The very first thing noticable on arriving at Kent's new festival, Electric Gardens, is the size of the place. It's
tiny. The Eat Your Own Ears-sponsored second stage and Myspace.com New Bands Tent are practically alongside each other, and its only two minutes' walk to the main stage field. This makes moving around between them and seeing a lot of bands very easy, which is nice, and actually leads to far fewer problems with clashing sound than expected. There are about the right number of people there for it too, at least in terms of filling the stages without overcrowding (although only about 20 people watch Brakes' headlining set later)
We start with most of
The Boy Least Likely To's quite enthusiastically recieved main stage set. We miss "Be Gentle With Me" but "Hugging My Grudge"'s bouncy pop and a ramshackle cover of George Michael's "Faith" are both excellent, and "Monsters"' surprising anger and frustration tied to a similarly great tune make their album look worth finally getting around to buying. They're quite witty, too. "Hello, near Canterbury!".
The reason for leaving early is that next on in the (also tiny) New Bands tent are
The Hot Puppies, appropriately named as it is indeed very very hot outside and hotter still inside, as well as stiflingly humid. There also appears to be mould growing on the inside of the tent, which can't be a good sign. "It's too hot to get it on!" as lead Puppy Bec Newman notes, although a group of boys at the front disagree. Their set is sadly all too brief at barely half an hour (a theme throughout the day) but is thoroughly enjoyable from start to finish, Newman even more conifdent and charismatic than on record and "Terry" and "Green Eyeliner" in particular sounding great. The contrast between her slightly demure look and the gurning, shirtless drummer pounding away behind her is quite amusing, too.
After that,
The Long Blondes on the main stage are quite the disappointment. Kate Jackson's voice sounds awfully shrill, her dancing is kind of awful and a lot of their set runs together into one uninspiring song. Only whichever song involves her and their guitarist exchanging words and set closers "Giddy Stratospheres" and "Separated By Motorways" impress at all.
The second stage is already running half an hour late (as is the new bands tent) but for now that's a good thing as it means catching two songs of
Absentee's set! They still have the same
issues as the last time I saw them - essentially, their sound is very much based around Dan Michaelson's amazingly deep drawl and it's almost inaudible - but "Treacle" is still rather sweet. Certainly better than
MCraft, who is chosen because we can't face the heat of the less well aired tent again unless absolutely necessary and turns out to be inoffensive but extremely boring.
Things get worse after that as we go to get some food - the food hall, it seems, didn't have enough food to last past 5pm (it eventually reopens at about 7) so there is no choice but to queue for the one stall selling crêpes. These don't really lend themselves to being made quickly, and so it takes
over an hour to get them. Although they are quite nice and suprisingly large at least (Mmm, garlic mushroom and cheese! Chocolate and marshmallow! Er, that's two different ones, obviously), this is still a ridiculous situation. It's coupled with the massively behind schedule stages where setting up seems to take longer than the actual sets, and the fact that Larrikin Love have cancelled but we only work it out from a handwritten rearranged schedule stuck on the sounddesk that still turns out to be a little wrong. The organisation is certainly by far the worst thing about the day. Next year, hopefully, they'll get the hang of it a bit better.
While finishing the crêpes, we catch the end of
The Automatic's set, including their hideous but peversely enjoyable version of "Gold Digger", complete with flute and "she ain't messing with no broke, broke" radio edited chorus, and of course "Monster", which they make sure to close with and which provokes mass bottle throwing. I may previously have accused this of just being an amazing chorus and not much else, but that is to not give credit to the guy who rasps out the repeat of every sung line in the verses who, it turns out, is the real star.
The Electric Soft Parade are seen next at a distance thanks to the tent still being too hot and full. They play a surprising number of older songs but none of the best or better known ones, so it's actually the
Human Body material which gets more of a chance to shine. "A Beating Heart" especially is great, though their performance doesn't add so much to many of the songs and the other White siblings only look like stars when they return in two bands time.
First, though, the nearest thing to a local band here,
Battle. "Children" suggested that they'd run out of good songs after a pair of amazing singles, but while "Demons" and
"A Forest""Tendency" are the intense highlights they have some others to match. "Takuya" sees Jason Bavanandan resort to spitting out nonsense by the end over madly thrashing guitars and is all the more enjoyable for it. They are still a little derivative but together with a couple of other new songs it suggests that their album could still be a worthwhile contender in the overcrowded post-punk scene.
Finally, aside from catching the very end of
Mystery Jets' set ("Alas Agnes" and "Zootime"! Perfect! Also worthwhile for my brother's comment that when they said "this one is about a tranny" he presumed that they meant "You Can't Fool Me Dennis") are
Brakes.
They begin by blasting through
Give Blood's best three songs ("Ring A Ding Ding", "Hi How Are You" and "Heard About Your Band") with barely a pause for breath, making for possibly the best opening four minutes of a festival set ever. After that things could easily get disappointing but they don't. Their cartoon country-punk could easily make for an overly knowing, one-joke show but they never play it anything less than straight, Eamaon Hamilton barking out every word with a dangerous stare and Tom and Alex White revelling in the chance to play rock gods. Not that aren't hilarious at times of course. See: deadly secret weapon "Porcupine Or Pineapple". The lyrics to that for you: "Porcupine or pineapple? Porcupine or pineapple? Porcupine or pineapple???...... YEEEEOOOOOWCH!" (see it for yourself from
T In The Park).
As well as that, new songs recently recorded in Nashville ("I got a tan and [bassist] Marc Beatty didn't!" taunts Hamilton) are fuller and less ragged than old but still almost as fun, "Cheney" is worth playing twice and the chorus of "All Nite Disco Party" threatens to tear the roof off. A great way to end a pretty good day.
Other reviews of the festival are out there from
Jukebox,
Another Form Of Relief and
Seebass, who got some pretty good photos.
