Truck Festival 15, 20-21st July 2012
There was a fairly odd feeling getting close to Hill Farm on Friday lunchtime; almost every festival I’ve been to I’ve had to queue to get transport to the site, or get near to the site, for Truck it was a smooth drive, no cars in front, no queuing, park next to the campsite, wonderful. We had a few issues getting to the right car park due to miscommunication between the stewards, but still it didn’t take very long to get settled. After a while to wonder about the site (It was my first Truck, despite my desire to go for as many years as I can remember), and check out all the tents, stalls, activities etc. I decided to go and catch my first band of the evening, Boat To Row; slightly later than their main set, in the merchandise tent. They were possibly one of the biggest bands in terms of line-up to play the merch tent, and they drew in quite a crowd to make sure at least half of the tent was full of people, some sitting comfortably, and some standing. Their music was a nice way to ease yourself into the festival, calm folk music which was incredibly tuneful, very easy to get into, and had great dynamics thanks to the range of instruments used in such a small space. The set was a fairly decent length, but it did make me wish I had taken notice earlier and seen their full set, as if it was that enjoyable off stage I can only presume it would have been even better on.
Boat To Row
The first band on my “must see” list for Truck was Brontide. There seems to be a fair few loop based bands at the moment; I guess loop pedals in decent packages have been around the right amount of time now that they’re becoming more useable in bands. I’ve been a fan of album Sans Souci for a while and hoped that they could match that in a live environment, and thankfully they did, keeping everything as tight and as detailed as recorded, with an incredible technicality and sense of timing to it all. Incredible. After Brontide I decided to go shopping at the merch tent, which is partially run by Truck Shop, as well as having a Big Scary Monsters and Alcopop! Records desk. There were some great older CDs in both parts of the store, and a large selection of vinyl, as well as it being the best place to withdraw cash. Bag loaded up with t-shirts, cds, dvds and a Frisbee, I headed over to the main stage to see Tim Minchin. Playing his way through his comedic tunes with great musical prowess, and a great backing band, he had pulled in the biggest audience of the night with no issues what so ever. The music is well composed and the end product allows the fantastic lyrics to be heard by all.
Brontide
As soon as Tim’s set finished it was time for Guillemots, the band who I personally considered to be the day’s headliner, despite the clash with Future Of The Left. The second stage wasn’t really big enough for the band, and the tent too small for their many fans, a lot of people opting instead to sit in outside and just listen in. Their set spanned a large amount of material, thanks to their brilliant back catalogue. Early tracks getting the biggest smiles from the audience, but the newer songs getting a lot of respect too, the band were polished and in their element, despite their heavy recording schedule. Half way through I decided that, despite Guillemots being good, I wanted to catch the end of Future Of The Left’s set. I’m pretty glad I did, just to catch the new lineup (who make a lot more sound than the old lineup) and to enjoy the cynical new material. The only problem was that after I left the barrier and went further back the sound was appalling. The band were moaning on twitter after the gig about how bad the crowd were past the front rows, which is pretty harsh to those of us near the back who were enjoying the music, moving about and singing along where possible, but the gig sounded awful further back. I know it wasn’t the bands fault as it was great at the front, so I can only presume it was the sound engineers fault. It just sounded like a mess, and it took a cover of McLusky’s To Hell With Good Intentions to get most people enjoying themselves. The sound wasn’t as bad on the Saturday, so I can only presume someone from Truck noticed there was a problem, but still, there was no doubt plenty of opportunity to get the Barn sounding good. After Future Of The Left, I headed over to watch a bit of the Mystery Jets, admittedly from the side of the arena, in a horizontal fashion, while watching people near me playing with cool light up things, but they were quite a nice way to end the day, not much to watch (they were fairly stationary) but musically they were pleasant. After this we headed to the camp to get a bbq going, which was pretty amazing, before exploring the site for any sign of nightlife.
Tim Minchin
Nightlife is the one thing that I thought Truck really needed to work on. First issue, it’s an indie festival, where was the indie hits being played late into the night? There seemed to be two options for dancing to music: cheese/pop or techno. Neither of these really appeal to me. The music in the bar was better, but as it was largely empty it was a bit rubbish. The second issue was that it was all over at 1:30, far too early for a weekend festival when people were enjoying themselves.
Saturday morning came around pretty quickly, so after going for a walk to get some cash and some bacon, and getting the necessary bacon baguette bbq going I decided to go and watch a few bands. I cought the beginning of Dubwiser, although the heat had clearly hit me and subsequently I decided to head back to the camp and lay down, missing most of their set. When I awoke, I could hear music from the main stage, so headed to catch most of Black Hats set, their danceable brand of indie music drawing an early crowd towards the barrier. I will admit that they weren’t necessarily the kind of music I usually enjoy, however they put on a good live show and the performance was incredibly tight.
