Italian horror movie soundtracks, Malian desert
blues and arguably the best songbook in pop music history, this year’s Lunar
festival had something for everyone under the sun...or moon for that
matter...even Smurfs Speaking of celestial bodies, given
that just 48 hours before this year’s Lunar began we were in the grip of the
kind of weather you’d normally expect in November the sudden appearance of the
sun was the kind of miracle that would normally get people erecting shrines and
speaking in tongues. Who knows maybe day one’s headliners Tinariwen brought it
with them? Friday afternoon offered a lot more than just an instant suntan
though with self professed “grumpy rock ‘n’ roll band from the West Midlands” Hoopla
Blue’s Wild Beasts go surf rock sonics (check out the fabulous Holy Ghost), The
Drink serving up a cocktail of hi-life, indie pop, post punk and psych folk and
Welsh wonders Zervas & Pepper’s blissful rebooting of 60s good time vibes
courtesy of the gorgeous We Are One. Kudos to them for doing a Drake number too
(Lunar Festival is, in part, a homage to Nick) delicately embellishing Pink
Moon with their own hip hippy stylings.
Allah-Las kept the summertime 60s spirit going,
recalling Love at their slightly tripped out best, all of which made the next
band something of a shock.
Trading under the unwieldy name of Claudio
Simonetti’s Goblin (apparently there are various version of the original Goblin
band operating right now) they’re responsible for some of horror’s greatest hits
as the go to guys for George Romero (they scored 1978’s zombie masterpiece Dawn
of the Dead) and the influential Italian director Dario Argento. It may have
been a warm and sunny evening but playing against a backdrop of clips from the
films genuinely sent spines tingling all over the place. Fusing prog rock,
early synth sounds and...well...the very spirit of Beelzebub himself, this four
piece were, for many, the hit / discovery of the festival (okay, so they’ve
been around for 40 years but come on, horror movie soundtracks are a little
niche eh?).
Also nudging close to their 40th
anniversary is The Fall, although like Claudio Simonetti’s Goblin only one
original member remains and Mark E. Smith is more ‘original’ than most. If
you’ve seen Smith before you’ll know what to expect. Looking like someone’s
drunk and pasty faced uncle at a wedding he wanders around the stage shouting
lyrics that perhaps only he understands into a couple of mics. Sounds crap
right? Somehow though, inexplicably perhaps, it just works. Maybe it’s the fact
that Smith surrounds himself with great musicians (he’s notorious for sacking
entire line-ups if they fail to make the grade...or just piss him off for some
reason) and the current incarnation of The Fall is no exception with classic
track Theme From Sparta FC given a particularly lively reboot this evening.
It was left to Tinariwen to soothe frazzled hearts
and minds as the temperature dipped perilously close to the kind of chilly
Saharan nights that helped birth the band back in the 70s. It’s blues, but not
as we know it, the familiar licks given an interpretation that’s both as fresh
as the breeze and perhaps as old as mankind’s earliest forays into music.
Shut
your eyes and you could have been deep in the heart of the desert and, as the
traditional Lunar Festival campfire got going, it really was a pretty magical
end to day one (for those with the stamina and the moves there were club nights
on all three days too which went on until the wee small hours...brave souls).
Day two and Plank said it loud, they’re Kraut(rock) and
proud, kicking things off with some marvellous moments of majestic motorik
magic. Try saying that after a pint or two of Addlestones Cider. Kudos to
Plank’s drummer for putting in 110% too, the dude barely stopped for breath. Compère
for the day, Mark Radcliffe, made his first appearance to introduce Jane
Weaver, lamenting the lack of beautiful young ladies into space rock when he
were a lad. Whether Ms Weaver would have fallen for his charms in the 70s (or right
now for that matter) we’ll never know. What’s certain though is that Weaver’s
shimmering otherworldly synth pop went down well with the crowd, especially the
falsetto vocal on Don’t Take My Soul.
Strangely seductive and a little creepy
at the same time. Hmmm...maybe she should hook up with Goblin? Next up Syd
Arthur fused jazz with prog and folk adding some impressive changes in pace and
some truly fret melting guitar solos into the mix before Mark Radcliffe and his
band Galleon Blast packed out the Bimble Inn (an impressively eco friendly
structure) stage.
