I did like Camber, another trio. Lead singer in front of me had a good voice. But just a little pedestrian indie. Maybe by this stage my palate was jaded. I know this is a perverse thing to say, but having a whole series of indie music acts in just about exactly my taste range does also mean that monotony sets in. Maybe you can have too much of a good thing!
But then in came Boxing Club and they were just that little bit different. Slightly more mature bunch of guys - a six piece group with a keyboardist and singer who just sang. And my word what a powerful voice.
The drummer actually came up to me after the set and we had a chat. I asked him about how hard it was to get on the bill at festivals. They had played the Isle of Wight, and won a competition to play a festival in Scotland
Now, I had chosen to watch all the acts on the main stage. They did also have an acoustic stage outside, but generally artists just strumming guitars are not my thing. And it was 30C and while they had a canopy over the acts, the audience were exposed to the pitiless sun. And when I say "audience" I really mean where the audience would be if there had been one. Sometimes one talks about artists playing to an empty room, but this guy didn't even have a room!
The chap was Matt Hennessy and I went out because he had a really nice voice, the songs were better than average, and I felt sorry for the guy. He soldiered on chatting to his non-existent crowd, and I thought he was really very decent. Chatted to him afterwards and he said he had a gig on 3 September with his band in Hoxton, so I might go to that. (Although Hoxton is rather too trendy for the likes of me to be let in!)
Back inside for the headline act, although I had never heard of them before, Castells. However clearly other people had. This was the only act of the day which played to a relatively full auditorium. Just to explain the photos below, I started standing at the front to get some good shots, then headed to the back where the sound was better.
Seeing them I could well understand why Castells topped the bill. I wish the earlier acts had stayed around just to see how they did what they did but better. Ok better songs but in addition the lead singer had a good strong voice but didn't just belt out songs, he spoke to the audience, but not in a self promotional way or crowd rousing manner, but a friendly "thank you for coming" sort of way. And the drummer and the lead singer both took their shirts off - the lead singer to some acclaim as he really did have a decent torso. And one could see from every act of the day how hot it was. I mean it was warm in the audience, but clearly on stage it was a proper ordeal!
So as you can see, after photos at the front I relinquished my normal spot for one towards the back - sound quality much better, view a little worse.
Fortunately my zoom allowed me to take some good shots although I had to get camera over the heads in front of me!
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