice’n’Sleazy whose set overlaps with the beardy ones’ swansong (well, unless he has a pre-prepared mix), and it’s myself who ‘treats’ those nipping in for some pear cider to the delights of Dananananaykroyd & Ivor Cutler.
We’d already spotted Aereogramme earlier of course - arriving in time for an early soundcheck, they apparently were unsure where to pitch their tent. And decided that just to the left of the Guitars… arena would do nicely (there’s surely a comedy sketch to be had here, 4 musicians putting up a tent, Vic’n’Bob/Slade style… or is that just me?). So, a quick skip and a hop from their front door (or, ‘flap’) to the stage, where the band deliver a set on a par with anything they’ve ever done.
To be honest it’s clouded slightly by a haze of emotions, both from band and audience, but closing number ‘Post Tour’ is dedicated to all the womenfolk they’ve presumably aurally assaulted over the years. A encore, of sorts, in ‘Shouting For Joey’ and the trashing of a timpani seem to release every emotion that’s been building up over the past 9 years.
Farewells bade, it’s a mad skedaddle through the increasingly muddy pathways to the main arena where Jarvis, has reached his final couple of numbers. Still, I catch ‘Cunts are STILL Running The World’ which is nice for a singalong, Jarvis describing himself as “The Man In Brown”. Then, and I’m not entirely sure why, he dedciates a song for Dunfermline people present (2, it seems). Rather than a Barbara Dickson cover, it’s a shambolic and self-confessedly under-rehearsed version of ‘Into The Valley’.
My memory may be playing tricks here, but the odd running order means that there’s a nothing to see (move along, move along) gap in my itinerary with only DJs in the tents (and who wants to see one of those?) So next up, King Creosote. Less surprisingly, he also has a song dedicated to Fife too - ok, it’s called ‘Leslie’ which may be the home of the Greenside Hotel, or it may be a person. Good tune either way as is most of the stuff from the new release. He also resurrects oldie ‘Jerusalem’ (is it actually called that?), but I miss the finale - at least, there’s usually an epic rocking out at the end of any KC show which has Pictish Trail on guitar. For now the sight of an accordion enthralling several thousand people is frankly, as odd as you’ll get.
I should have been wise to it of course. I thought I’d got there in time for the Mary Chain’s first number. However, as the set wears on - and I really really mean “wears” - I realise that everything is directed at people who discovered the band on the Lollapalooza tour rather than a couple of weeks after they were playing chaotic feedback-drenched 15 minute sets at sticky-floored Glasgow toilet venues. My mind wanders throughout the middle-aged versions of the ‘hits’ and comes to the bizarre conclusion that Alan McGee had this one called right - the first album’s energy sapped by the time the band had reached a major, and their enduring success, we assume, helped on by the fact that in the 1980s, they were still the most interesting act on the go. Which says more about that best-forgotten decade than ‘Happy When It Rains’, which needs a rocket up its arse. ‘Sidewalking’ is a highpoint by virtue of having a decent hook, but ‘Some Candy Talking’ and ‘Just Like Honey’ have lost their delicate sparseness thanks to the big arena sound necessary, and ‘Vegetable Man’ was never much cop and is now an unnecessary extravagance, given that its A-side ‘Upside Down’ is ignored.
(A later surf on the web suggests that the set did indeed start 10 minutes early and that they played ‘Never Understand’ and ‘Head’. Grr).
My thoughts are already on the 2-hour drive through pitch darkness, but I can’t go without seeing the Superfurries? I nip for the first and last time into the Manicured Noise tent - it’s Optimo time and there are a few people dancing. There’s a 15-minute wait in the half-empty arena in the rapidly-descending gloaming for the Furries to start - a poke of the most expensive chips in the world the preferred option over the Hog Roast (something I’d wager you’d not find at Hey You Get Off My Pavement…) Then, they’re here, an explosion of lights and sound, like Kraftwerk on New Age self-improvement tapes. Griff dons a helmet and… well, that’s it for me. Not the Helmet, but two numbers in and my number’s up and I want to be awake lest I plummet over the Rest and Be Thankful.
Since the Connect weekend we’ve learned that Geoff Ellis is keen to do this again and is even up for losing money on the first 3 if necessary - a long game. So, assuming it happens, and on the same site (I‘d prefer a park in the west end of Glasgow) then lessons will already have been learned, I’m sure. I believe that even on the Saturday the organisation was coming together. The staff were remarkably helpful, and patient (can’t speak for late on the Sunday though!) The stages were too far apart, apart from the 2 which were too close together. No pleasing some of us, eh? And, even though the total acreage of the site is massive, the main thoroughfare was, at least late on the Friday, a disaster waiting to happen.
All in all though, for the first one, a qualified success. I’d really just like be able to see a wee bit more music…
more photos from Connect on Flickr
Stuart McHugh
