Saturday @ T in the Park 2010

blurbs on bands at T in the Park on Saturday

for the skinny

Saturday lunchtime’s persistent drizzle sends most casual fans under canvas, so bands like the T Break tent-bound Astral Planes can benefit from a larger audience. But beyond the friends in the front row, the casual outliers never really take to them. Doris Day’s (the song, obvs) weighty riffs momentarily stop the crowd chatting and even inspire a little air guitar; but the Glasgow band’s similarities to the Yeah Yeah Yeahs and Blondie suggest a personality received, not conceived.

“The new Frightened Rabbit?” a friend jokes as we head to the BBC Introducing stage for Admiral Fallow, formerly Brother Louis Collective. A reductive, throwaway comment; sadly impossible to shrug off. In a 20 minute set, three songs feel like shadows of specific FRabbit tunes. Their best moment comes when they step out of that shadow: an emotional clarinet burst at the end of final song Subbuteo provides a welcome Roxy Music-style release.

Unfortunately for the newly Guardian-profiled Kid Adrift, the rain has stopped before he takes the stage, and fans seem determined to enjoy the skies while they’re dry. So only a wee group is present to gawp at his bombastic synth-rock, and despite the volume and scope, somehow even they don’t seem to be paying attention. He’s not helped by poor sound, specifically an underpowered mic that leaves his vocals clouded out by the bass and drums, but predictable quiet/loud shifts in his music don’t help either.

Vampire Weekend are astonishingly popular. For a group with only two Top 40 hits to attract a miles-deep crowd at the Main Stage is remarkable, and for miles around we can see fans dancing, not just to those minor hits, but to album tracks too. “Cousins” is the highlight, the off-kilter scratch guitar intro immediately drawing waves of cheers from the crowd, before Ezra Koenig draws laughs by asking for “anger and ecstasy” from the crowd during “One (Blake’s Got A New Face)”. Perhaps he touched on the real secret to all this dancing?

After We Are Scientists pack the King Tuts tent out, The Coral’s crowd is sparse. It’s a minor mystery why they have such a good slot at all, and they don’t offer any clues from the stage. They start with breakthrough single Goodbye, before a dreary In The Rain and a new song with a stultifying chorus of “oh oh, waiting for a thousand years, oh oh, sailing on a thousand tears”. We don’t wait a thousand milliseconds more.

Rambling Man

Laura Marling | MySpace Music Videos

In the Futures tent, we’d earlier seen the quiet, folky Middle East suffer because watchers were too drunk to listen. But now the same tent is packed and wholly attentive for 20 year old Laura Marling, the new star of English folk thanks to her beautiful second album I Speak Because I Can. There’s a dramatic pause in Rambling Man that’s perfectly held by the rapt crowd, emphasising the effect of the return; before a sizable core of fans sing along to every word of Ghosts. Wonderful.

The BBC’s Vic Galloway introduces Young Fathers as “the best three-piece electro hip-hop group Edinburgh’s ever produced!”, which might sound a soft compliment but it’s pretty accurate: while their lyrics are hard to make out in the melee, there’s no hating their style. Before the crowd knows it, we're jumping around and flapping our arms like birds, all because of their infectious onstage energy and charm.

Seven years since he last played in Scotland, it’s an honour and a thrill to see Eminem performing again, even if we do have to wait an additional forty minutes past showtime for him to arrive. In some ways it’s like he’s never been away: his performance is full of energy, he doesn’t miss a beat and he’s clearly enjoying himself. Unfortunately his wireless mic isn’t quite so wide awake, meaning whole verses are occasionally inaudible as he patrols the stage, and his set includes a few recent stinkers: Beautiful and Not Afraid are particularly galling. Luckily, a late run including My Name Is, Without Me and Lose Yourself is clearly audible and full of fire. Anytime, Mister Mathers.

----

No way in hell was I missing the next day's World Cup Final, even for Jay-Z.