Part stand up routine, part sea shanty overdose (their last
album was called Band On The Rum...ahem) they did provide one of the anthems of
the festival (and any festival for that matter) courtesy of Bloody Well Drunk,
so we’ll forgive them the jokes and pirate puns.
From the ridiculous (in the best sense of the word
of course) to the sublime and My Brightest Diamond, aka New York’s finest Shara
Worden who’s been talked about in the same reverential tones as Sufjan Stevens
(whom she’s collaborated with) and St Vincent, which is about as cool as you can
get right now.
Pressure, a standout
track from an equally compelling set, mashed in yer face military style
drumming with ethereal vocals and a climatic chorus that Bassey herself would
Shirley approve of. Possessing a
stunning vocal range, from Nico-ish depths to angelic highs, and the ability to
play a mean axe (plus keyboards and, no doubt, anything else she puts her mind
to) she was arguably one of the weekend’s more interesting propositions. Bush (Kate
that is...not the 90s rockers) and Bjork fans should be all over her.
After a potential star of the future to a band that
should arguably have been much bigger back in the day, The Pretty Things. Now
rightly hailed as one of the originators of the concept album, courtesy of S.F.
Sorrow, they had their roots in the same fertile environment that birthed The
Rolling Stones, in fact Pretty Thing Dick Taylor was even in an early line up
being replaced by Bill Wyman after he decided to pack it in and go to art
school instead. Oops. Meeting up with singer Phil May he formed The Pretty
Things in 1963 and a mere 52 years later voila, here they are at Lunar
Festival.
The set’s a whirlwind tour through the band’s history from the
distinctly Stones-ish Honey I Need through to one of the greatest slices of
psych rock ever via 1965’s Alexander (which bizarrely was used in a long
forgotten Norman Wisdom film, What’s Good For The Goose). It still sounds great
half a century on as does the aforementioned S.F. Sorrow Was Born and it’s no
surprise to learn that is was being recorded at Abbey Road at the same time as
The Beatles were laying down Sergeant Pepper. The set reached its peak with a
couple of impressive solos from Taylor and Jack Greenwood on guitar and drums
respectively during Mona, the latter an outrageous affair that seemed to go on
as long as some band’s entire slots justifiably drawing some huge whoops of
appreciation from the crowd. Pretty impressive all round.
Next up a guitarist whose recent return to good
health has been Lazarus like. By rights Wilko Johnson should have been pushing up
the daisies by now but here he is, machine gunning his way across the stage,
eyes popping out of his head and playing the punk inspiring R‘n’B that made his
name with the legendary Dr Feelgood.
Backed by ace of bass Norman Watt-Roy and
drummer Dylan Howe he blazed through Down By The Jetty, She Does It Right and
Bye Bye Johnny like a man reborn, even playing guitar behind his head on the
last tune for good measure.
That just left Public Service Broadcasting to close
down proceedings on the main stage. Splicing clips from old movies,
documentaries and public service information films with art rock soundscapes PSB’s
aim is to “teach the lessons of the past through the music of the future”.
Nothing too ambitious there then eh? With a couple of albums behind them now there
are plenty of tracks that seen to do just that, from the bombastic Kraut rock
(or maybe that should be Tommy rock?!) of Spitfire through to the dance funk of
Gargarin and the more transcendent Everest (by this stage in the evening it was
suitably chilly too). The sampled voice ‘improvisations’ may be pre planned but
they’re still fun with every Lunar Festival shout out getting a cheer and a
‘mistaken’ mention of London getting a pantomime boo.
Day three and as the campers gently defrosted in the
blazing sun with some Ska Aerobics and Morris Dancing to shake off any
lingering hangovers Whispering Knights came across as Radiohead goes folk on
the fine Rolled On By paving the way for one of the Midlands best bands right
now, Midnight Bonfires. There’s something about their mix of influences that
really works with a little light tropicalia, some indie rock and a lead singer
who makes Canned Heat’s Alan Wilson (the dude who sang On The Road Again) sound
like a baritone. If you can find a better Sunday summer afternoon tune than Lights
Out I’d like to hear it.
