Sunday Sessions
After two evenings of the excellent Norwich Punk & Alternative Festival at the Waterfront it is off to Earlham Park for something a bit more mainstream with the Sunday Sessions.
Being hopelessly disorganised, I arrive too late for the folk-Punk of We Bless This Mess on the Sessions Stage but manage to catch most of Norwich’s very own Ducking Punches on the main stage. I am more than a little worried about seeing the “new”, four piece Punches. The thing is, I absolutely loved the “old” five piece band. Last year’s LP Alamort - the first as a quartet - is excellent but I still have my doubts. Oh ye of little faith. Founding vocalist, guitarist and songwriter Dan Allen, stalwart drummer Pete Wright and the new boys Marcus Gooda and Ryan Hillier absolutely nail this. The newer songs sound fantastic and it is always great to hear old favourites Six Years and It’s Been A Bad Few Weeks.
It is over to the Sessions Stage for Scott Wright. At first I am fairly impressed by the blues-tinged rock. There is a hint of Santana in the guitar solos and the sax adds an edge. The longer it goes on and despite a cover of Cash’s Folsom Prison Blues, the less I like it. No, it is not dreadful, just a bit bland and samey but I suspect that this will be far more appealing in a sweaty club.
I have an almost pathological aversion to anyone and anything that has had anything to do with the Britain’s Got The Voice Factor identikit TV talent show. Given that Lucy Spraggan’s first brush with fame came via that route, I am more than pleasantly surprised by her catchy, folk-pop. There are hints of Ed Sheeran in the delivery - in a good way - and Spraggan is entertaining and endearing. Hell, I am even tempted to get a ticket for her show at the UEA in October.
Goldie Looking Chain were a joke that was mildly amusing for five minutes. Eighteen years into their career - and fourteen years on from top 3 hit Guns Don’t Kill People Rappers Do,the so-called Legends of Goldie Looking Chain deliver a mildly diverting sub-Beasties mess. Some people seemed to be enjoying it but, from where I was stood, it was frankly bloody awful. Maybe it was better closer to the stage but I doubt it.
Gabrielle Aplin is so far away from my usual thing. What I had heard before today was OK, if bordering on aural wallpaper. It is therefore a pleasant surprise that, at its best, this set brings to mind 70s Fleetwood Mac-esque country-pop. That said, that is only half the story. The other half of the set was a bit too like Taylor Swift with any edginess smoothed away.
The absolute surprise of the day comes on the Sessions Stage with Reverend and the Makers and their dub-ska-indie-baggy. I’ve kinda ignored this lot in the past and that has been my loss. By the time they play, the sunshine has gone and it is chucking it down but by heck they are FUN. Bassline is quite possibly the song of the day and it is hard to resist Jon McClure’s frequent exhortations to fookin’ bounce.
It is still raining when Bluetones take to the stage. Maybe it is the weather but I just don’t get anything from their set. The songs are ok, they are clearly decent musicians and the presentation is professional but it doesn’t move me in any way. It hits that horrible spot where I felt no love, no hate, no emotion at all.
Now for the main reason I am here. I have seen British Sea Power umpteen times since first catching them supporting Pulp at Thetford Forest. Every time I have seen them, they have delivered cracking sets of idiosyncratic alternative pop-rock. It is all the more surprising then that the two opening songs - Machineries of Joy and Waving Flags, both of which rank among my favourite BSP songs - are flat and lifeless. Once again, it might be the blooming rain. It might be the absence of cornet and keys man Phil Sumner. It might even be that the foliage that usually bedecks the BSP stage is conspicuous by its absence and that there are no dancing bears. Whatever, the band clicks into gear with third song Remember Me and keep that level up right to the closing duo of Bad Bohemian and No Lucifer. It hasn’t been a vintage performance but even a below par BSP are better than most bands and artists out there.
With LPs that have hit numbers 1 and 2 in the charts, nominations for BRIT and MTV awards, winning the Ivor Novello Songwriter of the Year in 2014 and going down a storm here,Tom Odell must have something. Whatever it is, I don’t get it. He dragged his keyboard around the club, pub and toilet circuit so he served his dues and he is not an overnight sensation. He seems like a good bloke. I just don’t get the appeal. This is as appetising to me as James Blunt fronting Coldplay on songs written by Gary Barlow. It is Elton John for the Keane generation with the attempts to rock being wholly unconvincing. On the plus side, at least it aroused some emotion in me - unlike Bluetones earlier - even if that is negative. Ah well, I am sure Odell (like Blunt, Coldplay, Keane and Barlow) won’t give a flying fig what I have say and will enjoy the success.
Thanks to equipment failures, Circa Waves are late taking to the stage. On first impressions, the Liverpudlian foursome are bog standard indie rock. On closer listening, that is unfair. They aren’t doing anything new or innovative but they do it well. They perform with a passion and exuberance that is missing from far too many of their compatriots. On another day, I would stay to the end of their set but, thanks to that delayed start, they are overrunning and I drag myself off to the main arena just in time for Kaiser Chiefs to take the stage.
Much as I enjoyed early Chiefs, I lost interest a decade ago, after third album Off With Their Heads. As I have already mentioned, I have a deep seated, pathological aversion to anything related to television talent shows and find the TV persona of Kaisers vocalist Ricky Wilson intensely annoying. Having never seen them before, I am determined to catch this set but I am here with some reluctance and more than a little apprehension…
I needn’t have worried. Vocally, Wilson may be struggling a bit but he thankfully leaves (most of) the ego in the Voice studio. He has just enough of that cocky bravado that a great frontman needs and his antics are thoroughly entertaining. Whitey, Simon Rix, Peanut and Vijay Mistry leave Wilson enough room to run himself ragged but aren’t the anonymous sidemen that I was expecting.
From opener Everyday I Love You Less and Less, through to encore closer Oh My God, the band barely put a foot wrong. For me, the call-and-response, split-the-arena-in-half-sing-yeah malarkey was a bit old hat and went on for too long but the crowd lapped it up. In an hour and ten minute set, a cover of Pinball Wizard – excellent as it was – was arguably unnecessary but Kaiser Chiefs came here to entertain and by the gods that is what they did.
