And so it came to pass that Regular Music and Mogwai collaborated to bring an all-dayer to the Southside of Glasgow, with two music stages housed in tents (one very big, one not so big), the middle day of a three-gig weekend, which presumably made setting the whole thing up more cost-effective.
It looked as if Mogwai had a fair influence in who else was booked, as many of the acts had either collaborated with Mogwai members, are signed to Rock Action records or were previous tour-mates etc.
The site was well laid-out physically, there was very little rain, almost no bar queues (though food queues were another matter – Ed), to be honest everything ran smoothly, there was a wide selection of various mainly slightly left-field artists and the sound quality was pretty darn good in general. It wasn’t sold out but it felt well-populated, and extremely good value given the number and quality of the music on offer.
BM enjoyed Sacred Paws early on, and they seemed to be enjoying themselves as well, in the early sunshine with a sizeable crowd in the Rock Action tent. Kathryn Joseph looked quite a lonely figure on her own in the main tent on such a huge stage, but she held the audience with her solo piano renditions of songs old and newer – she made it clear, as she has done before, that her songs are mainly about people doing nasty things to each other, none more so than ‘The Burning of Us All’, very impassioned and appreciated by the audience.
Elisabeth Elektra was on next in the Rock Action tent, fronting a band which included Mr Braithwaite on guitar – the track today sounded less electro and more like torch songs, in particular ‘Only A Dream’ and ‘Magdalena’. EE cut a vampish figure in massive shades, and the last number ‘Broken Promises’ turned into more of a frantic thrash, excellent stuff… The audience at this point included Stuart Braithwaite’s dog, which must surely have ears of iron after sitting through the Rock Action tent for several hours without howling…
Michael Rother in the main tent was a bit of a revelation – BM expected a solo piano performance but this was a full band wigout from the start, full of Krautrock driving beats, synth solos and loads of guitar… prog on!
Cloth played as a three piece today, with songs from their back catalogue – although they confirmed album three has been recorded. Songs like ‘Pigeon’ and ‘Never Know’ had the typical two guitar interplay which works so well live, and despite being quite understated they were remarkably loud…
Nadine Shah played the main tent with her (also very loud) four piece band, a ball of energy with vocals which rose to the occasion of such a large space – ‘Topless Mother’ from the current album was a highlight for BM and she must have won some more fans tonight with her frenzied dancing and passionate delivery.
Slowdive drew a pretty large crowd in the main tent, probably a younger demographic then expected, but this lot seem to have had a new lease of life and were clearly enjoying playing a measured selection of old and more recent material – still doing it for the kids after all these years!
Mogwai finished off the night with an immense performance spanning almost every album of their career plus a couple of surprises. BM has reviewed them many times before but let’s just say they were better than ever, the setlist well-programmed to take the audience through the gears, different textures and dynamics.
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