SATURDAY
Poxy fucking Irish weather! Now that we’ve let the elephant out of the room – or should that be tent? – let’s concentrate on the musical delights that Day Two of the Picnic had to offer.
Stuart Clark, 16 Sep 2009
Armed with a steak & ale pie and all the trimmings, my early afternoon wanderings start in the Electric Arena where pun-loving South Londoners Chew Lip (the name apparently comes from Brendan Behan’s Borstal Boy) are simultaneously managing to sound like Florence & The Machine, Eno-era Roxy Music and Daft Punk in their rather more considered moments. Qualities which in the Clark-ian book are all to be applauded.
Less convincing are Main Stage-rs Tuung who probably won’t be adding my “hippy Prefab Sprout with samples” to their press pack testimonials.
Meanwhile, the Crawdaddy tent is a healthy two-thirds full for David Geraghty, who shorn of Bell X1’s irresistible hooks sounds a little bit, well, dull. Far more captivating on the day is Julie Feeney who’d threatened to appear in full body-paint, but in the end settles for a swirly 1920s number. With a string quartet, xylophone, flute, oboe, stand-up bass and kitchen sink on stage with her – I made the last one up, but you get my point – it’s hugely ambitious stuff but works by dint of (a) Ms. Feeney’s mesmerising stage presence and (b) the eccentric pop genius of songs like ‘Myth’ and ‘Life’s Nudge’, which in a parallel universe would be all over daytime radio like a rash.
His new All Night Cinema album may be a huge artistic leap forward, but the need to keep the festival masses happy with songs they instantly recognise (‘Starz In Their Eyes’, ‘Glory Days’ & ‘Writer’s Block’) means that Just Jack still comes across like an Aldi Mike Skinner. One suspects that he, as well as the rest of us in the Crawdaddy tent, will be happier when he can put his E-guzzling geezer past behind him and show off his newly acquired vocal talents.
Wanting to know if the years or, more to the point, their hairdressers have been kind to them, we stay in Crawdaddy for the return of A Flock Of Seagulls.
It’s a question that thanks to sole original member Mike Score donning a baseball cap is never properly answered, but unreconstructed versions of ‘80s synth-pop hits like ‘The More You Live, The More You Love’ and ‘I Ran’ go down remarkably well with punters who weren’t born when the Liverpudlians were enjoying their unlikely 15 minutes of fame.
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