Saturday at Summer Sundae 10

Today is potentially quite a folky day, which I’m all for, so I make sure I catch Laura Veirs on the Indoor stage. Laura is touring with her and Tucker’s first child, Tennessee, and has her parents in tow in the audience – ‘it’s a real family affair up here’. She’s here with her backing band, the Hall of Flames, as they take their latest album ‘July Flame’ on the road. As well as the title track from that record we get a great cross section of Laura’s previous work including a beautiful, haunting rendition of ‘Make Something Good’. The sound mix doesn’t seem entirely right today, but no matter – the darkness and complexity of the arrangements shines through regardless, and comes together brilliantly for a genuinely enjoyable set.

I decide to stick with the indoor stage because left-field electro folkies Tunng are up next, and I reckon the atmosphere here will be perfect for them. Sure enough they explode onto the stage in a blaze of bizarre percussion and rhythmical complexity, and grab the crowd’s attention with their infectious and relentless bounciness. Frontman Mike windmills around like a madman, donning funkadelic sparkly shades for his rockstar guitar moment, and the rest of the set flies by like a musical montage of genius and lunacy. Nothing about Tunng can be taken for granted, and that’s the beauty of them - we were kept on our toes and grinning ear to ear from the footloose and fancy free vibe of ‘Hustle’ through the introspective ‘With Whisky’ and the extremely dark and fractured ‘Tale from Black’ until an extremely perky take on the show closer ‘Bullets’ brings us all back to earth with a happy thump. Go and see them before the summer’s out.

Next up are Caribou, who were absolutely mindblowing, so much so that they get a separate writeup over here. If you take a chance on just one unknown live show this year, make it theirs.

I briefly wander outside to check out The Go! Team and for a moment I could swear I’m hearing Whale, who were around for a couple of singles in the mid 90s. There seems to be lots of energy on stage but very little of substance coming out, and not a lot to connect with. The crowd seem to like it though, so I leave them to get on with it. I need to wander back indoors to check out The Fall.

Fortunately I get there and secure a place on the barrier early, as a few minutes later the balcony is crammed and the hall is operating a one-in-one-out policy. Now, I never particularly liked the Fall but they are a hugely influential band so I decided I needed to see them live for myself in case some new understanding fell into place. Sadly it didn’t, and I managed three songs and a few photos before I had to leave. I could only sum them up as a decent band who are only allowed to play two songs, and are badly in need of a singer. I know that’ll incense Fall fans the world over, but that’s the way I see it. The only comedy value came from watching Mark E. Smith fiddling with the EQ on the bass player’s amp, seemingly for no reason other than to show him who’s boss, only to have the bassist set it back again when he wasn’t watching. Legends they may be, but just not for me.

On the way out I pause to grab a few shots of Tinchy Stryder for the record, but his set really isn’t for me - the massed audience of chanting teenagers at the front of the stage are a testament to that. He’s playing the crowd well but beyond ten or so rows back the response is far more subdued - the feeling seemed to be that while putting a hip-hop artist top of the bill might have just about worked at Glastonbury, it’s far from a recipe for success. I’m just not convinced Tinchy has enough tricks up his sleeve to command a festival headline slot, so call it a night and prepare for the final day.