My First Tooth
Most of the bands I wanted to see that afternoon were in The Barn, so I headed over to catch My First Tooth, a band that I’ve managed multiple times to catch the end of sets of in the past, but never a full gig. Half way through the set I completely regretted this, their blend of fun, folky pop music was exciting and interesting, and completely catchy. They showed great ability as musicians too, the violin player changing instruments at many times during the set, yet demonstrating fantastic ability on each one. Definitely one of the highlights of the weekend. I wanted to catch Crash Of Rhinos based on the material I’d heard from them, but unfortunately they clashed with This Town Need Guns, a band I haven’t seen in around 4 years, who I have great memories of seeing (Basically just watching the lead guitarist). I’m glad I made that decision, This Town Needs Guns were on top form, and as an added bonus previous vocalist Stuart Smith turning up for a one off performance. They played a mixture of older and new material, all of it insanely complicated. Highlights had to be Adventure, Stamina & Anger as well as If I Sit Still, Maybe I’ll Get Out Of Here, even if they did tease us with the possibility of 26 Is Dancier Than 4 in the leadup to it. The sing along of “Yesteryear still rings in my ear…” stuck in my mind for the few days afterwards, even singing it in the car home over something completely unrelated.
This Town Needs Guns
Returning to the Barn, Gunning For Tamar were already on stage, and had a fairly big crowd. The sound in the Barn was a clear improvement over Friday, although it still could have been better. Gunning For Tamar appeared to be enjoying themselves, playing through brilliant tracks like Time Trophies, as well as the new single Dark Sky Tourism which sounded great and received a good reception. After Gunning For Tamar came Tellison. Tellison had probably the worst clash of the festival, clashing with the amazing 65daysofstatic. The only way to resolve this was to flip a coin; tails won, Tellison won. All I can say is, thank god for that, as this was easily my favourite performance of the weekend. The most enjoyable band to watch, plus huge potential for singing along, Tellison owned the Barn for the length of their set. Songs from Wages Of Fear (which are still relatively new to me) sounded even better live than on record, and the old songs are as good as they ever were. The set was far too short though, they had plenty more material to play, and the crowd were more than eager to hear it.
Tellison
Tall Ships
Tall Ships were up next. My opinion on the band has fluctuated a lot since I first heard them; I loved their music when I first heard it, but recently had gotten a bit tired of it, but they’ve managed to convert me back again, new song Gallop sounding brilliant, and T=0 and Chemistry were sounding as good as ever. Johnny Foreigner were next, and pretty much the only set of the day where I spent most of it in the pit dancing around singing along. Sure, they had technical problems early on, with the broken bass amp, but once the set got going it was a hell of a lot of fun. A quick stop outside to eat pizza while listening to British Sea Power, with their great proper rock music taking over the main stage. I decided to catch a bit of Three Trapped Tigers, to kill some time before The Temper Trap. Cramm was entertaining, and the guitarist was good to watch, but a few songs in and I had lost interest, so I wondered off to get ready for the headliners. The Temper Trap were actually quite good, the vocalist especially showed a huge range and performed brilliantly. It was obvious the audience were there for one song, and it took a while to get there – half way through the set they claimed “here’s one you all know”, and a lot of people got up excited before letting out a collective sigh as they realised it was a different song. They got their way in the end though, with the band finishing on Sweet Disposition which, to me, sounded almost too polished; it was fine, but it lacked any live energy. I can’t help but think that they’ll be no where give it a year, the hype will have died down, adverts will stop using their one song, and they’re still not even close to matching it. Shame, as there’s obviously some talent there. Maybe it would be best if they were to take a break for a while and try and write again.
Johnny Foreigner
Well, that’s that, I guess, festival over. The nightlife was pretty dire again, so after dancing around to some terrible music in the second stage we headed back to the campsite, got a bonfire going and headed to sleep. There were many highlights, the main two being Tellison and This Town Needs Guns, although the whole barn line-up on the Saturday was pretty amazing. I liked the size of the site, and how easy it was to get around, and I liked that there was a lot of space. To improve it, the nightlife really needs sorting, and they need to sort the barn sound out, or at least look into what the issue was. If the PA was wrong for the room then they should get something different, if the sound guy was hopeless they should use someone different, but it was seriously impacting my enjoyment of the Friday. The staff were incredibly helpful and friendly every time I spoke to someone, so that’s good. All in all, bring on Truck 16!
The Temper Trap
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