Saturday

Back To Haunt Us, Part One: A year ago we saw Jeremy Hughes busking before the 2008 festival started, and suggested that he was better than many of the official artists.  We’re certainly not deluded enough to think that his presence as half of Moon Leopard has anything to do with that observation, but they are the ideal opener to the festival, encapsulating the strengths of this year’s best bookings: approachable, handmade, rootsy, melodic and with a pleasing absence of pretension.  The aforementioned Hughes (who looks like a gentle cross between a blasted hippy and Dumbledore’s understudy – you’d recognise him even if you don’t know him) adds chiming, lucent guitar lines to Julie Burrett’s rhythm and vocals on a selection of relaxed Americana tunes.  The set might contain more noodles than Norris McWhirter’s chilli ramen, and Burrett’s voice may occasionally drop into a mildly grating whinny, but they do manage to turn “Big Yellow Taxi” into a subtle waft, hanging in the air like a Texarkana blacktop heathaze, and many moments of the performance are implausibly lovely.

The Inventions Of Jerry Darge is a glorious development on Moon Leopard’s opening gambit, taking us further into the mid-west, and playing an even more ethereal set.  Theirs is a blurred, intoxicating sonic mist, sounding like a sleepy mixture of country balladry and vintage shoegaze.  Gram Parsons fronts Slowdive, if you will, with added ‘cello and a guitar with tolling bells dangling from the headstock.  A barely audible vocal even adds to the woozy effect.  We’re so floored by the allegation that this is a Deguello side project that we check the programme twice and order a strong coffee.

Ah, yes, the coffee.  Non-musical festival highlight is the excellently named Diplomat’s Coffee, served by a dapper, well-spoken chap with a gentility that belies the drizzly surroundings.  Presumably a Rocher pyramid is available on demand.  We chat about whether the toddlers in the crèche adjacent to his stand will prove louder and more difficult to handle than the musicians on the stage opposite. Probably a draw, all things considered.

Ex-members of Mondo Cada shock us slightly less than the Deguello boys with new act Ruins.  They play deep fried, artery clogging rock, with plenty of passion and intensity.  However, not only does the under-powered vocal mike cause them more detriment than Jerry Darge, but the bass and drums duo is becoming an increasingly over-stuffed corner of the rock spectrum, and they may have to come up with something else to make a mark.  A decent listen all the same.

“No one can hear you scream”, alleges Thin Green Candles‘ Elm Tree referencing track.  That’s as may be – it certainly sounds like none of the band can hear each other, such are the wild variations in tuning and time-keeping.  But whilst “tidy”, or even “vaguely proficient”, are terms highly unlikely to be applied to TGC in the foreseeable future, their twisted, hallucinogenic, paranoid techno rock actually gains from being a bit out of whack.  Listening to their set is like watching a 3D film without the special glasses – you’re not likely to follow the plot, but you might have a whale of a time all the same. 

We’d completely forgotten we saw Jamie Foley’s adequate semi-acoustic rock combo, until we wrung the beer out of the notebook.  That probably speaks volumes, though what we can actually recall was pleasant enough.  The fader for the vocal channel seemed to have been located by this time, but the effect was negligible, as the singing was an incomprehensible slur somewhere between Damien Rice and Rab C Nesbitt.  The last tune reminded us unexpectedly of Pearl Jam, and we conclude that it’s all decent, but not for us.

Music For Pleasure were forced to pull out of the gig, so Dave Bowmer is promoted to the main stage, widdling away on his Chapman stick, whilst a chum clatters about on a percussion rack that seems to be primarily constructed from biscuit tins and washing up liquid bottles, placing him equidistant between Pink Floyd’s Nick Mason and Blue Peter‘s Yvette Fielding.  Pretty easy to ridicule this sort of polite mid-80s fusion (especially when they have a reggae tune celebrating hippy Volkswagen vans called – wait for it – “V Dub”), but the playing is able without being ostentatious, and the arrangements are intricate without being poncy, and Dave ends up as our surprise hit of the weekend.

“This does sound very heavy, but it’s certainly not classical,” says a man walking near us back towards the second stage, who has clearly misread the programme slightly.  This turns out to be the sound of Punt favourites Desert Storm, who turn in some top notch, Pantera influenced metal.  “Roaches feed on my brain,” growls Matt Ryan; we dare say, but they’ll probably find your black gravelly larynx less digestible.

