Leeds Festival, Bramham Park
Weezer's Rivers Cuomo, from near the front of main stage: atop a sign, below a screen
August 28-29, 2010
Leeds Festival is a sheer delight. The crowd isn’t necessarily dead excited for one band in particular, more enthralled by the sheer amount of things at its disposal.
(The following review ignores the Friday because, unfortunately, I wasn’t there. Sadface-”boo” me.)
Saturday’s main-stage bill is killing me (not good ‘kill’) with its entire line-up of ‘dumb’ schtick, skate-punk, nu-metal and rap metal FUSION (perish that thought) from the super-late ’90s/early ’00s, bravado, and jokes about wanking and Mexicans. An attempt to make myself more informed will inevitably be met with criticism that Reading/Leeds’s selection of bands within said header is A Good One, but I can’t tell my Limp Bizkits from my Good Charlottes. I last just 10 minutes through the way of Blink-182’s headline set, because I don’t understand what it feels like to jump around as instinct – even though I realise how prematurely aged that makes me sound. Are brains less instinctive to use? Were they even more unfashionable back then, when this was big?
I was rathermore into Darren Hayes, Artful Dodger and my Pure Garage I compilation at the time you see, so I can’t remember. And I therefore have a total lack of nostalgia for the Saturday bill. “But it’s Weezer,” I hear you cry. “But it’s a melody, just like Darren Hayes’s,” says your mate. You’re both right; Weezer are great fun live, and I forget my preoccupation just like a good girl oughta. Frontman Rivers Cuomo climbs on everything, crashing and falling like the class joker… and a complete and utter buffoon.
I’d probably be more “but it’s Weezer” myself if I held Pinkerton on the pedestal most music-loving people seem to, but without that it’s little more than a half-fun/half hideously valueless “sure you’re still having a mid-life crisis dude, but where’s your self-respect?”-type situation. “And where’s yours, you Savage Garden loving dimwit?” I hear you cry; I’m not sure, truth be told, but can conclude that I need more – and needed more, at 15 – than fulfilment in a 10-second space.
Back in my comfort zone, it’s immense to see Magnetic Man getting all amazing as the sun sets, and the audience’s reflexes at their danciest. And it’s more than the 10 seconds that the music reverberates for, as the beats are met with a veritable quake by the entire packed tent. I’m excited by just how simultaneously The People head-bop, raise arms, and “lose it” to the familiar doof/lurching-doof rhythms. Bass drums pound, settle and infiltrate with such force that I ponder whether Skream, Benga and Artwork possess Godly powers. And that’s excitement, m’lord.
Summer Camp put on another of the weekend’s great shows, with Jeremy Warmsley and Elizabeth Sankey – now without the band – as shiny and adorable as they are on their records. ‘Veronica Sawyer’ is just beautiful, and not-on-record ‘1989’ particularly shines through; the romance and twinkles of their sound are presented with a stride that’s getting more charming each time I see them play. The choruses are so crashing that they could – and should – be loved by hundreds of thousands.
And now for the gratuitous MAN-rock vs. LADY-pop angle of the piece, wherein I can carefully disguise the gap between the music I was brought up on, with – the bill. Queens Of The Stone Age‘d be a force akin to the power trio of Magnetic Man if Josh Homme’s eyes weren’t busy rolling back and forth during their most manly of manly numbers, ‘No One Knows’. Marina and the Diamonds gives me more in the way of danger… if danger is thought of more as steadfastly-stuck-to tautologies.
Ms. Diamandis a superstar regardless of who she’s terrorising, and ‘Shampain’ is her gold-card. Her machine-like demeanour isn’t new, but to see it hit the sycophantic crowd exactly where it hurts is super-special. Her preposterously self-obsessed songs come to life through an icy, impenetratable wall that I’m happy to sit behind. Marina wears the pop star outfit, does the pop star poses and really gets the fame game.
The pleasures continue with Yeasayer, save a mid-set lull because it’s just too darn much to be that damn obvious for so flipping long. Blood Red Shoes have a ruddy great time later on, and I do too. Everything Everything are all I could wish for at their secret-ish set to an enthusiastic crowd late on Sunday, but I’ll spare you that and direct you to the 1,800-word spectacular that is my words on Man Alive, instead. Hell, I’ve been writing for a long time now.
Thanks Leeds, it’s been fun. And a special thanks to Gaymers for hosting us, and Avis for the means to drive up at the last-minute.
No related posts.
