NOTES ON SUMMER SUNDAE FESTIVAL, Leicester, August 05;

I don’t normally do big festivals for, well, obvious reasons I guess. This isn’t a big festival though – it’s a small version of a big festival. A low-key, family-oriented kind of affair, the line-up clogged with inoffensive mid-level major label unit shifters and exhibiting a studied avoidance of anyone likely to use cuss words, make weird noise or generally upset the young ‘uns.

Nevertheless though, whether or by chance or design, this year’s line-up still managed to bring together more than enough genuinely great music to give even grumpy, anti-populist bastards like me the heebie-jeebies, and get us reaching for our purses.

Living just five minutes walk away from the idyllic park-and-concert-hall set-up gave me the freedom to wander in and out as I pleased, catching the bands I like, bumping into friends and generally having a lovely time. So, yay! It was good!

Festivals like this are inevitably filled with suffocating amounts of quite-good-but-not-amazing-ness, and while I generally wish it’s perpetrators well and find it reasonably entertaining, I don’t want to bore you, so I’ll stick to a quick run through the stuff that made an impression one way or the other;

Having read so much about them (in Beard mostly), I’m looking forward to seeing Sons & Daughters, and… yes! They’re fucking great! Their channelling of the vintage darkness of Nick Cave, PJ Harvey, Lydia Lunch, Cramps et al. into easily digestible chunks of post-Pixies thrash-pop is totally irresistible in it’s own right, and their wild on-stage energy and scary good looks ice the cake to perfection. They’re no mid-afternoon festival band though sadly, and the gap between what a band’s audience SHOULD be (a derelict New Orleans ballroom crawling with cooler-than-you hustlers, temptresses and knife-fighting punks) and what a band’s audience IS (a field full of chattering idiots in cagoules) has never been quite so glaring. Maybe one day I’ll get to see them again somewhere sufficiently dark and dingy to do them justice.

British Sea Power are always value for money – their knack for crafting towering guitar dramas out of Bunnymen-style indie swooning adapts well to festival conditions, and if that’s not your cup of tea you can still enjoy watching them chaotically close their set by fighting with a giant black bear. Those crazy guys.

As Idlewild continue to kill the hearts of their few remaining fans with a further display of their dogged descent into shitness, more discerning souls migrate to a tiny, packed marquee where Four Tet is rocking his laptop for a loyal crowd of dedicated potheads. Whilst on record I’m sometimes a bit disappointed by his failure to channel his obvious talent and love of sound into something a bit more challenging, it’s in a live set such as this that Four Tet really proves he knows his onions, piecing together an utterly engrossing ride that combines beautifully naturalistic body-moving beats with an unceasing kaleidoscope of weird, exciting, hyperactive sound fragments – a master at work providing endless fun for anybody with an open pair of ears. The best electronica is really hard to write about, I conclude, but DAMN is it good to listen to.

Saturday is a bit of a wash-out, and there aren’t many groups on I want to see, so I don’t venture down until the early evening. Unfortunately this means I miss Espers, who were apparently terrific, but I do stroll in just in time to catch Devendra Banhart, who’s gone electric and is now bringing the jams with a five piece band who appear to delight in taking the clichés surrounding the current hippie-folk revival to their silliest extremes. Seemingly chosen via a strict “no beard – no audition” entry policy, these guys resemble a 21st Century Country Joe & the Fish, although unfortunately they don’t quite sound like one. An endearingly goofy stage performer, Banhart continues his mission to sneak the most unhip musical influences imaginable into the ears of indie rockers, and during the course of his set we’re treated to the Incredible String Band filtered through the White Stripes, Traffic filtered through the Velvet Underground, a lot of irony-free peace & love blather and some pretty straight-up doses of American Beauty-era Grateful Dead. Five years ago these hairy characters would have been driven out of polite society by obnoxious NME writers with spiked bats, but these days the haircut kids are allowed to lap it up free of guilt. Which is progress of a sort I suppose. Hearing a gang of bleary-eyed desert-dwellers stumble their way through some good-natured twangy guitar jams and campfire singalongs is just as enjoyable as it was 40 years ago, although somewhat less than mindblowing.

Assailed by mediocrity on all sides, Saturday’s only other musical joy comes from watching a bootleg video of Neutral Milk Hotel – thanks Nigel!

Sunday is by far the festival’s strongest day, and the highlight of the afternoon comes courtesy of another Beard favourite, the softly spoken Alastair Roberts. He’s as consummate and talented an interpreter of British folk traditions as one could ever hope to encounter. His unmistakable voice, beguiling finger-picking and startling ear for an evocative tune all suggest a comparison to Bert Jansch at his best. His subtle marriage of age-old melodies, the ghosts of the ‘60s-‘70s revivalists and hints of a dogma-free modern pop sensibility makes for music that’s as beautiful and pure as any who have gone before him. Shivers run down spines as the drab midlands hall is transported to a wind-swept Scottish coastline for a stunning rendition of the traditional ‘Lyke Wake Dirge’, drawn out into a ripping guitar / fiddle duel of the kind Thompson and Swarbrick used to indulge in back in the day. Stunning.

Following that, Patrick Wolf delivers some smouldering boy angst for the Bright Eyes / Jeff Buckley contingent. Maybe if you fancy boys you might like him, cos he’s a pretty young fella who dresses like a raggle-taggle gypsy dancer, but otherwise – yawnsville.

Over on the big outdoor stage, The Duke Spirit also prove rather disappointing. I’ll admit to enjoying their first couple of singles, but I don’t hear much of the spirit I found in them here. Despite a good, noisy guitar tone their songs seem monotonous and uninspired. Energy and charisma absent without leave. There are moments when they take flight, but for the most part it’s three chugging chords and a few sluggish ‘rock’ moves that predominate. So basically The Strokes with a couple of good distortion pedals and a girl singer. A bored youth TV producer’s idea of what an ‘edgy’ rock band might sound like. Drag.

Now down to the front row for what we’re really here for – God’s own idea of what an ‘edgy’ rock band might sound like – Yo La Tengo. Unintimidated by the huge crowd, they strike still strike a gloriously weird and amateurish note after a line-up of slick professionals. They do what they do, and do it brilliantly, as usual, and hopefully I won’t have too bother telling you about it in too much detail. Inevitable set highlights include ‘Tom Courtney’, ‘Big Day Coming’, ‘Autumn Sweater’, ‘Little Eyes’ and ‘Stockholm Syndrome’.

And so – Patti Smith. Being in such close proximity to such a legendary performer (and legendary band) through a storming outdoor festival headlining set is the kind of thing that can destroy anybody’s critical faculties, so instead of trying to come up with some poncey bullshit, I’ll quote an amalgam of what I said to people in emails the next morning;

“And we were right at the front for Patti Smith! Yay! She played a huge, loud stadium rock kind of set with all the hits and lots of fist-pounding and singing along and no poetry or messing about (unfortunately) - it really rocked it! All of her original band were there too I think, with the addition of Tom Verlaine from Television sitting in the corner moodily smoking cigarettes and joining in whenever he felt like it. She did 'Because the Night' and 'Walking Barefoot' and stuff, and even played 'Like a Rolling Stone'!! I caught Lenny Kaye's guitar pick at the end, and Lucy caught a drumstick and got to shake hands with Patti when she did her Bono-esque "blessing the people" walkabout. When I saw her in London a few years ago she was being all serious and poetic, but this time it was like seeing Bruce Springsteen or something! Crazy!”