Northside review.

(c) Toke Hage, tokehage.dk

So, Northside came and went, and a pretty successful arrangement it was. Other than the horrendous queues at the food stalls on Saturday, there wasn't really anything to put a finger on. Having to cope with an extraordinary amount of interesting artists within a short timeframe and a rather small area, the festival opted for the back-and-forth approach, having bands playing alternately at stages at each end of the site. Good thing was you didn't really miss anything, bad thing was of course the short sets of approximately an hour. There was no other way of making things fit together, but it is a shame to book artists with such impressive back catalogues and limiting them to an hours playing time. Really reminded me how I love Roskilde for being one of the few major festivals to let the bigger artists play something reminiscent of a regular set.


Anyway, I'm gonna break down for you what I saw, and what I thought of it.

Crystal Castles.
(c) Steffen Jørgensen, photo.jint.dk

SATURDAY's big highlight turned out to be Crystal Castles by a pretty large margin. I had feared that the crowd wouldn't really dig it, but judging from where I was standing - right in the middle of the party - it seemed that anyhow a die-hard core were pretty ecstatic. The sound was muddy, but that didn't really matter. Alice Glass is one hell of a performer, and it was truly one big, bad, wild, unintelligent mosh party!


The Streets however turned out to be a bummer. Again, the sound was pretty bad, as the synth samples on standout tunes such as 'Blinded By The Lights', 'Dry Your Eyes' and 'Turn The Page' drowned completely. But he played them anyhow, which was good, as the tracks from the two earliest albums were the only ones to really keep the show afloat. I am not as big a hater of latest effort Computers & Blues as many others are, but the tunes off it work horribly live. One could have wished for a longer set to incorporate a bit more of the earlier stuff, and even a tune like 'Everything is Borrowed'.

Strange things are happening these days. For example, White Lies have become a legit stadium-size band, the way the British press has hyped them to be since they burst onto the scene a few years ago. Now, it will be an eternal mystery to me why people actually dig the sorry music. Harry McVeigh's voice is still terribly clumsy and completely devoid of evocation, and the synthesizer guy still utilizes "Strings 2" on his Yamaha keyboard the same way the rest of us used to wrap it our Avril Lavigne cover-versions as 6th graders, but for what its worth, they don't fall slap bang on the ground as they have done the other times I've seen them. Part of the reason might be the long needed addition of a fifth member to inject some muscle into the band's grandiose arrangements, but having a crowd that actually knows and (for God knows what reason) loves the music helps too.


A band that suffered particularly from the short sets was VETO. Now, I still love them, but of the ten VETO concerts I've been to, this was hands down the worst. Not only does the band really fit poorly outside, they also suffer from not being able to walkabout further in their back catalogue when limited to an hour's playing time. I mean, I'm really trying not to hate too much on Everything is Amplified, but except from singles 'This Is Not' and 'Spun', did anyone else notice how indifferent people were when VETO decided to burden us with material from their new one? It does seem as though the band acknowledges the fact that they've made a bad album, as there was a total of just 5 tunes from it on the setlist. Compare that with 7 from Crushing Digits and just one ('You're A Knife', needless to say) from There's A Beat In All Machines. Sadly another day on the job from a band most definitely not in their element.


I regretfully missed Editors (I was waiting in line for food), a lamentable decision especially because they played some of my favorite tunes off The Back Room, 'Camera' for example. And that was Saturday, basically.

Elbow.
(c) Toke Hage, tokehage.dk

SUNDAY's big surprise turned out to be Elbow. I hadn't really expected that many to be down with it, but I was blown away, both by the crowd and by the band. Guy Garvey is like a chubby, ginger Matt Berninger, and his dignified presence and blue-collar gratefulness made this one of the most amiable shows I've been to in a long time! It doesn't hurt that the band's music is utterly beautiful and well suited for the big stage. I sure did miss 'Jesus Is a Rochdale Girl', but other than that, the set was spotless, and both the old and new tunes worked superbly, leaving an enthusiastic crowd chanting endlessly for more - very impressive indeed.


Another front man who was highly ignited was Silas Bjerregaard of Turboweekend. A lot of water has run under the bridge since I first saw this band in matching striped uniforms at Pavilion Junior in 2007, and they have truly become a household name and everyman's delight - which isn't a shame when they reign supremely as one of the indisputably best live acts in the country, successfully maintaining their creative cred while still throwing a party for Mr. Jack & Jones.


And no, I didn't forget Interpol. I'm really grateful I got to see this band while they still have some sort of raison d'être. The choice of songs was heavily favored toward the band's earlier records, with the lion's share being from 2004 masterpiece Antics. I wish they could have played on and on, and could have included a few of their beautiful ballads such as 'Rest My Chemistry' or 'Pioneer To The Falls', but what we got was just lovely!

The Naked and Famous.
(c) Toke Hage, tokehage.dk

Surprisingly, Sunday actually turned out to be the stronger of the two days, with very impressive shows from both Jamie Woon, who was a welcome late afternoon chill pill, and especially from young Kiwi outfit The Naked and Famous. A stereotypical NME hype, Pitchfork hate band, the band's music mightn't be as catchy on record, but it sure worked well live. Nice to see something fresh faced, and a young outfit from an indie also-ran country such as New Zealand giving a fuck about chillwave and indie-folk and playing electronic rock like the rest of us did in the mid 00's!


Finally, let me just take advantage of a chance to bash Band of Horses. Last time I had an incentive to get into their music was when they played at Roskilde in 2008. I tried and wasn't impressed, and I've become a Band of Horses-hater of sorts since then. I was however ready to give them a second chance this time around, considering my own stance on folk has shifted noticeably during the past few years. I realized quickly however, that describing Band of Horses as folk is really a misnomer. They're is just a bunch of pathetic wanks, using their Seattle beard-and-chore shirt cred to obtain the popular "folk"-moniker, when in reality, their music is just pathetic and middle-of-the-road forgettable stadium rock crap!