Electric Gardens Festival 2007

Here's my guilty secret. Despite maintaining a love of music that teeters eternally on the border of passion with obsession, I've only ever been to one music festival: the Fleadh at Finsbury Park in 1996. This year I was determined to do a little catching up. I had my sights set on any or all of Glastonbury, Latitude, Wye Fayre, Electric Gardens and Bestival, but eventually a combination of social life and financial circumstances meant that only Electric Gardens was realistic. The festival took place this weekend and I had a fantastic time, ridding myself of my camping virginity and seeing some amazing performances.

Saturday's highlights for me were Ciara Haidar, Stuart James, Newton Faulkner, Scroobius Pip and Lupen Crook. I only caught the end of Ciara Haidar's set, which was a great shame because I thought she was fantastic. Seated behind her keyboard, she span piano-driven, burlesque tales of inner city life and love. You have to respect someone who can write a lyric as mundane and magnificent as "How, oh how, do you make me blue when your shoes have got more point than you?" In other hands her material might have sounded a little arch and mannered, but her delivery was energetic and warm.

Stuart James was a worried-looking acoustic rapper, from whom words poured in a seemingly unstoppable and initially bewildering torrent. The stuff on his MySpace page really doesn't convey just how fast this guy can go. It took me a few minutes to tune in, but when the bloke next to me moaned "This is shit" I found myself disagreeing wholeheartedly. It was a bit like watching Gabriel Byrne channelling Plan B, maybe. "You can clean my body but you can't clean my soul," he declared, in a way that suggested that the performance itself was a purging exercise. More please.

The dreadlocked Newton Faulkner is getting a lot of press and airplay in the UK at the moment. I heard him being interviewed on Radio 1 while we were driving around Dorset last week. The current single Dream Catch Me had sounded a little bit MOR on the radio and comparisons to Jack Johnson had put me off, but as a live performer he's absolutely superb. He has a natural stage presence, banters amiably with the crowd, plays acoustic jungle and covers Massive Attack's Teardrop. Most importantly, when he sings his soul soars as high as his voice. I liked him a lot, though subsequently listening to his album I think the production job sounds a little too safe.

The equally but differently hirsute Scroobius Pip was a visible presence in many of the audiences throughout the day and eventually appeared for his own performance on the MySpace stage at the start of the evening, accompanied by The Six Foot Two Inch Pianist. The man is a star. His amiable, intelligent and thoughtful raps drew a large crowd and he was a joy to watch. Nor was he afraid to defy expectations, appearing to end his set with Thou Shalt Always Kill (remember?), before breaking off only a few lines in ("Thou shalt not come to a Scroobius Pip versus The Six Foot Two Inch Pianist gig and expect to hear material by Dan Le Sac versus Scroobius Pip...") and concluding with a masterly version of Angles instead.

What more can I say about Lupen Crook & The Murderbirds? They headlined the MySpace stage and played pretty much the same set that I saw at the Buffalo Bar a couple of weeks ago. The "black instructions" song is called Young Love. There was another new song title too, but the hour was late. It's all still intense, still fantastic. Ending the set with Junk 'N' Jubilee, the song that derides "barely eating, panic-stricken kids of only seventeen" for their love of "gypsy rags and mindless goals" was a neat reminder that beneath all the irony, venom and loathing of the lyrics lies a fiercely positive and purposeful individualism. I read on MySpace today that the new album will be called Iscariot The Ladder. Can't wait.

Sunday yielded slightly fewer moments of genius for me, with the most memorable sets coming from Laura Marling and Kid Harpoon, both on the Second stage. I first came across Laura Marling back in May, when she stood out from a crowd of recommended singer-songwriters in the NME. She stood out here too: a pale blonde who burns too easily in the sun. I suppose the easiest description would be "folk" but there's also maybe a touch of Kristin Hersh in her steely-eyed gaze. A song called Tick seemed quite appropriate, either as a reference to something that gets under your skin or to a way of demonstrating positive affirmation. My Manic And I was magnificently intense. I could have watched her for hours.

Kid Harpoon was also mentioned in that same NME article. I listened to a few of his tracks at the time, but they made less of an impression on me. Seeing his live performance with backing band The Powers That Be was therefore something of a revelation. It seemed much more raw, more rabble-rousing. Occasionally, it sounded like The Levellers might have sounded, if they hadn't been shit. He's another singer-songwriter from the Medway towns and I'm failing to avoid the temptation to compare him favourably with Lupen Crook and Billy Childish. It's not so much a similar sound as a shared approach, possibly based on some kind of nebulous regional identity. He ended the set with a storming cover of First We Take Manhattan, but actually I thought his own material was stronger.

On Saturday I also saw Elena Jane Gooding, whose acoustic sweetness included a great cover of India Arie's Video. Reverend & The Makers gave me a "must investigate" moment, with an insouciant northern swagger that reminded me of Happy Mondays and Human League. Kate Nash started off a bit Catherine-Tate-doing-Lily-Allen (not good) and ended up as a honky-tonk rock'n'roller (very good). The Holloways were rather like their album: inspired in parts, but not always holding my attention. I'd been impressed by The Thirst's songs on their MySpace page - a Niece #1 recommendation - but their live performance left me strangely cold. [Update: the band I thought was The Thirst wasn't at all. Damn. And... good.] GoodBooks were completely the opposite: the band who Lupen Crook had supported a couple of weeks ago at the Buffalo Bar and who I hadn't bothered to wait around to hear. They turned out to be superb performers.