Eminem @ T in the Park, 10 Jul

Eminem @ T in the Park, Balado near Kinross, Scotland, 10/07/2010 (***)
live review for The Skinny

Five years after his last scheduled UK gig -- and seven years since he last actually performed in Scotland -- it's teasing to have to wait 40 minutes past showtime for Eminem to finally take the stage to close Saturday's Main Stage lineup. But when Marshall Mathers arrives, it's a relief to see him still youthful and full of fight; considering the drug problems and the rare public appearances, my subconscious feared he’d turn up in a string vest and pyjama bottoms, or unshaven and greying at least. But seven years away haven’t aged him at all, physically; artistically, it’s a different story. Growing up is a difficult subject to navigate, for any person or any artist, but it’s extra hard for artists who have a stage persona and a real personality as messily intertwined as Eminem’s. So, just as a new greatest hits release from Em would sound strangely incoherent, tonight's set contained songs as if written by a few different Slim Shadys.

His earliest persona -- the funny one -- is who everyone’s here to see, but he leaves most of that for the end. The first half of the show is almost entirely Recovery and Relapse tracks, plus a three-song set with D12, and it’s underwhelming for all but the Stans on the barrier, frequently shown on the giant screens reciting every word. Presumably the cause of the delayed start was technical, and technical problems with Em’s wireless mic persist - entire verses are lost while his sidekick MC is fully audible. When it comes to Stan -- the song -- Em’s mic problems frustratingly remain: after the crowd sings along to Dido’s intro, the first verse is a washout.

The mic is working by the time Em wants to talk to the crowd, pitting all the boys and girls against each other in a noise-making contest, and encouraging all the boys to turn to the nearest girl and say “fuck you bitch!”. That’s Slim Shady talking, but then comes the real head-fucking sequence of the evening: he asks the girls “how many of you ladies feel beautiful tonight?”, dedicates the next song to every girl in the crowd, and sings “don’t let them say you ain’t beautiful”. Minutes later, the girls are singing along to Rihanna’s Love The Way You Lie hook, as Eminem threatens to tie her to a bed and set the house on fire.

Beautiful is on Eminem’s 2009 comeback album Relapse, but who is it by? Is it by a fake Slim Shady? Who was Kim, by? Is Beautiful by the real Marshall Mathers? Is Beautiful by the same artist as Kim? Is Beautiful by the same artist as Not Afraid?

Well yes, those two seem to go together: they’re both morose, self-pitying ballads that look for strength and hope but find cliche instead. Not Afraid, tonight’s second-last song, is a power ballad that sets Eminem up like an inspirational moral guide: “Everybody come take my hand, we'll walk this road together through the storm” and so on. What happened to “you can suck my dick if you don't like my shit”? That was only 20 minutes ago.

He created a monster, but it was a fully formed and living monster: as writer Jeff Weiss put it, he was “the id of every 16-year old boy in America”. Now what is he? A hotchpotch of moods, attitudes and beliefs: a normal adult? It’s hard to believe.

Eminem closed his T set with a furious Lose Yourself, but it was the other song to sandwich Not Afraid, Without Me, that was most revealing. 18 months after Stan, his comeback single declared an intention to be provocative: “...we need a little controversy, cos it feels so empty without me”. Now on another comeback, Eminem provoked boos from the T crowd whenever he addressed it as “Edinburgh”. It’s a reasonable mistake to make -- we’re well within a Ryanair definition of Edinburgh, at least -- but some fans weren’t happy. “Oi Eminem!” a little lass behind me yelled. “I’m fae Glenrothes!”.

Remember when Eminem was intentionally provocative?

T in the Park 2009

T in the Park 2009, Balado, Scotland
covered for The Skinny

I suggest (if time allows) reading the full coverage over at The Skinny website, for a much broader picture including blurbs by Darren Carle and Chris Buckle. Friday review here, Saturday here and Sunday here.

But here's what I wrote anyway...

T in the Park 2009 was largely pre-billed as "the year T went pop", as if it was totally something else before. Bands that write their own songs and play guitars 'n' that can still be pop bands, of course, but this year the presence of fashionable girlies like Lady Gaga and Katy Perry was supposed to show an ideological side-step. And there was, slightly.

