Wheeler Street's seven piece musical mix debuts on Avalon Stage
Glastonbury 2009 review
Thursday 2nd July 2009
This lot are a fresh-faced emerging band from somewhere in Kent. It is their first Glastonbury, having recently undertaken their first national tour, so things are heading in the right direction for their folk-rock take on the world. Compare Scary Dave (aka Hobo Jones) seems well-chuffed to be introducing an act local to him, there's lots of nods from the band to faces they know in the crowd, and as a collective the band seem to be handling the Glasto-debut nerves. As it goes, they hardly play a wrong note, and plenty of right ones.
The curiosity of their performance is that the band have a variety of different styles of music on show, some of which seem to be fighting each other even during the same song. Maybe that's the influence of seven different musicians on stage, but the folk influence is clearly present, sometimes there’s stadium rock, one song is definitely ska, and there's an indie band also trying to break free not least through one song with vocals far too low in the mix. But their strengths include a moment in another song when all the instruments stop and they perform a delightful 4-part harmony. Any set would benefit from more of that. And they do play it tightly. Tunes coast along then do something just a little unexpected here and there, with none of the band messing up the deviation.
I lose track of what song was what and when. 'Raggle Taggle Gypsy' sounds awfully familiar albeit bass heavy. Not sure if it intentionally sounds like 'The Devil Went Down to Georgia' towards the end, but it's a rouser either way. There's a song about a Polly that's nothing to do with Nirvana and probably lots to do with an untimely folk death. However it's a fiddle solo towards the end that finally get the sun-drenched loungers off their feet and into a jig. It might be called 'The Rochdale Coconut Dance' or it might be an in-joke but it's an energizer.
So overall it's a decent enough debut from this promising act. I have images of them working very well late night in the Avalon café; alas we have to wait until next time for the band to get around the various festival stages large and small. Just need to sort out the best bits of their eclectic sound and focus more on those areas. Stadium-Folk anyone?
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