Connect festival: Mud does not douse the joy of *slideshow*

Published on Monday 1 September 2008 20:16

FESTIVALS are, by and large, poor showcases for most bands: songs crafted in dank, gloomy rehearsal rooms then honed in intimate indoor venues can be found wanting when dragged blinking into broad daylight.

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With Connect, the effect is doubled, given the gorgeous setting, especially as most bands like to believe that they are sophisticated, angst-ridden urbanites or night-crawling lounge lizards.

Such was the fate for Late of the Pier, who had the good grace to admit that they had only one song that translated to the bucolic backdrop of Inveraray Castle. No doubt their pneumatic, sound-effect-laden glam-synth pop sounds much more effective in the right environment, but here it had little effect.

By contrast, Friendly Fires managed to work their indie funk sound to spectacular effect. This may have been in part due to singer Ed Macfarlane's stage persona, which could be best described as Mick Jagger channelling the spirit of Ian Curtis, but more than anything it was their crafty welding of Chicago house beats to some effective tunes.

The absence of Joan as Policewoman on the main stage due to a cancelled flight may have left the small contingent of goths present less than happy – which I'm sure inwardly delighted them – but it meant a happy discovery in the form of Conor Oberst and the Mystic Valley Band.

In his usual incarnation as Bright Eyes, Oberst falls neatly into the sensitive singer-songwriter writer niche of the likes of Ryan Adams and Elliot Smith. For his new direction, from the sound of this set, he has mid-period Dylan as his compass, rocking an alt-country sound with lashings of Wurlitzer keyboards and thrashy acoustic guitars, which suited the mid-afternoon slot perfectly – he left with more friends than he arrived with.

As the day wore on the crowds started to thicken (some bands had to play to almost empty fields, which can't have been good for morale) and we got the first of the "Big Names" in the form of Spiritualized.

Unfortunately for head honcho Jason Pierce, a curtain of drizzle descended on the site just as he wandered on, and stayed in place for almost the precise duration of his set.

As it was, Pierce's brand of gospel junkie blues for the most part failed to transcend the weather. Kicking off with a five-minute barrage of feedback, the singer-guitarist, decked out in goggles that would have made Elvis jealous, plonked himself at one side of the stage and spent the next hour facing his guitarist. The impression was that we may as well not have been there for all he cared.

It did pick up towards the end, a rockabilly version of Walking With Jesus, the "big song" of Pierce's old group, Spacemen 3, giving them a momentum that continued into Come Together and I Think I'm In Love, to end as they started, with a climax of sound. Despite all that, the word that came to mind was "underwhelming".

Fulfilling everybody's expectations, though, indie veterans Gomez captivated the crowd with their one-off, song-by-song performance of Bring It On to mark the album's tenth anniversary. It's perhaps easy to forget how great they were as a band and how great that album was. Basically an hour-long singalong of the highest order.

The success of Gossip still remains mystifying. Certainly Standing In the Way of Control is a killer tune, but having one great song does not make you a headline act. But there they were, closing the Guitars stage with their own brand of bland.

Of course, it comes down to singer Beth Ditto's personality and megaphone delivery but, beyond the one hit, there was little else. Sure, they had people dancing and it would be difficult to argue that they didn't receive a good reception – this was a festival crowd not too difficult to please – but there was a complete lack of decent tunes. Stick somebody less compelling in Ditto's place and there wouldn't be much left.

The same could not be said of Grinderman, however. Appearing third on the bill, Nick Cave's side project effectively destroyed any arguments about which was the band of the day.

Dressed like the heads of a South American drugs cartel, Cave & co gave no quarter, running through the whole of their eponymous album with an infectious brio and grit.

Obviously enjoying himself, Cave throttled microphones, guitars and keyboards with wild abandon, urging the audience between songs to commit "loving acts" on those around them.

Dealing a killer blow with an ear-scouring Love Bomb, you had to pity Paolo Nutini and Bloc Party, who had an uphill battle to make any noticeable impact after that.

SUNDAY

THE first really persistent rain of this second Connect festival arrived overnight and was still liquefying the site by the start of play on Sunday.

For the second year running, the thoughtful efforts of the organisers to make Connect a more varied, relaxed and luxurious experience for festival-goers were lost in the mud. There was mud in the bijou Speakeasy Tent, with its comfy couches and programme of spoken word and laid-back sounds; mud in the Whisky Bar, dressed to look like a cosy Highland watering hole; and mud all over the two punters who very politely asked an official if they were allowed to create a mud slide on the slopes of the main arena.

Covered bars became rain shelters rather than gathering points, though nothing could detract from the pleasures of the gourmet food marquee, which again did a roaring trade in fine local produce. Once ensconced here, there was little incentive to wade to the extremities of the site, meaning a pitiful take-up at the Guitars & Other Machines Stage in the early part of the day.

Santogold, on the main stage, was the first act worth breaking shelter for. Her debut album has been one of the pop delights of the year, but she is still honing her live act. Her expressionless, robotic dancers/backing singers, modelled on Public Enemy's stony-faced Security of the First World personnel, are a neat touch but, even backed by a band turned out in matching utilitarian shirts and bow-ties, her fleeting set often had the air of a club PA rather than a live gig.

There was local loveliness from Camera Obscura, who managed to muster a respectable crowd over at the second stage. Their blatant but pleasant musical throwback to 1980s jangly pop would have been cheering with even the slightest break in the clouds but the sunshine stayed away, both musically and literally.

Goldfrapp are an act whose set would also have benefited from some of the rays which dappled the sleeve of their current album Seventh Tree. This is beautiful pastoral music, dressed up for the stage show as a seductive pagan circus.

Bravely, the band trooped on in crisp whites, with magnetic frontwoman Alison Goldfrapp leading the charge in a salmon pink clown's smock and warming up the crowd on the hypnotic irresistible dirty electro pop hits Ooh La La and Strict Machine.

The Coral, by contrast, simply showed up and played quirky hit after quirky hit with zero fanfare. Their set was billed as acoustic, but there was no stinting on the tunes.

Back on the main stage Sigur Rs created a fraction of The Coral's musicality with three times the personnel. Their string quartets and bowler-hatted brass section provided some visual stimuli but, with the exception of one playful, tub-thumping workout, they drifted off into a self-regarding reverie.

Headliners Franz Ferdinand are the band who keep on giving. Their reliable party tunes have not lost their lustre or ability to galvanise a crowd and the new material from their delayed third album sounded as bold as previous offerings.

However, for a band who are fond of their bells and whistles, this was a fairly perfunctory set, lacking their usual sense of occasion. It has been a long and sometimes thankless festival season, so maybe everyone is just tired and in need of recuperation.