I’m no churchgoer, but figured Sunday should perhaps be something of a day of rest after taking in the best part of the set of some 18 acts. For the sake of my aching legs, I elected to skip the lower orders and made straight for the Duke’s Stage for LITTLEMORES’ half past 3 slot. There’s a lot to be said for their brand of guitar-driven indie with a strong Ska leaning and equally strong Northern attitude. The jaunty delivery belies the serious aspects of their kitchen sink vignettes and sociopolitical observation, although snappy lines about ‘getting taxed on a lukewarm pasty’ leavens the mood in a set about local lads joining the BNP and the like.
A friend of mine’s been raving about TRAVELLING BAND for some time now, and as I respect his musical judgement by and large (apart from where Puressence are concerned, but no matter), figured I should check them out. I’m glad I did: accomplished, entertaining and pleasingly diverse, they may have got a bit Paul Simon toward the middle of the set, but then the heavens opened and I elected to take cover rather than butch it out, making my way to the Firkin stage – which was where I’d been headed next anyway.
The tent was packed out, but I managed to squeeze my way to a space in the middle while RYAN SPENDLOVE was still completing his soundcheck. Ryan – or Ralph, as the compere referred to him repeatedly throughout his lengthy introduction, much to his subsequent embarassment – Spendlove’s between-song chit-chat is far better than he gives himself credit for, and his heartfelt acoustic songs aren’t bad either. By his own (slightly beer-fuelled) admission, he sings ‘songs about girls’: many are sad, some are wry and others reflective, but they’re all sung with a real passion, and the fact he’s already earmarked for the main stage next year is testament to the quality of his performance.
Tempted as I was by SETH LAKEMAN, I decided to take a break, get a drink – Galtres is a beer festival, after all – and get comfy on a straw bail in front of the Oxman stage to watch BOSS CAINE. The band’s fluid lineup – they’re more of a collective than a band – which centres around Daniel Lucas had swelled to stage-filling proportions, and featured a roll-call of local luminaries, including KARLOS SENÓR, SARAH HORN and...AND THE HANGNAILS’ Martyn Fillingam. With the players numbering 7? 8? 9? (it was hard to tell it was so crowded up there) and the lineup only being cemented a short time before the performance, the sound was remarkably clear and they sounded like they’d been playing together for years. The alt.country / folk arrangements provided the perfect foil for Lucas’ brilliantly vivid world-weary tales, all delivered in his distinctively gravelly Leonard Cohen-esque tones.
I’ve never been a fan of BILLY BRAGG, and having seen him at Radio 1’s Great British Music weekend in 1992, really wasn’t feeling the need to see him again. His heart’s in the right place and all that, but I prefer my left-wing political sloganeering with a bit more melody. By the sound of things, he hadn’t got around to buying himself a new guitar tuner since the last time I saw him, so I decided to check out DAVID LAWRIE on the Firkin stage.
Oh dear. I dunno, it’s oft said that if you’ve nothing nice to say then it’s better to say nothing, but that isn’t how reviewing works. So, after an epic soundcheck that saw David and his cohorts start the set almost half an hour late, our patience was rewarded with... something terrible. I know high art when I see it, and I have absolute respect that, but I can also tell pretentious guff when I see it. The chances are that Lawrie can’t see much of anything, as his head slowly dissappeared into his own anus while he wailed and groaned his way through some awkward-sounding material, to a rapidly diminishing crowd. I made my exit via the beer tent, in time to catch Billy Bragg play a horribly atonal ‘New England’ and wrap his set up with a gag about tea which carried the predictable punchline ‘all proper tea is theft’. Ok, so I just wish I’d thought of it first.
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There could only be one headliner to watch on Sunday night, and that was ADAM ANT. I’d clocked a fair few Ant Fans around during the day, with their devotion marked by T-shirts, face paint and even a monumentally large tattoo of his face on one woman’s shoulder / back. It’s easy to forget just how massive he was in the early 80s. He had four top 3 hits in the UK in 1981, including back-to-back number one singles in the shape of ‘Stand and Deliver’ and ‘Prince Charming’. Of all of the artists to emerge from punk, Adam Ant was one of the most commercially successful, and one of the few to become a bona fide pin-up, while still making decent records as a pop artist. His troubled times in the 90s can’t change the fact that Adam Ant was an iconic character in the true sense of the word, and a real one-off to boot. His return has indeed been a welcome one, and his performance here didn’t disappoint. He may be a little girthier than in his poster-boy days, but he’s still in good voice and every inch the showman. His current band, The Good, the Mad and the Lovely Posse are tight and know how to rock it. Happily delving into the farther reaches of his back-catalogue to crank out a selection of choice cuts, all propelled by that distinctive dual-drum barrage, it was an exhilarating performance. ‘Kings of the Wild Frontier’ was particularly beefy, while ‘Ant Music’ ‘Stand and Deliver’ and ‘Prince Charming’ and ‘Goody Two Shoes’ still sound great. You just don’t get pop tunes like that any more. On a personal level, I was particularly pleased he closed the set with a thumping rendition of ‘Physical (You’re So)’.
Adam leading his posse in a hands-joined bow marked a fitting conclusion to the festival, and certainly saw the weekend end on a high. Galtres might not have as many big-name draws as Leeds, but given the choice, I’d much rather get close enough to actually see the bands, and besides, bigger most definitely doesn’t mean better – although when it comes to an impressive selection of local ales, Galtres is definitely bigger and better. More of the same next year, please!
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