For us, this year's disappointing aspect was how the biggest bands on the Main Stage - Kings of Leon, Razorlight, The Killers, Snow Patrol - sucked up the crowds like a black hole in the middle of the site, to the noticeable detriment of the shows on the eleven other stages. It's great that T is trying to encourage diversity by adding more stages, but how long can that last if the punters continue to gravitate to the same predictable big-hitters instead of trying something different?

It wasn't just the Main Stage, actually, it was more about which artists are on the telly all the time: more people watched Tommy Reilly than Nick Cave or Nine Inch Nails, while the King Tut's tent was half-empty for the Manic Street Preachers but bursting full the next day for The Saturdays. That kind of thing's depressing for musos like us, who've had our lives changed by bands like NIN and can't believe so few others have too; and then we can't even get near the front for a perv of Frankie Sandford. It's just a wee bit outta balance, that's all.

Navel-gazing aside, T in the Park 2009 was brilliant. We saw some fantastic performances from a wide variety of bands on loads of different stages. We drank a lot. And the sun came out, and stayed out, for most of the weekend. There's no better way to spend a weekend than at a music festival with good bands, good friends, beer and sunshine. It ended with an epic set from the newly reunited Blur, an hour-and-a-half late but worth the wait. Sometimes a Main Stage band deserves to swallow up the entire crowd.

FRIDAY:

An Edwyn Collins gig isn't like a gig for anyone else. Four years ago, the ex-Orange Juice frontman suffered two serious strokes, which he's been slowly recovering from ever since. He can't play the guitar, walks with difficulty, and it takes real effort for him to speak: "I. Am still. Learning. To talk" he tells us, hand clawing forward as if to throw each word out. It's impossible to divorce the context from the performance: this man could easily choose to retreat into a comfortable retirement, but instead he's determined to push himself because he loves playing music. The couple hundred fans here really appreciate the effort; they'd respond rapturously to Falling And Laughing, Rip It Up and A Girl Like You playing on a pub jukebox; to have Edwyn Collins perform them for us is just magical.

13 years since they formed, Camera Obscura finally make it to the Futures Tent. (Well, at least it wasn't the BBC Introducing... stage). Having just released their gorgeous fourth album My Maudlin Career, it's a shame that Camera Obscura are tucked away like this at their own local megafestival. Their performance is tight and professional, and comprises six completely lovable songs, including French Navy and the title track from the new record. They're not the most exciting live band, but with songs like these it doesn't really matter.

We're standing pretty close in for Yeah Yeah Yeahs, but it's still difficult to even hear at times. Their two favourite ballads, first album classic Maps and new album re-write Skeletons, are drawn out and whispered so thinly that the guys tunelessly singing along beside me completely drown out Karen O's vocals. But they can't drown out the pipe band which appears at the end of Skeletons, to inevitable roars from a crowd easily pleased by a pop star merely acknowledging we're not English. New songs Zero and Heads Will Roll are much better, and final song Date With The Night goes down a storm too. The Yeah Yeah Yeahs are much better when they're audible.

Nick Cave's headlining set at the second biggest stage - the Radio 1/NME Stage - is watched by a pitifully small crowd, but he shows no reservations or signs of disappointment - he's as ebullient and theatrical as he would be in front of a packed stadium. Red Right Hand, The Weeping Song and There She Goes My Beautiful One are highlights, but it's the pre-encore finale of Stagger Lee that, ahem, staggers me, with a crazy cacophonous climax and blasting lights followed by an extra verse and another screeching, screaming ending. More people needed to see it.

SATURDAY:

So maybe I'm just too old - I have a beard and have been drinking legally purchased beer after all - but Unicorn Kid's so-called chiptune niche is just Nokia Tuned happy hardcore, right? This being T In The Park, the wee crowd at BBC's Introducing stage is going, going, going fucking mental for 17 year old Oliver Sabin's fairground beats, but that's because they've clearly forgotten an important lesson from history - Bonkers. It's a responsibility of every sanctimoniously minded elder to remind the youth of today of the horrors wrought by Bonkers, lest they occur again. Ten minutes of Unicorn Kid's Jamster Dance is enough to concern any right-minded citizen about this country's future.



