One of the most popular festivals renowned for thousands of
music lovers gathering every year for their strong desire for revelry and a
thirst for live music performed by some of the world’s biggest bands and
artists, kicked off last weekend. The annual madness began last Friday with
headliners Mumford and Sons certainly making an entrance to the weekend to say
the least.
Mumford and Sons
Photo taken from Huffington Post, photo by Steve Mitchell
The country infused sounding band featuring the prominent use
of banjos, acoustic guitars, cheery keyboard playing and the raspy, heartfelt
vocals of lead singer Marcus Mumford recently dropped their new highly rated album
– Wilder Mind. This third album appears to have changed direction compared to
their normal folky stuff, appearing to have a more rocky sound - the banjos
replaced with electric guitars.
“‘It’s f***ing good
to be back here, we came here for a party!” announces lead singer Marcus as
they appeared on stage. This seemed like a bit of a tall order after the rather
‘middle of the road’ track to kick off their set – Snake Eyes from the new album; however, they managed
to produce a seemingly intimate feel regardless of their crowd of thousands.
Nevertheless, the uplifting classic I Will Wait was to follow, sending the
crowd into flares of excitement and a propensity of excitable of ‘I will
wait’s’ erupted along with the band. The band smoothly followed on with their
classics and some of their new material, with the likes of Little Lion Man
resulting in best mates climbing on each other’s shoulders, arms either
hopefully thrown up in the air or clasping around each other with a strong
sense of unity in the air.
One of the things I favoured from their set was the way in
which they performed with such experience and authority, you could tell that
they were made for playing stadiums, (as they have been doing for a few years
now) and have rightfully earned their spot on the main stage. It’s fair to say that
the band definitely lived up to the hype that was predicted with their full
forced set; overall managing to successfully hype up the audience with one of
the most highlighted performances of the weekend, leading the crowd, not so
gently, into a little taster of what was to come.
Catfish and The Bottlemen
Photo taken from Rolling Stone, photo by John Stone
Following a chaotic year of well earned, rising success, the
band now took to their rightful spot this year on the NME stage. Following in
the footsteps of musical legends such as Oasis, The Strokes, Stereophonics and
The Killers, they say they’re bringing rock n’ roll back. “While everyone else
is trying hard to be different outside the box, we’re staying inside the box and
being dead simple, I think people are respecting that” lead singer, Van Mccann
admitted. They’ve been one of this year’s
breakthrough acts with their Gold selling debut album ‘The Balcony’, released
late last year becoming one of the year’s most memorable- their easy to relate to and conversation-like
lyrics engrave into the minds of the thousands of excitable fans gathered
before them.
“Good evening Reading festival! You don’t know how long we’ve
waited for this” states Van, with a head shake and an almost stunned look on
his face.
“Apparently security are on high alert and we don’t know why”
he naively adds on. After witnessing the chaos first hand after attending one
of their gigs before and having a jacket torn and ripped off me, never to be
seen again and aches and bruises everywhere the next day, I can confidently say
that I do know why.
Peril emerges appearing in the form of an ear melting guitar
solo, greeting the crowd and as a hearty scream from Van rattles throughout the
tent, the band begin on a heavy note as the crowd bouncing hit – Rango begins and
the audience are already going wild. After just a few seconds in, chants engulf
the band as they’re now barely audible due to the audience confidently and
unmistakably repeating the lyrics back as if it’s their second language. It is
easy to see how their album sold so well as the crowd seem to know every word
as if rehearsed.
With the determined band giving it their all as if their
lives depended on it, sweat pours off Van as the battle of who can sing the
loudest continues. A rock and roll line approaches as the command “someone has
to get on that lilo” is shot at the audience by Van, referring to the inflatable
bed being flung around; and yes, of course, someone got on it. An almost
unmissable look of an animal like hunger can be seen in the crowds eyes, veins
bulging out of their necks; they’re giving it all they’ve got yet they’re
trying to give it some more. As the likes of hit singles Kathleen, Homesick and
Fallout are played, (with Van sneakily adding a few lines of the ‘Phonics ‘Bartender
and The Thief’ to the end of Fallout) the wave of overly
energy exerting fans are swayed side to side uncontrollably, packed in like
sardines. This appeared to be one of the weekend’s biggest turnouts as there
were many people spilling out of the tent, just hoping to catch a glimpse of
the carnage.
If you haven’t already heard Catfish’s album - The Balcony, I’d
recommend you give it a listen; with brutally real and every-day-life lyrics
similar to The Streets Mike Skinner, and The Strokes vibes about them, The
Balcony is formed. The polite humbleness
of the band becomes apparent with an array of sincere thank you’s and
bewildered chuckles blurted out here and there throughout their performance - it’s
clear to see how grateful they are. With another a sold out tour commencing
this October and album two on the way, their continued success is almost
inevitable. Mainstage next year? I think so.
Swim Deep
Photo taken from Vogue, photo courtesy of Swim Deep/PR
The five piece band from B-town are due to release their critically
acclaimed second album, Mothers, later this month. With a brave new psychedelic
and 80’s acid house music sound, (with the haircuts and outfits to match) which
has been described by lead singer himself, Austin Williams as “zero gravity
gospel for the masses” in contrast to their more sedative sounds of older hits
such as ‘She changes the weather’ and ‘Honey’. Whilst the new sound is
audacious, I feel that it’s more experimental than the ‘finished product’ of
what their individual sound is going to be like, almost as if this is a ‘growing
up’ stage. However, the few released singles from their new album were a good
listen, with all kinds of exuberant, groovy and sleek tones making you feel
like you want to get up and dance with each song.
The band begin their set with a track from the new album To
My Brother. With Zachary Robinson pounding on the drums adding a slightly
modern and cool sound to the 80’s vibe of the song, creating a whole new genre.
As soon as well-known hits such as Honey begin to play, the crowd sing along
with a chorus of ‘ooh ooh baby’s’. The bands energy and tendency to not stay
still on stage, with Austin dancing as if he’s in the crowd of his own gig, (which
is awesome) only adding to the audiences fuel.
“Say it like a prayer” he says through the chorus; in which
the audience do, reciting lyrics left right and centre. Newer song One Great
Song sounds with the earthy tones of bass guitar rippling throughout the tent,
causing a sea of eyes shut, head bobbing and swaying movements to form.
They seem to really be able to create an atmosphere and have
great stage presence and whilst their set wasn’t entirely pitch perfect, sounding
rather messy and untidy at times, that clearly didn’t knock the confidence of
the band. The atmosphere and feel they created was immense as they hyped up the
crowd. However, I feel as though they didn’t
quite sound as tight as I thought they would and I still feel like they have a
way to go before they can find a sound that makes them appear to feel true to
themselves. Nevertheless, this didn’t affect the audience in any way as they
were all completely up for it. As another headline tour approaches later this
year, the band seem as excited as ever. There’s still some tickets left so I would
definitely recommend getting your hands on some while you still can. Also, the
new album Mothers is out late September and you can pre-order now.
Written by Rosie Mulhern
