Ah, that time of year again. Time for Scotland’s most laid back and, to be honest, downright fun festival.
First stop is the Solus Tent, the last few years the most consistently entertaining stage on site. Luckily for the first band up their name completely goes by me. If they are the billed Action Group, they’re a darn sight different than I’ve previously heard. They’re basically a schizoid mess of ideas that ends up being neither here nor there.
A quick jump to the Scooter tent where we catch the last few songs of The Merchants‘ set. This is good, because in a previous review I hadn’t caught their name. My opinion was pretty much the same; thewy fairly rocked until they stopped being Leatherface and became Deep Purple. Can that last song chaps.
One of the inkies once reviewed The Amphetameanies opening TitP with the legend “Bad. Scottish. Ska.” I could quite easily label More from Jim “Great. Scottish. Ska.” But, feel the need to go into it in detail to emphasise just how good. This being a festival, you can barely turn a corner without being confronted with a ska band. The most common being that sweaty punk version that encourages fat blokes to take off their shirts and slap each other about. We get plenty of that. And everything else in between all the way up to the sublime Neville Staple. there’s even one lot with an american vocalist doing covers in a dreadful mockney accent that wouldn’t rule out Chim Chim Cher-ee in their set. What More From Jim manage to do is remind us why so many folk want to play this music. The band play with such eager enthusiasm that it inspires the crowd to smile and get dancing, which in turn fires up the bands exuberance. And, so begins a simbiotic knees-up that not even the hardest heart could resist. This is how it should be done. Sheer unaffected joy.
Galchen are an odd thing. Basically one of them post-rock doo-dads but with a serious pop nous. Oh, they’re all stern faces and onstage projections, but by god they can sure turn out the toe-tappers. Perhaps we’re still reeling from the previous band, but I so want them to throw their pose to the wind and start pulling proper rock star shapes.
TBH The Fall seem like the strangest choice to play this. In fact, there’s something about MES that suggests he really never steps outside. Fresh air just doesn’t agree with him. So, mid-afternoon in blinding sunlight is just wrong. In true curmudgeonly fashion we are given a set that concentrates heavily on the recent Imperial Wax Solvent album, including an extended version of Elena-sung Duped. And, in a way that exemplifies this festival, the crowd goes ballistic. Smith turns at one point and comments “you’re not supposed to be enjoying this”. Ah, but we are. So, in an attempt to pull back control he punishes us with a romp through White Lightning and Mr Pharmacist. It doesn’t work. Short, to the point and completely surreal. The way all good Fall gigs should be.
Due to illness, jumpy wonders We Are The Physics have canceled at short notice. We take this as a sign that we should, indeed, take that walk to the Acoustic Village and catch Dean Friedman. Uncool as it is, I think Lucky Stars is one of the finest pop moments of the 70s. In addition to a handful of cheesy hits, he’s managed to sustain himself writing sharp witty lyrics, soundtracks, putting together kids shows, presenting radio shows (check out his american folk thing of Radio Scotland, great stuff) and doing this nostalgia thing. This guy’s been banned by the BBC and had a tour canceled because he planned to distribute drugs to his audience. You don’t get much more rock ‘n’ roll
He’s joined by his daughter Hannah and son Sam. She’s a chip off the old block, fantastic voice and looking like she’s having the time of her life. He really does looks like he’d rather be anywhere else in the world than on stage with his dad at this moment in time. There’s a point during I’m In Love With a Macdonal’s Girl (”she is an angel in a polyester uniform”) when it crosses my mind that there may actually be something to Nigel Blackwell’s paternity fears. Then I realise just how much hair his kids have.
We wander off to check out the Hacienda tour. Someone tells us that Bez turned up and played a Happy Mondays record. That seems to be about it.
//Tony Kiernan