It'd be easy to snark on Edinburgh hip-hop trio Young Fathers, if they weren't such endearing live performers. It's the natty synchronised dance moves that do it -- well, the beats are pretty sweet too -- and final track Straight Back On It really gets the crowd going, if only after a bit of on-stage cajoling. There's one definite lull -- a ballad with the line "do you connect to my ringtone?" -- but Young Fathers' party jams do exactly what they want them to do - they ignite a party atmosphere, for a few dozen folk at least. Watch the set here.

SUNDAY:

It's a bit silly having The Twilight Sad on the BBC Introducing stage - it seems to be the biggest crowd this stage gets all weekend, and no-one is being introduced. From near the back, beyond the roof, the sound swirls out a bit, and the nearby Slam Tent's beats interfere; but I can also see the whole crowd, and how positive and excited everyone is. There's several stunning moments: new single I Became A Prostitute's explosive drum slams; the slow, almost a cappella intro to Cold Days From The Birdhouse bursting into its ascending three-chord maelstrom; James Graham screaming "head up dear, the rabbit might die!" as And She Would Darken The Memory approaches its incredible cacophonous crescendo. With a second album just approaching, it's tempting to feel that The Twilight Sad might be on the verge of something big here: the Futures Tent, beckoning for 2010. Watch the performance here.


(Here's a shot of Andy and James from The Twilight Sad performing an acoustic version of their new single, I Became A Prostitute, in, eh, a tent dressed up like an old fashioned kitchen, in the media bit. Expect the video to be posted to theskinny.co.uk within days.)



Bloc Party's last two albums haven't been as rewarding as their first continues to be, but they do deserve credit for making significant efforts to do interesting things with their sound. Some of the bizarre noises they sneak into their mid-afternoon Main Stage set are quite unsettling, and not what crowds standing here are usually challenged with. A new song, for example, starts with heavy 4/4 Slam Tent beats, a giddy piano riff and a low-slung grooving bassline, very odd in combination but it seems to work. Mercury continues to be divisive, with the hardcore fans near the stage lapping it up while the rest of us get distracted. But of course, no-one's attention wanders during This Modern Love and Helicopter.

"Stay calm, stay calm, stay calm" Adam Thomson sings during Roll Up Your Sleeves, but nobody's staying calm at We Were Promised Jetpacks' early evening T-Break set. Everyone is waving, singing, clapping, cheering, jumping, moshing, climbing on shoulders; the energy in this packed out tent is incredible. Then before Quiet Little Voices, he lies: "This is our only decent song"; it segues straight into an epic Ships With Holes Will Sink, and then Short Bursts keeps up the momentum as blinding lights flash at every cymbal hit. Wow.



The Pet Shop Boys' first ever T In The Park show comes across like a Kraftwerk pastiche at times: the German-language sloganeering, the tinny techno beats, the dancers wearing blocks on their heads like robots. Neil Tennant and Chris Lowe know they have no stage presence, so they entertain us with blockheaded dancers and bizarre video wall projections instead. Pet Shop Boys aren't just a singles band but few here know anything other than the big singles: it makes for long spells watching the screen between momentary eruptions for Go West and Always On My Mind, before noticeable numbers trail off for Blur.

T in the Park 2008

Sorry for the delay. I've contributed a few blurbs to a big article for The Skinny. The full article is here, excerpts and other comments are below.

Before I've seen a single band, the boss has set us up with an interview with Gareth, lead singer of Los Campesinos! I meet him in the artists backstage area, sitting on a bed while a wholly unrecognisable indie band plays pool beside us. He's good chat, actually, a warm and funny guy who goes on one particularly hilarious rant about Loose Women (the TV show, not the... looseness of women) and Jordan's son, Harvey. Not sure if it's printable, or if we'd ruin their career (he needs a PR person to sit beside him and say "we retract that statement"). Later we go and watch his band perform in the King Tuts Tent. It's a huge tent and the crowd seems pretty small (they've a lot of young fans). I've written about their album before on this blog, I think it has lots of lovely moments and You! Me! Dancing!, the build and release, is absolutely brilliant here. Shame the crowd was so small (numerically, not the... physicality).