Right, guest reviewer time for a band that was
drafted in at the last minute to fill the slot vacated by the poorly Zun Zun
Egui, Föllakzoid. Over to the lovely Mr John Kennedy: “Chilean chilled,
brain-washers on a mission, Föllakazoid, wear their retro Space/Psych-Rock
drone warrior badges with pride (think - alien spermatozoa off-springs suckled
on the rocket-fuel teat-nozzles of Hawkwind, Wooden Shjips et al). Their
beat-looped grooves filled the sun-soaked main arena with gushings of Acid
balmed abandon. Hypnotic atonal guitar chocka-chocka riffs and solar wind
moody-Moog whispers were default setting for a highly regarded and much praised
set. With controls locked on firmly for the heart of the Sun they closed with a
frothily freak-out extemporised take on the Paranoid riff. All hail then, New
World usurpers, Föllakzoid, battery-acid ear wash master blasters of the
New World disorder.” I literally couldn’t have put it better myself…
Are the members of Radiophonic Workshop Daft Punk’s
granddads? Discuss. On top of winning the award for most bits of kit on stage
at any one time they seem to have invented that cool electro funk sound a full
30 years beforehand, doing it all with nothing more complex than a reel to reel
tape machine, a metal coat hanger and some sticky backed plastic. Incredible. This afternoon Wireless in particular hit an
incredibly funky note, if a ‘new’ band came out with that you’d have the
hipsters wetting themselves. Of course what everyone wanted to hear though was
THAT theme tune. The music from Dr Who still seems futuristic, even if it
clearly requires more keyboards than a call centre to play live, and surely every
grown man in his 40s instantly regressed to a small boy as that distinctive
“woooh woooh” sound rang out. Extermi-great.
Keeping the synth flag flying Sylvan Esso’s jazzy
electropop was an unexpected treat with lead singer Amelia Meath busting some
particularly impressive contemporary dance moves. Check out set highlight and
recent single H.S.K.T for one of the most addictive tracks around right now.
Like The Fall on Friday you either love or loathe
Julian Cope and his between song ramblings clearly did little to convince the
non believers. “I spend most of the time in a mystical state…” he mused early
on in a set that still managed to contain some genuine leftfield pop gems in
Double Vegetation, The Greatest And Perfection Of Love and the Syd Barrett-ish
Sunspots.
You got the feeling that he would have happily stayed up there all
night chatting away if they’d have let him.
After a quick blast of Robyn Hitchcock, unbelievably
relegated to the Bimble Inn rather than the main stage, and his gently moving cover of
Drake’s Riverman and his own typically oddball My Wife and My Dead Wife there was just
time for some much needed nosh (some pretty decent grub on offer too) before
Sun Ra Arkestra beamed down from whichever planet they live on. Sun Ra himself
may have departed for another galaxy but the band’s in safe hands under
saxophonist Marshall Allen’s leadership. For an hour or so the Arkestra freaked
out the wildlife with some of the finest skronk jazz this side of Mars. At
times it may sound like half a dozen instruments having a scrap in a back alley
but I guess that’s kind of the point. This is music that challenges almost as much as it
entertains and as Sun Ra himself put a match to conventions back in the 50s it
was only right that Allen should lead the procession across the site, carrying
the torch…both metaphorically and literally…to light the traditional Lunar
festival effigy.
As the embers burned down to the ground The Bootleg
Beatles pitched up. Okay, so they’re a tribute act which might send the musos
running for the hills but when it’s all done this well AND you’ve got arguably
the best catalogue of songs ever written by a single band, who the hell cares? To
be fair most of the crowd got the point, singing their hearts out from
Daytripper right through to the band’s later period classics that made up the
bulk of the set. Taxman, Lucy In The Sky, I Am The Walrus, Come Together, Get
Back, Let It Be…there was even time for a sublime While My Guitar Gently Weeps
from George and a sweet With A Little Help From My Friends from Ringo.
Shut
your eyes or squint a bit and it could almost be the real thing up there, the current
Lennon’s particularly good, not just vocally but with the odd witty aside too
keeping the original spirit of the man alive. It was left up to Paul to close
the show though and could there be a much better climax to the festival than a
sing-along Hey Jude? Nah nah nah nah nah nah nah…
All photos courtesy and copyright of the lovely Richard Shakespeare aka Shakeypix.
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