
East 17
25 June, 2009
Knowing that I’m never going to be arriving in time for Maxïmo Park opening the festival, I start off at The Queen’s Head for Alessi’s Ark. When I dragged friends to her show at the Camden Crawl, they swiftly complained of “more bloody folk music” and disappeared off to eat a burger, leaving me apologising for the noise they had made. This time however they are sticking around longer than a minute and her short set is winning over a couple of people who were waiting in line for cheeseburgers that day. They’re impressed with the unexpected power of her full band on tracks like ‘Glendora’, and as much as I love the gentler moments like The Horse I agree with them.
Having already been there once only to be told they’d be on at half ten instead, we head up to the Dance Lounge for East 17. Even without Tony Mortimer, they are decidedly poor. They had people wanting to hear their biggest hits and like any band would they left ‘Stay Another Day’, ‘Alright’ and ‘If You Ever’ (I’d forgotten that this song isn’t all that bad) to the end. They’ve had a dozen top 10s to choose from yet they still plumped for songs so obscure that even those equipped with banners shrugged. Bizarre call-and-response and wisdom on the BNP gives the whole thing an air of a student’s union gig, frankly. The only really memorable thing about the set is that the story about Michael Jackson’s death birthed itself as an SMS and Twitter rumour, and by the time we get halfway back to our tents, it’s been confirmed. … Continue Reading
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