I’m sure The Music were never this popular before. Fans are literally bounding into the King Tuts Tent to get close to the new look Robert Harvey, shaven headed and bulkier, very different from the lanky long-haired hippy of 2002. And when they find a groove The Music know how to pump it: The People is especially riotous; everyone’s going apeshit. Carling don’t do comebacks, but Tennent’s obviously do. [ab]

From where I’m standing, the Chemical Brothers seem jaded. There’s crossed arms and frowns to the left of me, dancers to the right, but they’re dancing because they think they should, not because the beats are making them. We’ve seen these visuals before too. Star Guitar and Out of Control are well received, but there’s little connection elsewhere, so I leave to catch The Verve. [ab]

There’ll always be a nostalgic appeal to The Verve for fans of a certain age: but before Bittersweet Symphony, Richard Ashcroft does his best to inflate his own ego while simultaneously belittling the entire crowd. "Does anyone here know what it's like to write a classic?" he says. “You don’t have to rub it in”, we say. [ab]

Richard Ashcroft thinks he is JESUS, by the way.

dEUS the next morning at the NME/Radio 1 Stage. The crowd was shamefully small - less than 50 I'm sure - which kinda infringed the whole event.

Will Young doesn’t need to do much to convince his flock of adoring young fans of the worth of a soppy ballad. But even for a pop star, this populism is stunningly manipulative: a highland jig, a Groundskeeper Willie accent, and a 500 Miles singalong, all to much acclaim for Lovely Will. I leave before he brings out the kilt and bagpipes. [ab]

I thought he actually might be greeted with bottles of piss, but the tent was chock-a-block with young girls screaming for Non-Threatening Will. His attempts at ingratiation were actually quite hilarious, though I don't think he meant them to be.


In the hospitality area, we were being treated to a live performance from some rubbish jam band playing on the back of a lorry. But who's that drummer? It's only former Formula 1 boss Eddie Jordan! This band, Eddie & The Robbers, were incredibly due to headline one of the tents on Sunday night, after Hot Chip asked to not go directly up against Primal Scream, REM, Prodigy and Aphex Twin. So, get a bit of money together and you can headline T In The Park then, is that the deal? Anyway, such little attention was paid to Eddie & The Robbers in the hospitality area (as you can see on the left - only photographers were interested) that their headline slot was swapped, at the last minute, for a mid-afternoon slot, giving the Brian Jonestown Massacre a chance to headline. Apparently they were shit, too.

But...

This feels epochal. It’s not that Glasvegas play better than usual or anything like that: rather, the crowd response, in a Futures Tent packed full 20 minutes before kick-off, is unprecedented. This band only have one full single, yet every word of every song is belted out at full volume by a rapturous audience in thrall to James Allan. Not only does Glasvegas’ greatest ever gig confirm their big time arrival, it also demonstrates the awesome viral power of fan-shot YouTube videos. Now this is the gig to search for. [ab]

Yeah so I wasn't really impressed with Glasvegas, but that's kinda beside the point. The crowd reaction was unbelievable - I was there with Billy Hamilton, and the two of us spent most of the gig gawking at the chaos around us. I met them afterwards too, and they were thoroughly lovely people from what I could tell. But I have gone off them, as a band, since hearing the re-recordings of their early songs which are now on their myspace. They new versions are over-produced, the epic quality of their sound used to feel spacious but now it feels flat, and some A&R bozo has obviously told James Allan to emphasise his Scottish accent. It sounds fake now; may as well be Mel Gibson. What I admired Glasvegas for was that they were both very real (they sung in their real accents, using real local slang and lyrical references), and very unreal (the detached rockstar glam even while playing in tiny venues) . That detachedness allowed them to be earnestly emotional about a cause of grief for loads of young men - absent fathers, a topic which is very much under-represented in pop music - without coming across as whiney or wet. Well, that authenticity is quickly evaporating since they've signed to a major label. They still don't sound whiney or wet, but now they sound whipped. They have the Major Label Sound and it's ruining them IMO.

