second day of competition fails to usurp eventual winner
Glastonbury Festival Emerging Talent Competition 2010
Wednesday 31st March 2010
With the clocks having flown forward an hour the venue is busy early on the second night and we're reminded of the presence of the camera filming the event for tonight's live streaming before the judges and then the first band are introduced.
Tom Williams & the Boat come from Tunbridge Wells. With six of them on stage they just squeeze onto the small stage. They bring well crafted anti-folk songs - think Frank Turner backed by a young Waterboys, charming and masterful and rather wryly written. They're songs are well structured and the mastery of their musical instruments makes them a likeable act that is sure to be coming soon to a festival near you.
Tiger Shadow are up next and a bit of a surprise, they have a video to accompany their live trip hop, with real drums and bass accompanying the vocal raps of Komla MC. It's old school flavoured and reminds me of PM Dawn in their upbeat rhythms. It sounds terrific but their suits and ties kind of give them a wedding band image which I can't shake off despite their sound offering so much more. They're also the first band to ever bring visuals to the Emerging Talent Contest.
Mayhew take up the reins before the midway break and offer us accomplished folk music, there's a lot on offer this year. Theirs is a mellow warm quiet ambient affair, in the main, surprising considering the number of them on stage. The young band offer much promise with their quietly constructed songs and are sure to do well on the folk scene in the future especially with songs about the open seas.
The Secret Cinema Band are a surprise. They take to the stage after the break and offer a mix of visuals from films like Charlie Chaplin's 'The Great Dictator' and Hitchcock's 'THe Birds' alongside a soaring sonic wall of sound and sometime fragile bleakness alongside a vocal style that screams of Pearl Jam, Bloc Party, and Therapy?. It's more Reading and Leeds than Glastonbury but personally I enjoy the mix and tonight it's something a bit different. Even more so with a violin replacing the more usual four strings of a bass. A band that's a proper live experience, as you really have to see them live to realise they're experimenting in mixing their sound with film - both the image and the soundtrack. It's at times a hard hitting particularly with Chaplin's Fuhrer speech, and an almost slick electronic feel more suited to hard white light, strobes and smoke. They have none tonight and their dark undertow is better suited to rock festivals where they're sure to win fans.
Let's Buy Happiness are on more familiar ground and their stand out asset is lead singer Sarah Hall's amazing voice. The band and music around it however provide less sparkle, I can hear where they're going with their low key harmonies, and clever lyrics but that post punk Americana bliss isn't quite sparking here tonight, though the crowd are enjoying it none the less, and with a voice like Sarah's the band have the potential to deliver in the future.
Last up are Southampton's Montage Populaire who bring what seemed to me was rather alt 80s inspired indie pop mix to close the evening. Again this young band display a lot of promise but tonight they deliver nothing that makes them stand out from the rest of the acts who performed.
The judges dissappear off to decide, although it's a fairly foregone conclusion with Ellen And The Escapades the name on everybody's lips, and sure enough the judges don't take long and festival organiser Michael Eavis gets up on stage and announces the winner of a main stage slot is indeed Ellen And The Escapades and that six other bands will also play at this year's festival.
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