Connect 2008

festival coverage for the skinny

(photos to come)

The entire Skinny coverage is on the link above. Here's just what I did...

The Connect Festival – this year renamed Hydro Connect thanks to a sponsorship hook-up with Scottish Hydro Electric – has got everything going for it, in theory. The location – and the journey to get there – is absolutely gorgeous, being on the banks of Loch Fyne and in the grounds of Inveraray Castle, with steep hills rising behind both main stages. It’s small enough to get to know quickly, and so that traipsing from one end to the other should take no more than five minutes. And the ethos of quality food, and of supporting the environment, is something that everybody can get behind.

Unfortunately, in the two years it’s run so far, it’s been hampered by poor weather and the quagmire conditions that follow. At least this year the rain mostly held off until overnight Saturday, but waking up on Sunday with a hangover, wet clothes and a manky tent, and deep valleys and ponds of sticky mud outside, inevitably prompts the question: I paid how much for this?

But that’s all part of the British festival experience: it’s an endurance test which challenges you to overcome adverse conditions and enjoy yourself anyway because there’s no other choice. For The Skinny, the days after a festival are almost as enjoyable as the festival itself: firstly, getting home to a bath, a clean loo, and a warm, comfy bed; secondly, listening to music again with a fresh energy after seeing so many great performances over the preceding days. We certainly saw plenty of those at Hydro Connect 2008; now all they need to do is fix the weather...

SATURDAY

A painfully thin crowd greets Broken Records on the second stage, first thing Saturday. Is everyone still in their sleeping bags? It’s their loss, because among the sparse attendance couples and groups get dancing, and one song sparks enthusiastic cossack yells: "Hey! Hey! Hey! Hey!" It’s another superb set from the rising Edinburgh septet, who make it mighty tempting to miss Bloc Party to see them again this evening on the much smaller Your Sound tent.

Glasgow-based trio Zoey Van Goey are so sweet, it’s almost impossible to be cynical. Birthday girl Kim Moore’s mellifluous vocals are what do it, but there’s no denying the careful craft of these songs too, disguised by gently weird beats. The versatile threesome swap instrumental duties a few times, drummer Matt gets distracted by “the giant frigging castle” behind the crowd, and we all help out with a freestyle handclapping solo at the end. Let’s leave the solos to the musicians next time, eh.

Just in time for the release of their self-titled debut album, Glasvegas go about winning over thousands of doubting Thomases in a crowd obviously more sceptical than the hysterical hoardes at T in the Park. Glasvegas sound brilliant, their feedback reverberating heavier than ever before, and it’s an unusually energetic show too – not from James Allan of course, who remains unmoved throughout – but from the guitarists, who wildly throw themselves across the stage as they squeeze everything they can from their instruments. Glasvegas aren’t just learning how to physically fill a big stage, but also how to use its amps and speaker stacks too.

Andrew Weatherall can do so much better than this, which boils down to the surgical extraction and implantation of a kick drum every 8 bars. And again – on the mark – on the thirty-two – there it is – there it goes – and again – and away – and again… is this some kind of experiment? But I don’t expect most here to notice, being in their own wee internal worlds.

Unfortunately the sound where we’re standing in the Unknown Pleasures tent is terrible: Black Thought could be reading out the Yellow Pages for all we can hear him. It’s like listening to your neighbour play The Roots through a brick wall. Somewhere along the line there’s an extended You Got Me jam with a crazy, virtuosic climax from the guitarist and ?uestlove on drums; which makes it all the more disappointing that we’re unable to hear it properly. Apparently it sounded great at the front.

Bloc Party probably have the sales but not the back catalogue to headline an event like this. The mid-set one-two punch of So Here We Are and Like Eating Glass is near jaw-dropping, but at other times it’s less easy to remember why this band attracts such a following: specifically, Two More Years and the climactic Blue Light, which works far better in its album track context than as a live finale.

SUNDAY

It’s like Scott and Grant Hutchison are playing to a nursery school in the Speakeasy Cafe, with Frightened Rabbit fans sitting cross-legged just inches away from them. The wee marquee is packed and all the lucky kids here see a special show, with Scott on great chatty form in-between a handful of stripped-back picks from Sing The Greys and brilliant latest album Midnight Organ Fight. Despite all the bells and whistles on the bigger stages, two men, two drums and a borrowed guitar provide one of the weekend’s biggest highlights.

When you need to take your mind off the brown puddles slurping around inside your wellies, Camera Obscura know how to help. A couple of breezy new songs set the scene for the very appropriate Let’s Get Out of this Country and Lloyd, I’m Read To Be Heartbroken, a duo which gets everyone singing and swinging and pogoing gently. Squelch squelch squelch. Utterly charming, but I'm not sure about that new squelch section.

On first appearances We Were Promised Jetpacks seem like earnest lads with a keen sense of rhythm, which mostly comprises a uniform kick drum with incessant motorik hi hits. Thankfully they make no attempt at funk whatsoever, which is a good thing because punk-funk is easy to learn but difficult to master, especially for young bucks. If WWPJ ever did try to sell you hair mousse, at least they’d do it with sincerity.

Accompanied by a Meatloaf-alike friend on voice box duty, Kraftwerk man Karl Bartos’ apathetic approach to mixing actually serves him well, because it allows he and his wingman more freedom to play with the pace. They never go for the easy option of a straight Kraftwerk song: only hints and flurries of recognisable hooks, interspersed with similarly influenced electro-retro deutsche-dance beats, is enough to keep everyone on their dancing toes.

