Offset Festival, Hainault Park

Offset Festival

Here is what I learnt on my venture to Hainault for the totally marvellous Offset Festival 2010, in the form of a top-ten-and-a-bonus point review:

(1) Please are exciting – rhythms clash, the three of them fling themselves all over the place even. They shred their guitars and I feel altogether quite nervous for their poor hands but selfishly, I’m most excited. There’s a most fascinating build-up on ‘Sutton Hoodoo’ which sounds a little like a snake charmer’s music-of-enticement, and even more marvellously a whole bag of lethargic, grungier cross-rhythms going on against the drama. I’m not too sure about the vocals – which veer towards dispassionately distant – but I’ll be checking in on this band regularly from now on in. Yes, that’s right Please, I’ve got your MySpace – even if you’re Google-shy.

(2) The Receeders, a.k.a. Kate Nash’s riot grrl side project, exist! And they play to a half-full tent in the early afternoon on Saturday. They pull off a great Stars In Your Eyes take on Sleater-Kinney, but there’s little more pleasure to be found other than “oh it’s popstar Kate Nash and she wasn’t lying about the whole Bikini Kill obsession then,” motif. Everything is as high as high-pitched can get, and as frantic as a super-excited schoolgirl can get in her first band, but it feels – in spite of my instinct – like nothing’s giving. See, I really want to like Kate Nash; in fact, I want to love her.  But there’s something so inaccessible and cold about her, something about this combination of things-she’s-done-which-oughta-scream-“FUN!!!”, something too planned. Ne’er mind, here is a photo (all Saturday photos by Laura Scott):

The Receeders’ Kate Nash

(3) Boozes are tempting in the sunshine, too tempting. Saturday evenings often fly by, hours simply jumping betwixt one and t’other and embarassing monologues fusing delicately into the next. WHOOPS. Here’s the rest of Saturday:

Male Bonding! Great.

Trash Talk

The similarly marvellous Someone Else from Some Band

(5) Hangovers suck.

(6) Monotonix rule – I wouldn’t want to see them again in a hurry though, partially for fear of their physical health. Here’s what happened (photos by me, from here on in):

Monotonix

Monotonix!

Still Monotonix

I’m not sure how the Israeli garage punks’ main dude Avi Shalev is still alive, let alone with limbs in tact, for Monotonix’s live show is preposterous and my Mum would be afeared. The band set up on the grass in front of the main stage, start playing, and before too long there are drums in the air and Shalev is crawling through the crowd wearing just his pants. The entire set up makes its way from the front of the area all the way to the sound-desk, Shalev dances at a few unsuspsecting folk, tries to snog about 16 people, and then his pants are briefly pulled down by a flailing arm. There’s one point where he disappears for a little while before reappearing atop the crowd’s heads in a bin (again, whaaaat? no it’s true – it happened), and everyone around me is happier than I’ve ever seen a collective of people be, ever, universally. The spectacle ends with an address to the crowd on Paul Weller’s futility and whether we’d rather save or shave the Queen. It’s dumb fun, and all credit to Offset for putting them on outside and so early.

(7) The hardcore tent! Pariso are the funnest, calling on their audience to “fucking mosh”, and the fun is there. And there’s a ruddy slide just opposite, and a stall selling vinyl. And a vintage clothes store! And an amazing selection of eateries. I MISS OFFSET ALREADY.

(8) I still don’t get anything from watching These New Puritans, and I’m busting a gut to find out why. There’s something about watching Jack Barnett that I find deeply unenjoyable and paining, which runs consistent with the praise bestowed upon Hidden, but it seems here that TNPS cower, small and rigid rather than explode. Sure, the foreign sounds of the added brass-woodwind five-piece ensemble will sound awkward in some form, but the apathetic sound coming from the main stage on Offset’s Sunday is uncompelling rather than deathly. The knell of ‘Swords of Truth’ doesn’t come close to being rung.

(9) Esben and the Witch hit the other extreme, completely startling me and drawing every second of me into their beach of terror. The sounds they make on ‘Marching Song’, the aquatic beats, the hammered toms on ‘Lucia, At The Precipice’ (about James Joyce’s daughter), the devastating and fascinating persona and vocals of Rachel Davies, head encased in a hood – I’m utterly entranced. Sounds fill the space, swirling before hitting the release spot. And there’s nothing jagged about the gargantuan sonic journeys of Esben and the Witch’s music either – it’s an astoundingly honed and visual body body of sound, with drama on a knife’s edge.

(10) Anna Calvi. The guitar sounds feel lifted from a Twin Peaks soundtrack, while the techniques recall a stern matador prancing around a bull-ring. Her voice is similarly no-qualms, and a member of her band employs a Wurlitzer among other treats.  The siren sounds she makes on ‘Blackout’, they resonate for days – and I’m sure they’re going to figure in the rest of this year’s nightmares. Calvi is an astounding guitarist and a blinding singer, and the songs show this, upright and bold – timbres clash but they come together into a show, an extremely special performance. And it seems she’s had just nine plays on Last.fm in the past seven days, kids, so if you want to quote yourself in a year’s time then you’d better take heed NOW.

The Moral: Offset Festival is THE festival to go to – if you’re going to choose just one, make it Offset. For laughs, a lack of stupid curfews/sound limits, massive fun, a beautiful location (and trains/nightbuses back home, Londoners!), expert billing and a general sense of effort and careful planning.

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