27 July 2008 (gig)
28 July 2008
Ash
Lemonheads
Get Cape Wear Cape Fly
Always put this date in your diary. The Ben & Jerry ice cream marketing team must have a direct line to the creator as the weather is always invariably fabulous for this festival they sponsor. As well as being one of the more reasonably priced outdoor events, it also boasts a decent line up of musical talent and this year proved to be no exception.
Sunday’s headliners were Downpatrick’s finest export since relics of the Irish patron saint were peddled outside on the streets outside St Paul’s cathedral. The guys complained of being tired because of all the recent travelling they had been doing. But a couple of gigs on the west coast of Ireland was hardly coast-to-coast America and thankfully their stage presence was full of the energy that we have come to expect from the trio.
Their set was littered with hits – Goldfinger, Kung Fu, Girl from Mars et al were all enthusiastically received by masses. However the day belonged to the Lemonheads. It was a pleasure to see mercurial frontman Evan Dando blinking and shielding his eyes from the hot orange thing in the sky. 'It’s a really light occasion but it’s really dark music – it’s an interesting concept,' he muttered laconically. For a man who was known to have struggled with problems with hard drugs in the mid-'90s, and indeed, was the cause of a dearth in his music for nearly a decade, this could have proved problematical. But he took the bull by the horns and dished out some raw, stripped down and dirty dock n’ roll that soon had the diaspora of music fans flocking close to the stage.
The title track of the soon to be released new album is terrific – I just didn’t catch the name. The band were joined onstage for the last few numbers by former Only Ones axe-man John Perry. He is apparently putting melodic overdubs on some of the album’s tracks, but here he was unfortunately another guitarist on another planet as he struggled to decipher the Dando chord sequences. No matter. The Lemonheads are back at what they do best. Producing raw rock n roll for the disaffected youth. It’s nice to not have to grow up.
Get Cape Wear Cape Fly, aka Southend boy Sam Duckworth, failed to spark. His drawn out understated songs, despite being bolstered by a horn section, threatened at some stages to send the crowd into a sun drenched slumber.
A great Sunday on the common.
