7 gigs in 7 days. part two. the apple cart festival.

day 2 basically meant we had to get from west london to east london for the apple cart festival. it was already raining when we left the hotel in shepherd’s bush and as we soon realised, it wouldn’t stop raining that day at all. we were all more or less wishing we would’ve brought our wellies but somehow we still managed to brave the mud and rain, especially since the stages were in tents after all. i already knew before we went to london that the apple cart would definitely be one of my highlights of the week… but more about that further down.

where: victoria park, london

when: 3 june 2012

who: noah and the whale, josh t pearson, billy bragg, gaz coombes, stornoway, marques toliver, beth jeans houghton & the hooves of destiny, adam ant and many more

highlight(s): stornoway

jamie n commons @the spinning wheel stage

due to many different reasons, involving an early (but not early enough) check-in at the hotel, having absolutely no idea which part of the victoria park would be the best to get to the entrance to the festival asap and obviously the rain, we weren’t quite in time for jamie n commons. since he definitely impressed all of us the day before, we wanted to catch his set again which we somehow did – at least the last two (or three?!) songs. nevertheless, his voice is absolutely amazing and again, you’d never expect such a voice when you see him. he probably already surprised many many people before and not just me.

francois & the atlas mountains @the apple cart stage

these guys were only the second band to play the apple cart stage but they already started half an hour late. no idea who’s fault that actually was and i’m not complaining since this gave us a few minutes to check out the entire festival area. once we got back to the stage though francois & the atlas mountains had started but i can’t say i liked them very much. although their drummer seemed to be quite interesting (those were no ordinary drums for sure), nothing else really struck me as interesting at all. but as i soon learned, it could get much worse.

bill wells & aidan moffat @the spinning wheel stage

after we decided that it wasn’t worth staying to see the rest of the francois & the atlas mountains set, we headed back to the spinning wheel stage to catch marcus foster. i think by that time, they were already running a bit late on that stage as well which basically meant that we had to sit through the bill wells & aidan moffat set first. besides the fact that there was one lady at the barrier who was clearly a massive fan, i was dreading proper earplugs. as i found out later, the gentleman "singing" (for me it was more talking to a melody) was aidan moffat and the one on keyboard was bill wells. this didn’t change anything though and the constant swearing on stage just annoyed me even more.

marcus foster @the spinning wheel stage

knowing that i’d be able to see marcus foster at the apple cart festival anyway was probably the best reason not to see him the day before at the hot and sweaty ginglik. i’ve seen him solo before but this time he had his band with him and it clearly added even more to his great sound. even though marcus broke one of his guitar strings right after the first song, him and his band delivered a brilliant (though fairly short) set. he’s got a voice like no one else and is definitely worth checking out.

lianne la havas @the apple cart stage

once marcus foster was done, the only band left on my list was stornoway, so we headed back to the apple cart stage to try and get a good spot in time for their set. of course this meant that we had to see three other acts before though which was not as bad as expected. when we returned to the main stage, lianne la havas was already a few songs into her set. her voice would be great for soul songs but her music was more pop than soul. it was still quite alright though since she had no problem winning the audience over with her charm and big smile. she was clearly very happy to be there and also probably a bit surprised so many people turned up to see her. not sure if her music convinced many people but her stage presence sure did.

billy bragg @the apple cart stage

now billy bragg was actually someone i was not looking forward to very much. having seen him support frank turner earlier this year, i expected another quite boring set. his lyrics might be quite alright (he’s dealing with many political issues in his lyrics) but just him and an electric guitar on stage just didn’t do it for me the first time… and it didn’t really do it for me this time either. i gotta admit though that it was a tiny bit better at the apple cart festival. i just don’t know why. perhaps because the people were really into him, perhaps because the apple cart people released a lot of massive balloons into the audience during his set which clearly everyone enjoyed… i don’t know. i guess billy bragg is one of those musicians who will always try to educate people. does it work? who knows.

kid creole & the coconuts @the apple cart stage

this was the most disturbing set i saw at the apple cart festival (yes, even more disturbing than adam ant). we expected some jamaican reggae-like music and instead got some mafia boss look-a-like in a purple suit with a hat coming from brooklyn. add a couple of half-naked and braless ladies to the mix and you got kid creole & the coconuts. everything else we saw that day was better than that! and the apple cart festival was supposed to be the "family friendly alternative to field day" – yeah, don’t think so.

stornoway @the apple cart stage

moving along to stornoway – the reason why i agreed to go to the apple cart festival in the first place and clearly an highlight before even seeing their set. when my friend recommended the festival, i think she basically just said "stornoway are playing, so i guess you’re in?" and yes, i was. the last stornoway gig i went to was 11 months ago, so i was eager to see them again. they kept saying that they’d debut their brand new songs that day but as it turned out, i knew every song on the setlist, so the songs weren’t BRAND new (at least not to me). i could not have cared less though. i’ve only seen videos of two of the new songs (waiting on the clock and the sixth wave), only heard farewell, appalachia with the north sea radio orchestra and additional female vocals and lead-singer brian briggs normally performed the bigger picture on his own up until apple cart. so all new songs weren’t actually new to me but they were different and i absolutely loved it. but what else is new, right? and of course brian’s little anecdotes about nature and some rather strange incidents that happened all over the world, are always quite fascinating (and make you wonder where on earth he gets this information from). their indie folk sound just grabs me every single time and apparently i wasn’t even the only one who basically only came to see stornoway…

top photo: jon quin, bottom photo: rob steadman

left: brian briggs; right: oli steadman

adam ant & the good, the mad & the lovely posse @the apple cart stage

another one of those acts that i haven’t heard before but judging by what people told me, adam ant has been around for quite a while now. so seeing a 6-year old on his dad’s shoulders in the audience singing along to his songs really surprised me. the best thing about adam ant’s set though? clearly the fact that he had two drummers! absolutely amazing, i definitely approved. i still can’t quite figure out what that lady was supposed to do on stage – she didn’t really sing or dance. but yeah, i guess she was nice to look at. it seemed like every person on stage had some sort of purpose, even though not many of them actually had something to do with the music.

noah and the whale @the apple cart stage

i honestly would’ve left after stornoway (at least moved to a spot further away from the stage) but my friends wanted to see the headliners – noah and the whale.  i’ve never been too fond of them but at the same time i thought it wouldn’t hurt to actually check them out live, so we stayed. i do have a problem with them describing their sound as rock’n’roll, however their live set was quite alright. lead-singer charlie fink seemed to be a bit bored on stage though (but judging by everyone else that was probably only my impression). the audience was almost begging for an encore but i guess due to a curfew, they weren’t allowed back on stage. in the end i actually enjoyed their live set. however, once i got back home and checked out their albums, i was sitting here just as bored as charlie appeared to be on stage. looks like it’s gonna take me a while to really get into these guys but they were still pretty good headliners – although i would’ve preferred stornoway.