Reviewed on 31st August 2005.

Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies

Live at Leeds Festival 2005 on Saturday, 27th August 2005

Quickly cast aside as quite frankly preposterous any mistaken apprehension that the hushed rumours and tales whispering their way around the Red and Yellow campsites on Saturday morning were of Maiden's amazingly iconic 'Number Of The Beast', Bloc Party's 'Pioneers', aftershow craziness, or even, god forbid you little scamps, the prospect of going to the Aftershock Bar later to more-than-hopefully (with all fingers, toes and, ahem, everything crossed) catch a glimpse of a naked girl in the jacuzzi (not that you could see anything though, I did make it my duty to do a little research). No, not at all; the word on the muddy path and in the morning queue for the toilets (eww!) was of severely aching limbs and in particular mine. And my left butt was dead. I made sure everyone knew of my pains; you must have heard. Those in the know lay blame squarely with Friday's frantic expressions of love for all things danceable, most notably Maximo Park and The Futureheads ... oh yes, much fun, but boy, oh boy, are we suffering for it today ... !

As The Black Velvets wake up the happy campers by throwing out chunky riffs, rock poses, howls and wails (cock rock gets no better than the feeling of being drawn helplessly towards the mighty 'Get On Your Life' like a teenage girl towards a freshly purchased litre tub of Carte D'or Triple Chocolate Chip & Cookie ice cream, a spoon and a weepy movie) it takes the delicate, heart-tugging vocals of a beautiful waif (will somebody puurlease feed him?) named Ali Whitton and his angelic viola player Naomi (swigging neat from a Jack Daniels bottle... yes boys, it truly was a marry-me-now moment) to fully recover from the excesses of the night before. So with warm, gooey feelings of adoration captured in the glowing expressions of a hundred or more, folk head off on their merry way to pass it on like the infectious, but friendly virus it is.

If you were to try and recall just one solitary bit of useful information from this weekend, it must be that a girl adores a cowbell. Even better if they catch a fleeting glimpse of you treating it like a member of the family, treasuring it and recognising its absolute dominance over will, lust, and involuntary leg movements like an inhabitant of Middle Earth having one of The Nine Rings in their possession; of course, you must also give your cowbell a name, girls will expect it to have a name... obviously.

The crazed percussionist of five piece The Infadels owns a cowbell (he codenamed it "Richie") and it makes him the centre of all attention. As frontman Bnann bounds around stage front, our claver is an absolute freak (in the oh-my-what-a-star sense) at the back, mesmerically leaping over and over, sometimes several feet in the air, before crashing down on a keyboard, a cowbell, a dustbin lid, or whatever else he has to hand. The Infadels are a pounding, high octane mix of electro-punk, dance and rock (perhaps even an occasional nod towards The Faint or The Rapture) leaving mayhem and carnage on the dancefloor and when the acid face on a stick is produced the jitterbugging crowd quite appropriately 'Can't Get Enough'...

... forwards, upwards, onwards ... whichever way you look at it, to deny Nine Black Alps their Nirvana flashbacks would be to deny The Subways their appearance on The OC, so yup, whilst the girls know that the sweet, boyish good looks of guitarist Billy are not for sale ("every girl wants their very own Billy Lunn", or so the adage goes) and the boys appreciate that Charlotte is two parts eye-candy, one part vocals, one part bass (but no parts their Rock & Roll Queen), all of the five thousand cosily crammed into the NME/Radio One Stage recognise that the Welwyn Garden trio are a fantastically energetic live band but with very little substance to their storytelling. A sensational set (just listen to the kids singing "Oh Yeah, Oh Yeah!" ... wow) with fresh, high-powered singalong songs, all blending to generate a fuck-yeah enjoyment factor. Yet there's very little danger of The Subways stirring that part of your consciousness kicked, battered, mauled and fought over yesterday by The Futureheads' lyric-mastery like a gaggle of preschoolers with only a single bag of penny sweets ... sugar, sweets, oh marshmallows, mmm, now there's a festival memory!

With Pixies later stealing the day (hearts pound, tears are jerked, 'Gigantic' is immense - "A big, big love..." is the most apt expression of the entire weekend, nay year, so incredible it was), the final word should be reserved for Youthmovie Soundtrack Strategies keeping the party going by showcasing post-rock soundtracks over some most-captivating visuals on the Cabaret Stage. I Thankye YMSS and Goodnight x.

Comments

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On 31st August 2005 at 18:12 Anonymous 4205 wrote...

The YMSS was well wicked wasn't it. The Cabaret tent really was the place to be once all the bands had finished.

On 31st August 2005 at 21:32 Anonymous 2832 wrote...

The Faint! The Faint! You mentioned The Faint! Oh, I'm so happy!

What a brilliant review; once again, as for the Friday one, I laughed so hard I cried