Wickerman, Part I

Marcus Kernohan

– 23 Aug 2009Posted in: Festivals, Live reviews

Venue: Summerisle Stage, Wickerman Festival
Date: 24th July 2009

Day one of Wickerman 2009 kicked off in rude health, with a vibrant set from local indie-ska band The Common Empire on the main stage. The Dumfries quintet delivered a lively, dynamic show to an appreciative crowd. Brass licks and skank-worthy guitar riffs drew a large audience, and warmed them up in style. It’s relatively rare for an opening act to play with such verve, but they certainly pulled it off. Early crowd favourites The Dangleberries, a 12-piece pipes and drums band, received a raucous response to their contemporary take on traditional Scottish music. Particularly well-received was an eccentric version of The Zutons’ “Valerie”, that could have easily put Amy Winehouse’s cover to shame.

Eclectic sets from New York alt-folk eccentrics O’Death and Anglo-Dutch indietronica duo Party Horse continued a superb first-day lineup on the Summerisle Stage. We chatted to both bands backstage, and will bring you the interviews shortly.

Undoubtedly the highlight of Friday – and for me, a high point of the entire festival – was a Scottish festival exclusive set from the Big Nosed Bard of Barking, folk-punk pioneer Billy Bragg. Performing his entire set solo, I’ve never seen someone hold a crowd’s attention with such ease. Opening with “To Have And To Have Not”, and working his way through a hit-list of classic tracks (culminating in a massive rendition of “A New England”), a devoted audience hung on his every word. Bragg’s stage banter oscillated between the wry (“There’s a DJ set going on over there, but I’m fucked if I’ll let some geezer playing records be louder than me!”) and the rabble-rousing (making the case for political reform before performing his new protest song “Constitution Hill”). Watching such a superb set, I couldn’t help but feel that Bragg is an artist who should rarely be second-billed to anyone.

With the sun slowly cooking the growing main-stage audience, Idlewild took to the stage. Sporting a grizzly beard and clutching his Gibson SG, guitarist Rod Jones launched into Make Another World‘s “In Competition For the Worst Time”; a fine song, but the little-known album opener seemed an odd choice to begin the set with, ultimately receiving a somewhat tepid response from the otherwise willing crowd. However, things turned around somewhat once the band moved on to “You Held the World In Your Arms” and set-regulars “When I Argue I See Shapes”, “Love Steals Us From Loneliness”, and “Little Discourage”. These were performed with sincerity and precision, while tracks from the band’s commercial high water-mark, The Remote Part, were greeted with mass adoration. Two songs from the delightful new album, Post-Electric Blues, also received an airing (upcoming single “Readers & Writers” and album highlight “City Hall”). The unfamiliar tracks elicited a warm response from the audience (I noted two middle-aged-and-inebriated men singing along with admirable passion and vigour). Ultimately, it was a hit-heavy set from the five-piece; a satisfying slice of Scottish rock which was met with appreciation by a fervent crowd.

The headline performance that night came from ’70s synth-pop band The Human League. Having seen them perform before, I should have known better than to be cynical. Susan Sulley’s vocals in chart hit “Don’t You Want Me?” felt a little flat, but Phil Oakey is a surprisingly commanding stage-presence, and the crowd response to encore performance “Electric Dreams” was incredible. They may be camp, and it’s easy to dismiss them as one-hit wonders, but their flamboyant live-show and feel-good vibe had a thousands-strong audience dancing in the darkness.