Field Day
Yesterday I attended Field Day in Victoria Park in the rain. Chris and I spent most of the day at the Homefires Stage. Particularly good were:
- Tunng — massively enthusiastic and talented modern folk group. Great performers, moving songs (esp. Jenny Again — lyrics on this page).
- Jeffrey Lewis — perhaps the highlight of the day. Wonderful lyrics and delivery (the Williamsburg Will Oldham Horror! The Last Time I Did Acid I Went Insane!), and complete with a silly illustrated song about the Creeping Brain. Highly recommended.
- Alasdair Roberts — Melancholy Scottish folk occasionally segueing into drone/shoegazer-noise (whee!).
- Efterklang — Somewhere between Sigur Ros and Sufjan Stevens. Quite a big group — nine or so people? — and they wore capes!
- King Creosote (with Pictish Trail) — Guitar and harmonies. Plus a dirty sing-a-long song to finish.
For some reason, the stage was more than an hour behind schedule all day, but we didn't much mind, having nowhere in particular else to be. In the intervals when we sampled others of the many delights on offer we managed to catch part of Lightspeed Champion's performance (I wasn't paying much attention), part of Richie Hawtin's set (lumpy, crowded, good visuals, average sound) and the end of Foals' set (undistinguished pop a la mode, carefully coiffed, styled, packaged and presented; maybe check back if they ever do anything original[1]). Apparently there was a whole village-fete style thing happening elsewhere in the park which I managed to completely miss — I shall have to check that out next year.
In terms of new music, and things slightly out of the ordinary, Field Day has been a great success. Great fun.