Sunday, and Yeasayer (above) are fucking brilliant. That's all I can say, really. I interviewed the bass player a few months ago, wrote up a feature on them, and have still never heard the album. Wasn't expecting much, but the whole 25-minute set was such a thrill, I've completely forgotten it. But everyone agreed.


That's more than can be said for Battles (above), who split opinion between me (reasoned, calm critic) and everyone else (irrational, emotional fanboys). I used to respond to Battles chat with a reasoned, calm "wank wank wank" analysis, but now I see better. While still obviously very influenced by The Wank - very Wank-esque you might say - "wank, wank, wank" is a little harsh. Battles' technical prowess is obvious, as exemplified by their frankly awesome drummer. But too often that’s used as free reign to fanny about, to randomly slap at the keyboard or squeal an off-key guitar chord in the name of the avant-garde. If only all of their forcefully rhythmic attacks crystallised into palpable songs as well as on the bonkers Atlas, they’d be the greatest band in the world.[ab]

The T-Break tent is half-full, but every soul here is crooning “I’ll get my hole!” like it’s divine truth – even the girls are singing it - and when the chorus kicks in it’s utterly triumphant. Everyone rouses from the spell, rubs their eyes in the sunlight, and wishes they were back under. Tonight Matthew, Frightened Rabbit (below) are simply magic.[ab]


Logistical problems notwithstanding, Amy Winehouse would really suit a late slot in a big tent more than a daytime slot on the Main Stage. At times seeming bored, scared shitless by the crowd, or distracted, Amy’s untuneful warbles do her no justice today. But then, I’m nine miles from the stage, and those closer in are more interested in whether she’ll live to the end of her set than in her singing. She does. [ab]

Justice are a bit flat (or maybe I'm just knackered). But then Holy Fuck are a revelation - even to my tired soul and weary legs. I danced like a lunatic - not drunk/drugged - must've looked like a fanny. Again, like Yeasayer, I was so busy enjoying it I can't remember it much. Only that I loved it, and that it was much better than Battles. Then we got interviewed for the telly, or something, someone shoved a camera in front of us and started asking us about "Tennents' unique qualities". It's the only beer at the festival, that's why I'm drinking it. That's not the unique quality they were looking for.

When he’s not doing Firestarter or Breathe, which both go down fucking mentally, The Prodigy's Keith Flint just parades about, gurning like a lunatic. That’s it. It’s Maxim who’s the star of this show, a show which is flat for spells but rescued by the madness that accompanies the hits. Who wouldn’t freak out to Poison or Out of Space? Psychopathy has never been so appealing. [ab]


(ps. I promise never to write "x has never been so appealing" again)

T in the Park: Glasvegas have arrived

blog for the skinny


Every festival has at least one - a band that blows up just before the weekend arrives so that their stage draw is underestimated - and T in the Park 2008's was Glasvegas. We arrived at the mid-sized Futures Tent for their early evening Saturday show a full 20 minutes before it was due to start, and the stewards were already closing it off; we just managed to sneak in, while desperate others were charging and climbing fences. The atmosphere was just incredible, with thousands of fans heartily singing along to every word of every song - even though this is a band whose discography stretches to just one full single release. They started with Flowers and Football Tops, remaining impressively calm despite the bedlam going on before them - arms flailing, girls on shoulders, hugging, waving, cheering, screaming - so at times it was difficult to even make out the music. Meanwhile, hundreds were standing outside, crushing against barriers and stewards, desperate to hear or catch sight of their new heroes. It doesn't take much to get T revellers to chant "Here we fucking go!" but Go Square Go got thousands belting it out with gusto. Of course, the closer was Daddy's Gone, which already has the feel of a classic festival anthem that will be sung here for years to come; but never will it go down as well as here, tonight. This was a real landmark performance in the career of Scotland's favourite new band.