Five new songs are premiered by Franz Ferdinand as they close the festival, several of which feature kazoo-toned synths much like Delia Derbyshire’s Dr Who soundtrack. The first stands out thanks to two unexpected but brilliant left-turns it takes, making it sound like a random sample from an indie-dance mix tape. Franz Ferdinand have always done that kind of thing well: it’s what sets Take Me Out and Do You Wanna up for their shakedowns, though tonight the latter is a little heavy-set. They know how to find a groove, and as Alex Kapranos introduces each band member for solos during closer This Fire, they briefly look more like a funk group than a pop group. Average white band? Somewhat better than average, I’d say.

5 Reasons to Haul Ass to Hydro Connect

preview for the skinny

1. The Location - It's in the grounds of a castle on the banks of Loch Fyne. If you can't appreciate that you must be a blind man who lives in a castle. You're not though, are you?

2. The People - There's no easy way of putting this: everyone at Hydro Connect is there for the music and the good times, as opposed to y'know, other festivals, where you get the impression some folks are there solely to make boke castles after downing enough booze to kill a whale. In contrast, drink with an outstretched pinky at Connect and you could easily be mistaken for royalty, or Rick Parfitt from Status Quo (it happens, seriously).

3. The Food - Sure, Glasto's got its Non-Traditional Meat Source Burgers, and T's got its famous I'm In A Hurry Curry Bus, but Connect's got fresh oysters from Loch Fyne - that's the one we're all standing beside - for a pound a pop! There's nothing quite like a giant salty sea-bogey to stoke a rumbling stomach, that's for sure.

4. The Summer - This'll be the last big weekend of the summer, before we settle down for seven months of wondering why the hell we still live in this god-forsaken country. Won't it be lovely to sit outside past tea time for one last time in 2008?

5. The Music - Apparently they're putting on some bands too. The Roots! The Breeders! Grinderman! Spiritualized! Sigur Ros! Best make that 10 reasons, at the very least.

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1. Yes I realise this makes me look like a massive hypocrite, because of a post I made before criticising the Connect line-up. That's exactly why I didn't focus on the music! FWIW, I didn't mention any of those bands - I've never heard the Grinderman album and I can't stand Sigur Ros - but when articles get subbed, people add stuff, and sometimes it's something you don't necessarily agree with.
2. I am a subber for The Skinny but obviously cannae sub my own articles.
3. Which is a shame because this article was published in the mag with the headline
"5 REASONS TO YOUR HAUL ASS TO HYDRO CONNECT"
4. And when they add stuff, it's not even always in the right place! The very first thing I ever got published was a review of a Devandra Banhart single in my Uni paper. It concluded "nice and twee like a nice cup of tea" or some other shite like that. The Editor (pbuh) decided to change that to "nice and twee like a cup of sweet tea", which I don't think is any better particularly, but it's OK. Shame that he mis-spelled the word he inserted. So my first ever published review ended
"...nice and twee like a cup of sweat tea."

[insert FAIL pic here]

Connect takes a turn for the worse

Last year's inaugural Connect Festival had a few organisational teething problems, but it also had the bare bones of a world class festival for music lovers. Set in the grounds of a castle in the beautiful Scottish countryside, under the shade of a mountain on the coast of Loch Fyne, we were treated to Bjork, the Beastie Boys, Primal Scream, the Jesus & Mary Chain, MIA, the Fire Engines, the Furries, Jarvis Cocker, CSS, Nathan Fake and more. I tried a fresh oyster from the loch - as Dave's pal Dave pointed out, they taste like giant salty bogies - and spent most of Saturday wearing a paper Spiderman mask enjoying what was actually one of the best days of my life.

Left: Broon gets ready to slurp on a giant salty bogey...





Right: ...and is later confident that "Spider-Broon, Spider-Broon, does whatever a Spider-Broon does" is the height of contemporary wit




But it was far from a sell-out, so it should have come as little surprise that this year's line-up would move a little more mainstream to try to cash in on the insatiable British festival appetite. But this? Firstly, it's now called Hydro Connect thanks to some peculiar hook-up with Scottish Hyrdo Electric. That sounds more like a tool a plumber needs to fix your sink than it does a music festival, but names aren't important. What is important is this:

Franz Ferdinand, Kasabian, Bloc Party, Paolo Nutini, Sigur Ros, Manic Street Preachers, Goldfrapp, Amy MacDonald, Grinderman, Duffy, Elbow, The Gossip, Spiritualized, Mercury Rev, The Coral, The Roots, The Breeders, The Levellers, Camera Obscura, Sia

So last year we got Bjork and MIA, this year we get Amy MacDonald and Paolo Nutini? Last year we got the Beasties and JAMC, this year we get Kasabian and the Manic Street Preachers? Bloc Party's most recent album was terrible, Sigur Ros are atrocious, Elbow are possibly the worst live band I've ever seen (though I like their records), while Spiritualized, Mercury Rev and the Coral are all a good 5 years past their sell-by dates. Don't even get me started on Duffy or Sia...

Admittedly there's still a lot of acts to be announced but they're coming from a long way back in the field after announcing that, and it's quite clear they've changed their strategy from 'providing a boutique festival of interesting and innovative music for 24-35 year old music lovers' to 'a more expensive version of T in the Park and Rock Ness for those who would rather eat oysters with their noses in the air than drink lager with weegie neds'. Actually, T in the Park's line-up is the best of the three this year - so says REM, the Chemical Brothers, the Prodigy, Primal Scream, Sons & Daughters, Aphex Twin and The National.

I'm really disappointed with Connect's announcement. As if the permanent departure of Triptych from Scotland's musical calendar wasn't bad enough, we now have to console ourselves with Connect going soft too. If you add the downfall of Indian Summer, which was brilliant in 2006 and apparently rather pathetic in 2007, it seems that promoters are cottoning on to the fact that it is just not viable to put on alternative music festivals in Scotland.