The following day I also enjoyed The Cut Outs, the first band of the day on the MySpace stage. Their back-to-basics, black-on-black vibe reminded me a lot of several early 80s new wave bands (anyone remember Positive Punk?). Following them on the MySpace stage were Letters From London, who sounded very promising indeed: musically and vocally assured, though with a sense of future potential rather than current genius. In general, the second day of the festival revealed fewer surprises and I watched Hot Club De Paris, The Long Weekend, Chineapples, The Noisettes, The Maccabees, Mr Hudson & The Library and The Young Knives without any of them making a huge impression on me.

At any multi-stage festival, I suppose there are always The Ones That Got Away: the bands you missed because you were watching another performance, queueing at the bar, eating Gloucester Old Spot hot dogs or just generally doing something else. I really wish I'd made the effort to see Beans On Toast. I'd have been interested in seeing New Young Pony Club and I'm assuming that Plan B was probably intensely cool. I was intrigued by Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man because of their name, if nothing else. I wish I'd hung on a little longer to see Jack Peñate and Patrick Wolf, but at the time I was fading fast and the pull of an easier drive home and a hot bath was becoming too strong to resist. I guess it would also have been fun to finally see Happy Mondays, though more for nostalgic reasons than anything else.

What impressed me most about Electric Gardens 2007 was the extent to which it championed new music. Headliners Supergrass and Happy Mondays seemed rather anachronistic, though if they packed in the punters to ensure the financial health of a festival featuring plenty of less well known acts then that's fine by me. Equally, the dance tent seemed like a complete anomaly. One that I'm less favourably disposed towards, since it probably attracted the twats three tents down from me who tried to pretend that they were some kind of all-night junglist massive soundsystem until they were finally shut down by the police around 8am.

I'm all for the anti-authoritarian expression of one's right to celebrate music and culture, but I can't help feeling that this is better achieved on a good night's sleep. But that's a minor niggle, best consigned to the dustbin of memory along with the Saturday morning registration queues and the number of thistles on the camp site. The stuff I'll remember is what always attracts me to musicians and artists in general: the baring of souls and the expression of the truth of existence in a way unique to that person. Two days of that, in a field, in the blazing sunshine, with a seemingly infinite supply of draft Spitfire. What more could a man ask for? Only a repeat performance, in a year's time. After all, I intend to use that tent more than once.

Further reading & viewing:

• Flickr: Holly Erskine's EG 2007 collection
• Flickr: Short Sharp Shot's EG 2007 pictures
• Last.fm: AntD's EG 2007 review

The full band line-up:

Saturday 4th August

• Main Stage: Supergrass, Calvin Harris, The Pipettes, Kate Nash, Reverend & The Makers, Pull Tiger Tail, Blood Red Shoes, Johnny Flynn, Palladium
• 2nd Stage: Plan B, New Young Pony Club, The Holloways, Lethal Bizzle, Foals, Video Nasties, Newton Faulkner, Peggy Sue & The Pirates, Ciara Haidar
• Myspace Stage: Lupen Crook, GoodBooks, The Thirst, Scroobius Pip, Tom Allalone and The Great Expectations, One Night Only, Gillan Edgar, Beans On Toast, Nick Dawson Kelly, Stuart James, Thom Stone, Elena Jane Gooding, Dockers MC

Sunday 5th August

• Main Stage: Happy Mondays, The Rakes, The Young Knives, The Maccabees, Milburn, The Noisettes, Hot Club De Paris, Sonic Hearts
• 2nd Stage: Patrick Wolf, Jack Peñate, Mr Hudson & The Library, Kid Harpoon, The Teenagers, Late of the Pier, Laura Marling, Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man, The Sylvias
• Myspace Stage: Underground Heroes, Devils Gun, Sparrows, Chineapples, Rosemary, Maker, The Long Weekend, Our Name is Legion, Letters From London, The Cut Outs

Posted by Hg on Tuesday 07 August 2007 at 21:53.
Received 3 comments so far.

So what sort of tent was it? a Cath Kidston flowery number? :-) and you appear to have gone black round the edges. Must be something to do with the sun.

Comment by rr on Tuesday 07 August 2007 at 22:33.

There was actually a Kidston (or at least, Kidstonesque) tent only a few metres away from mine. Its tasteful pastel green must have accessorised quite nicely with the pink camping wrist-bands. (On a related subject, the Mrs bought some Kidstonesque dishcloths the other day. I don't care much for the design, but they are marvellously absorbent.)

No, my tent was of a much more pragmatic khaki-grey hue. Its distinguishing feature was that it's self-erecting. It starts off as a large flat circle about 1m in diameter, but then you take off the big elastic band and throw it into the air and a second later a fully-formed tent lands on the ground. It's rather magical.

Comment by Hg on Tuesday 07 August 2007 at 23:30.

Hello,

Good to meet you over the festival weekend. Cheers for the CD-its certainly interesting-and some of the songs are going to take a few listens! Good tip on Lupen Crook though-thanks for that.

Hope you've managed to catch up on some sleep. Good job you left sunday as we were kept up again by the jungle massive!!

take care-hopefully catch up again in the future

mark and ali

Comment by mark on Monday 13 August 2007 at 19:49.

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