The Skinny caught up with drummer Caroline and guitarist Rab after the gig. "The best gig and the best crowd that we've ever played to", Rab beamed, still clearly overwhelmed by the experience. "I expected it to be busy but not quite like that. Our tour manager came on-stage halfway through and said to ask the crowd to calm down. People couldn't get in and then they rammed through the barriers, so they were gonna pull the gig". Caroline said "We've gone around the country and had the most amazing response everywhere we've went, and we're so thankful for that. But you cannae beat that. It was absolutely amazing". Rab also confessed that the band had decided not to headline the stage: "We said no because it's quite early still, we've only brought out one single -although we've done the limited editions - and our album's not out until September. As a band we all said it's too soon"

Rab and Caroline also spoke about the Christmas album the band hope to release at the end of this year. "It's definitely happening" Rab said, "It's all written. He [James Allan, singer] wrote it all in New York when we did the album. It's pretty fucking special to be honest. One of the songs is called Cruel Moon and I think it's the best song he's ever wrote. I get hairs on the back of my neck every time I listen to it. We were gonna put it on the album and I was gutted that we didn't, but I understand it's more suited for the Christmas album. So we're gonna go to Romania, Transylvania, and record it in a big church, live, and maybe get some other people to sing on it. The record company is really excited about it, a second album in a year!

But after that quick burst of creativity, that might be it as far as the Glasvegas story goes. "I don't know if we're going to do a second [studio] album," Rab said. "And the record company knows that. They're genuine and they're really into the music. They won't force us to do anything. So if we say we don't want to do a second, they'd be fine with that".

Vampire Weekend: Hot, then not... now what?

feature for the skinnyI'm not sure why Vampire Weekend's keyboard player is looking at me with a ruffled brow as we're introduced. Could it be because we crossed paths in Edinburgh's Bongo Club 6 months before, and he's struggling to place me 5000 miles away? Maybe he is squinting at the sun? Or perhaps it's because I'm wearing a kilt in 100 degree weather? "I'm not used to this kind of heat!" I tell him enthusiastically, and he looks at my woolly skirt and nods. Obviously. But I think what's actually causing the frown is the matter of the wide open spaces of Coachella this Friday afternoon, and his band's imminent performance on the second stage. "I heard that it gets more crowded at night, and we’re going to be playing a little bit before sundown", Rostam Batmanglij reassures himself. Music festivals just aren't ingrained in the American culture like they are here; this sun-drenched Garden of Eden only really fills for the appearance of Prince the following day, but otherwise it's quieter than T in the Carpark.

Rostam needn't have worried: we see the biggest crowd of the day when Vampire Weekend take the stage. Much of this audience is here out of intrigue, to form their own opinions on the most talked about band of the last six months. Late last year an early demo, creatively dubbed The Blue CD-R, began circulating internet blogs and gathering praise. But for every effusive word of acclaim, there was a disappointed putdown waiting to dampen the hype. By the time that debut LP dropped in January, Vampire Weekend had become hot, then not, then hot again... and now what? What enthused some people - and seriously riled others - was Vampire Weekend's daring to use Afro-pop rhythms, like Paul Simon did so well with Graceland. But Vampire Weekend were accused of being 'cultural tourists', appropriating those foreign styles without properly understanding them, and therefore being inauthentic. The underlying tone of the criticism was "How could they understand African music when they were so well-off, and so white?"

Vampire Weekend never analysed it so. "As an artist it's hard to be aware of that" Rostam says. "First and foremost we wanted to make something catchy and exciting, and something that could inspire people to move in some way. But we also wanted to try and bring different kinds of musical worlds together". But there came a point where they had to resist the primal urge to self-Google. "I think when people started to write things about us, of course we paid attention, but we’ve had to grow out of that stage. I think every artist wants to gauge how people are reacting to you, on some level, but then you want to be able to focus on the art that you do for your own sake. At some point you have to tell people that you don’t want to hear about it, whether it’s good or bad".