There are three glaring reasons why you shouldn’t name your band Flutatious: 1) It’s a frankly unforgivable pun, 2) “Flautatious” would be more eloquent, if you really must go down that route, and 3) it’s liable to be misspelt in listings until the end of time. Lo and behold, the official Riverside T-shirt claims that “Flutations” played, although seeing as this was just one of a wopping seven errors, we suppose it’s immaterial.   They’re a surprisingly good band, though, cooking up a crusty shuffle that loosely recalls Afro-Celt Soundsystem, with plenty of fiery folky fiddle and (duh) flute.  Unlikely to make the transition for balmy afternoon field to dank city centre basement well, but plenty of fun at the time.

Back To Haunt Us, Part Two:  Just a few weeks ago we claimed that given a large enough festival stage, Inlight could make a huge impact.  Well, OK, we didn’t find ourselves transported with bliss at the section of their set we caught, but it was a good listen. They do have a well thought out, wide-angled sound, that’s neither over-egged nor emptily bombastic, but once again we felt that the songs lacked depth, even if they were well-played.  A note on the Wishing Tree read “I wish the world were one big sweet”.  If you think like this, you’ll adore Inlight; if you find the very concept of a Wishing Tree to be fatuous claptrap, then you can come and scowl in the corner with us.

Back To Haunt US, Part Three: In last years; review we hoped that Death Of A Small Town (FKA script) could hold onto their rhythm section for long enough to get their wonderful baroque pop across to the people of Oxfordshire.  Sadly personal issues mean that the whole band can’t be present today, but Pete Moore and Corinne Clark put in the effort and turn up with an unrehearsed set of songs for piano and guitar.  Several thousand marks out of ten for not letting the organisers down, but the reserved, slightly hesitant set won’t be one for the annals. 

A recent viewing of the 2004 Riverside DVD reminded us how good Smilex can be, but this year’s show blew that old recording out of the water.  Recent claims that their show is becoming more grown up and less theatrical only serve to remind us that everything’s relative: yes, there is no full frontal nudity or bloodshed during the performance, but the rest of their comic-book punk maelstrom is all present and correct, thankfully.  Mind you, Lee Christian’s eye-jarring lime shirt and purple satin jacket make him look like a gameshow host in Hades, and we almost prefer him half naked.  Almost.  Anyway, none of that matters when the music is so great, with sleazerock hooks tossed onto monumental glam punk rhythms, and Tom Sharp’s formidable guitar (his technical ability is sorely under-rated, but then again does a band that looks like a massacre in clown town want people stroking chins over their technique?).  Even if they don’t like the music, locals can amuse themselves by shouting “Sorry, Trev” every time Lee swears.           

After a quick burst of Winnebago Deal‘s palate cleansing bludgeon, we check in with Oxfordshire’s other favourite duo, as Little Fish crank up on the main stage.  Reviewing them makes us feel like some Oxford music Grinch – no matter how good they clearly are, nor how entertaining their set is, we just can’t see them conquering the world and changing the face of music as we know it, as so many people seem to expect.  A topic for another day, perhaps, as they certainly don’t put a foot wrong onstage (although not talking breathless nonsense about chickens between every song might be nice), and Juju and Nez are definitely the only people performing today who look like they were born to be onstage: they manage to eclipse the spectacle of Smilex’ caffeinated cabaret just by, you know, being there.    In fact, far from being the authors of life affirming pop anthems, we think of Little Fish more as old fashioned craftspeople.  The songs are pretty much all two chord bashes, with little more than repeated blues rock yelps over the top, and they don’t really say or do anything at all, but they are gorgeously honed and shaped and whittled to perfection.  Less like the universal soul poetry of the much referenced Patti Smith, then, and more analogous to expert niche electronica producers, creating generic yet immaculate music for the discerning connoisseur.

“We’re very lucky to have them,” announces the Riverside MC about the closing act.  Wait, is it a reunited Morrissey and Marr?  Has Beefheart been coaxed out of retirement?  No, it’s Tristan & The Troubadours, some lads from down the road. Keep some perspective, love. But admittedly they’ve come a very long way since they opened the main stage two years ago, and now offer a very confident set, replete with literate lyrics and interesting arrangements, something like Belle & Sebastian’s early effete library pop filtered through the matinee rock of locals Witches and Borderville. Very good indeed, and a fitting end to what had been a hugely satisfying afternoon of music – and all for blinking free, lest we forget.  Some acts made more impression than others admittedly, but there was literally nothing on the bill deserving harsh criticism, and it was a pleasure from start to finish. The effort that goes into the festival should be applauded by all right-minded music fans.