SWN Festival Review: Friday

It's undeniable that Texas' SxSW festival has had a profound effect on Britain. The format: lots of local venues sign up and put bands on, allowing wrist-banded attendees to flow easily between all venues involved.

Added to the musical aspect, there's also room for a few seminars concerning the industry. media streaming and tips for labels, bands and journalists seeking to break into the industry. Needless to say we went to precisely none of them. It sounded too much like university again.

Most of SWN's venues were based around one single road, a set-up which made flitting between bands at whim a cinch. However, for the bigger bands playing, you'll have to venture a couple of miles away, making it either a taxi day or an alcohol-free day.

Draw Me Stories

Somewhat removed from the bustling centre of Swn, The Gate venue have the novel idea of setting up two stages for the festival. One downstairs in an average looking bar/cafe, the other in a grandiose and impressive looking theatre which is half overgrown shed, a quarter greek architecture and a quarter TV studio. The wooden floor in front of the band lies dormant, with the modest crowd preferring the safety of seclusion in the pews which surround the floor.

An initial attempt to tempt viewers to floor to dance is unsurprisingly not jumped on. A few remarks about the creepy silence which punctuates each ceasation of the music pretty much constitutes the banter. Nonetheless, Draw Me Stories do bring a pleasing cacophony to the unique venue.

Trios seem to be the most adept at raising the racous levels these days, and no holds are barred in their attempts. Bassist Mat Albasser makes a late-in-the-game move to play his instrument with a bow instead of the requisite pick, or finger. Judging from the startling effect, added to the impressive acoustics of the place, we don't know why bands don't do this more often.

Our Brother, The Native

Following the conclusion of Draw Me Stories, the audience is quickly informed that in two minutes time, the next band will perform in the cafe downstairs. Thus the ferreting down the stairs begins.

Greeting us is the sight of a rickety table, occupied completely by huge swathes of electronic equipment and more wires that Kofi Annan's office. Behind the table lies a simple drumkit and two earnest looking gentlemen.

Vocally, the band's sound comprises orchestrated yelps and screams as the thousand electronic pulses form into some semblance of electro-post rock. Josh Bertram also makes use of the humble guitar, accentuating the digital noise with frenzied tremolo sections.

Somewhere in the middle of the two previous bands, word got around that Scottish up-and-comers 'We Were Promised Jetpacks' would not be appearing, ostensibly due to them 'feeling very tired'. Wimps. As such, a change of venue is in order.

Johnny Foreigner

Also didn't turn up... next

Pulled Apart By Horses

With their t-shirts lasting precisely one song on their torsos, PABH are exactly what you'd expect from a rock 'n' roll band. Sweaty, loud, shouty and with a penchant for hurling themselves in amongst the crowds gathered and regarding the speaker stacks as a climbing challenge, rather than sound equipment.

A few quick member changes mid-way through the performance certainly keep things varied, which is fortunate, since while fulfilling every obligation of high-octane rock music, there isn't much else to appreciate in the band's Refused-lite output.

Girls

One of the more-hyped bands of the day, queues sweep down a large distance of the street with bouncers continually offering the upbuilding motivation that "I wouldn't bother waiting, really. I'm not kidding, you probably won't get in".

He clearly underestimated the British aptitude for queuing. Hell, if a man can queue five hours to smack Leona Lewis in the face (and who wouldn't) a group of music-lovers on the trail of the next big thing can wait the ten minutes it takes to prove the bouncer wrong.

We needn't have bothered though. To say Girls were a disappointment is to imply that we can remember a single thing about their performance. The only remarkable piece of trivia regarding their time on the stage is that front-man Christopher Owens wore a flowery dress over his jeans and that their band features not a single person of the female gender. By this logic, they could also have called their act "talented", with much the same effect.