The comparisons to Graceland were a little clumsy, but a world famous and Grammy-winning African-based pop record is an easier place to start the mental map than a more obscure and precise equivalent. If you can hear the guitar line and rhythm of 'Diamonds on the Soles of Her Shoes' in your head now, you're in the ballpark. But I ask Rostam if he likes Graceland, and what he makes of the frequent references. "Oh yeah, I love it. I like the one after it even more [The Rhythm of the Saints]. We met Paul Simon at Saturday Night Live. When we were having dinner we talked to him for a while, and one of the things I asked him was whether he thought our album sounded like Graceland. And he said no. I don’t have any problem with people saying it sounds like Graceland, but in light of the fact that Paul Simon himself said it didn’t sound like it, what more do you want?" One of the most obvious differences is the absence of Ladysmith Black Mambazo, whose unique backing vocals aren't duplicated by Vampire Weekend. That would just be silly. "We’ve got two new songs that we’re playing today, they probably sound more African than anything on our first album. I’ve been thinking a lot about the production of the next album, what kinds of sounds and what kinds of vibes would take it to the next level". Let's hope he's not thinking of giving Ladysmith a call.

Fast-forward ten weeks, and fly 5000 miles eastward, and Vampire Weekend will be seeing men in kilts at another festival. If you want to catch a glimpse of the most talked about band of last season before the new one starts, get to T in the Park's King Tuts tent in plenty of time. Let's hope they're still frowning: it won't be worry about the size of the crowd, so it'll have to be the flare of the sun.

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I'm away at T in the Park at the moment: updates, reviews and interviews to come.

T in the Park: and a chat with Los Campesinos!

It's Friday evening and The Skinny is at T in the Park, along with 70,000 or so Scottish music fans. The bars are just opening, but there's a mile-long queue outside of late arrivals still hoping to set up camp. They'll have to hurry because the bands are about to start. On tonight's half-length line-up we're looking forward to reformed headliners The Verve, and veteran headliners The Chemical Brothers; but that's a direct clash, so it'll be a tough choice. Elsewhere there's the Stereophonics and the Wombats, the second coming of The Music, local hero KT Tunstall, and festival favourites Feeder. The Kaiser Chiefs' Ricky Wilson has been hanging around, and we just spotted a steamin' Eddie Jordan stoating about in hospitality.

The site's been mostly dry all day so far, but the rain has just come on and The Skinny blames Rain Wizard Gareth, Los Campesinos! lead singer, who we've just been talking to. "The rain is a good thing to us because we're playing in a tent. I think we probably share a similar fan base to The Wombats," he cackled, "but if it rains, we have shelter on our side": and with that, Gareth clapped his hands and unleashed hell. Well, a small downpour. Luckily, the Welsh indie-popsters are only here for tonight, so we should be able to avoid a mudbath. They have three other festivals to attend this weekend, but that means gutted Gareth won't be around to see Will Young here on Saturday. "I would genuinely like to see Will Young," he said. "I think he's a brilliant pop artist, and he seems such a charming, genuine guy. I think it's brave of him to play here, a lot of people won't like him. It's nice when people put pop bands on rather than the same guitar bands. Festivals are so much fun, we play 30 minute sets of our fastest, most upbeat songs, we can exhaust ourselves, we don't have long tedious soundchecks, we just do it and then get off and watch other bands, and there's lots of free beer!" But for Gareth, the main clash tonight isn't between Richard Ashcroft's return and the Ed & Tom Big Beat spectacular, but between The Futureheads and Blood Red Shoes. "We're going to see Blood Red Shoes, they're our mates, but Futureheads are on at the same time. I've not listened to their new record but their first was a big favourite of ours at Uni. Neil's got a really funny photograph on his computer of when we met the Futureheads when we were about 18, and we've both got ludicrous hair and we just look so much younger. We want to show them that and say - look how we've grown!" We've no doubt the Futureheads would be delighted to get a copy of that photograph themselves. "Look, that was us meeting Los Campesinos!" they'd say, "well before they were big!"

We also managed to get a Los Campesinos! update, of sorts. "There is a lot of news coming soon, but I'm not at liberty to mention it now," Gareth said. Any clues? "It's a tour and a release before the end of the year" he added. So you mean a UK tour and an EP release? "I can't possibly say!" But you're winking aren't you? "I was squinting!" That's enough for us.

The Skinny will be reporting from T in the Park all weekend, so keep your eyes on the blog for more updates!