Hop Farm Festival 2009

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This year Hop Farm offered up three stages and two days of music, but despite three acts constantly playing at the same time, there were hardly any actual clashes to worry about. Having The Fratellis as one of the headliners is bad enough, but a Stage One bill littered with ‘highlights’ such as The View, The Rifles, Mystery Jets, Pigeon Detectives and The Twang tells its own story. On the bright side, the poor bill meant a poor turn out, so those of us that bothered got a blazing hot weekend with hardly any queuing for beer or food. Marvellous.

Day 1

Florence & The Machine were the first band to really make a main stage impact, after the painfully dull Howling Bells and the good but not really main stage material Noah & The Whale. Flo and her machine produce hippy dippy nonsense really, but thoroughly enjoyable and believable hippy nonsense. The latest in a long line of Kate Bush-a-likes, her voice is genuinely powerful, the band is tight and it’s great in-a-field music. ‘Kiss With a Fist’ is the real stand out, adding a rocky edge and a bit of Kate Nash to make it that bit more interesting than the rest.

Next up were Echo & The Bunnymen, followed by Ash, and suddenly we were at a festival. Both bands hit the crowd running, furnished us with the sing-a-long hits we wanted, and in return got the receptions they deserved. The Bunnymen arrived with ‘Rescue’ and closed with ‘Killing Moon’ and ‘The Cutter’, while Ash started on ‘Girl From Mars’ and signed off with ‘Burn Baby Burn’. That’s what it’s all about.

Low turnouts tend to be bad for all bands, and the smaller stages are no exception. The Dance Tent didn’t get going at all on the Saturday, but the Third Stage managed some notable successes. The Joy Formidable showed the growing hype around them is well placed with a blistering, beautiful and sometimes brutal set. They mix the ethereal beauty of twee nineties shoegazers with the more extreme MBV end of the genre: accessible yet ever so slightly unhinged and unpredictable.

Both Bell X1 (yawn) and White Denim (please tell me it is a terrible, terrible joke at my expense) failed to convert me in any way shape or form, but Sunshine Underground proved worthy small stage headliners. It’s all a bit eighties riff and bass heavy, with a clear PIL vocal slant in places, but they pushed all the right buttons and send the tent home happy.

Day 2

Burn The Negative got Sunday off to a good start in a sadly near empty (again) Dance Tent. It’s unashamed eighties electro pop but done really well, with big bass sounds – both keys and strings – to the fore. With a busy festival season ahead of them, I wouldn’t be too surprised to see these guys making more of a mark this year.

Taking the eighties vibe on a completely different tangent were Sergeant. They’ll hate me saying it, but they were really cute – it was like watching a Scottish sixth form band pay tribute to Madchester. But it’s not meant as an insult, as they were right on it – plenty of Las, a bit of Mondays, loads of sixties pop nous, plenty of tunes and a bit of attitude. Sergeant are definitely ones to watch.

I did my best to watch a bit of The Rifles, Ladyhawke and Mystery Jets, but with the notable exception of Ladyhawke’s ‘My Delirium’ (comfortably the biggest sing-a-long of the afternoon) and the Mystery Jets’ general enthusiasm, it was all massively uninspiring.

Luckily, this meant I got to see Fight Like Apes and Dananananackroyd instead. Both did a good job of filling the Third Stage and gave the kind of live shows they’ve become famous for – humour, energy, general bedlam and plenty of crowd participation (even if its just passing various band members over their heads, or being stared at accusingly by beardy hand-clapping keyboard monkeys). Fight Like Apes do a cracking version of Mclusky’s ‘Lightsaber Cocksucking Blues’ and if you can imagine a female fronted keyboard heavy version of said band, you’re in the right ballpark. Glaswegian post hardcore popsters Fight Like Apes bounce like loons, shout like loons and generally, well, you get the picture. The frontman spent about half the set either in or on the crowd, screaming his head off, before getting back on stage to cajole in a soft Scottish accent. Catch these bands live if you haven’t already – they deserve their reputations.

Next up were 65 Days of Static, which was a shame as the last two were hard acts to follow. On their day, 65DoS are my favourite live band on the circuit right now, but they didn’t quite nail it today. I can’t help thinking recent sets have lacked a little of the atmosphere of the older shows, with more sledgehammer immediacy and less subtlety. The continued move away from the Mogwai mould to a more electronic sound is working on one level, but I can’t help think it might damage the whole. Time will tell, but they’re still one of the best live bands around.

After about ten minutes of Editors, I headed off to a now thankfully rampant Dance Tent for two brilliant festival closing sets. The Scratch Perverts absolutely ripped the place up, mashing up everything and everyone in the process: I’d love to know how much vinyl those guys go through per set. As much as I’m a guitar, bass and drums man, watching those three guys work the decks is every bit as live, and as vital, as any ‘rock’ band. The same can’t be said for 2manyDJs, but they make up for it with tuxedos, Python-esque video backdrops and a musical set that had the whole tent going mental (or should that be Bonkers? See pic).

My last beer couldn’t have been better timed: I wandered across the field to the strains of Paul Weller doing a great version of ‘Town Called Malice’, and was almost back in the Dance Tent as he wheeled out Roger Daltrey to play something turgid. Comically, there were probably as many 30-somethings in the Dance Tent as there were watching Weller, which hopefully bodes well for the future.

All photos by Chris Marling