Posted on August 5, 2010 - by Mark Zonda
Indietracks 2010 (Pt.2)
Life used to begin quite late in the Midlands. Like any other artist we learnt to go to sleep late and wake up around 11:00 o’Clock in the morning, just in time for brinner. Cheese cakes, tones of tea and capuccino, frozen sandwich and we were ready to go. Even if the train to Indietracks location was broken and we had to adventure in the fields just like the kids in “Stand by me” or “Allan Quatermain and the Lost City of Gold”. But we were there in the end.
We were always there. After having fought the first perception that you just felt somewhere in a ghost theme park lost in the north Italian hills, you start to get on and enjoy the spirit of the festival. That is making hanging from one stage to another meeting marvellous but quiet people waiting 01:00 A.M. to go back to that fucking supermarket chasing sandwiches and start all over again.
Another funny thing of the second day of the festival, is that I met a lot of people I usually chat with only on Facebook, just to shake hands, share a couple of smiles, seeing a gig together, and then going to separate ways exchanging opinions on the shows… back on the web!!
It was the case of The Hillfields, that really had a nice show being one of the few bands mastering the “Inside Stage”. Shame it was too early to get the attention of a wider audience. While my friends stayed to see “The Felt Tips“ I went for “Jam on Bread“, the unshaven guy with ukulele we already interviewed for SleepWalking Magazine. It was a marvellous chance to see the shows on the moving stage inside the old steam train in action. And it was just great, genuine, authentic, poetic, so true and direct. Just being there for the love of the songs. I mean… Muse would never have done something like that, right? And Jam on Bread and the other guy from Internet Forever were just great, with their funny sad songs on geeknes and indie pop stereotypes, inspiring me some of the lines of “Tweening Everyday” once I luckily got back home.
Back to the station and then to the Inside Stage (some sort of hangar) I only stood few songs of Linda Guilala suddenly remembering why I don’t like live show with a keyboard and a guitar. They look like bad pianobar karaoke. Too bad I moved from the show. I should have been listening to Momus, Hawking and Martin McFly and thing considering the whole of the 4 dimensions… I later discovered thanks to Elefant Records that a boy and a girl from Spaign that were with me the next day to see The Pains of Being Pure At Heart were in fact part of a band and joined Linda on the Stage.
Then again I was tempted to see Anctartica Takes it, but I decided to be one of the lucky guys seeing the impressive show (expecially for the hype) of The Band Of The Moment: Betty And The Werewolves. They didn’t hit a note, but the girls in vintage clothes and cool haircuts along with their energy was a joy to see. Sound was really catchy and tough, being the people from the Church overexcited up to the right level of joy and enthusiasm.
Not too sad they cancelled the Burnign Hearts show, since I had the chance to see… The Parallelograms! One of the band I loved the most from the whole IndieTracks 2010 edition! They genuinely were one of the best and more enthusiastic, and simple, and pure twee bands of the festival, so pretty and joyful on their coloured dresses, co coloured and peculiar to look like some characters from Scooby-Doo or The Archie Show, always ready to jump in the air after each end of their 2 minutes and a half indie anthems at the shout of “1…2…3… GOOOO!!!”.
I had to wait the end of the show to understand why the guitarist from the band had a certain grey tee. Seeing the members of the band shouting, dancing, and jumping in the air losing contact with gravity with The Smittens playing on the main stage was one of the best sights from these memories of an almost free festival.
It seems like there’s strange cult around this American twee pop band. Everyone on the hill in front of the main stage was hypnotized, and they were pretty much universally acclaimed. Even when Wheezy needed to talk and try to break the spell.
Then my eyes, ears and camera were all for Stars in Coma. And not only because I recently released their new album with my little label, but because I’m genuinely a fan, a friend, and I wanted to see the band’s progress since our last meeting in Italy.
And they did sound… great! A great band to hear and listen, with a strong and improved sound giving a great impact to the show, being capable of humour and personality too. An extra medal for the restless crazy barefoot bass player never tired of explore sounds and spaces.
The show was also a happy chance to get to know live Sumire, a Japanese DJ from the collective Twee Grrrls.
A shame that Love is all show – the main act – was cancelled too. Still it was time for a living twee legend to get out from last year tent and play! Amelia Fletcher (we recently interviewed her here)and Tender Trap did a splendid faultless show, portraying the quintessence of being jingle jangle at heart with their memorable indie anthem, with Amelia always timidly having something nice, brilliant and clever thing to say on the show or mates musicians. (“I guess you were very excited today for Betty and The Werewolves. Emily is just amazing. I don’t know how she does it. She just finished her new book and then she’s ready for the next show!”). It was also quite funny seeing little children on the stage with big headphones to protect their ears singing basically each words of each song they played… or banging player’s heads with plastic toys during the soundcheck!
Main stage of the show were another piece of niche history as well: Tracy Tracy and The Primitives. Some complained that their sound was way too tamed since their first days on the scene, while otherwise other people wished they had to close the festival the last day instead of the pains. A maniac was shouting “Laaazyyyy!! Laaaazyyyyy!!!”, portraying fuckload of nostalgic not considering Tracy Lazy moved and looked like a granny on stage. Their nails were a little bit smoothed, still those cats with still able to roar, with a little help from the audience acclaiming their personal Debbie Harry.
After some DJSettings from How Does It Feels To Be Love in the Tent (only Northern and Obscure Sixties with no modern indie at all. A shame!) and a way too random set in the Inside Hangar, we went back to Supermarket/Home to start our second fesival activities: try to avoid the strange One Piece lookalike characters in the corridors of the hotel and go eating our supermarketsandwiches in one of our homes in front of a computer seeing what we missed from other gigs thanks to clips and pics from the other friends. That’s where dangerous surnames were born, leading me to tell to the girl singing in Arctartica Takes It on here monday showcase in London:
- Do you know that you have a surname?
- What?
- We used to gather at night checking the pictures and clips from IndieTracks shows. You’re Photo Jenny.
- …
- (the singer from Anctartica) I think that they are referring to the fact that you’re looking good in pictures and a song from Belle & Sebastian…
Me, my three friends, Ian Watson, the owner, the keyboards player from The Pains, and other 7 people from the whole London population included tourists. We were fucking twee.
Stars in Coma – “Hardly a Memory Remains”
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