Summer Sundae 10 // Day 2 – Leicester, 14/08/10

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Whilst I thought waking up in a tent was unpleasant at Truck, Summer Sundae’s grim Saturday morning made that previous experience seem like waking up in a four-poster. Friday had been a enjoyable introduction to the festival, but especially considering the cancelling bands it felt as though Sundae was yet to really kick off in earnest and we hoped for an impressive showing from Saturday’s early bands to wake us up.

After a stroll into rainy Leicester for a quick spot of lunch – Sundae’s food stalls are not the most affordable – our first trudge through the mud was to Last.fm Rising stage to catch the one and only Black Carrot. Market Harborough’s finest purveyors of “dirty new wave krautrock jazz madness” (to quote the programme) were in fine form, bemusing the unitiated present with surreal tracks from their new Milking Scarabs For Dough album. I so wished that the lines “so there we were for all to see / cardboard soup we had for our tea” would become a singalong but alas, some things are not fated to be. As we left there was a very limited amount of Last.fm swag to be had, so I grabbed a goodie bag containing a couple of stickers, badges and a T-shirt. Brand me up, Last.fm!

Suitably bribed, next up was a trip to the main stage to see Leicester locals Autohype, formerly unknown to us. We loved their hilarious decision to sport matching tie-dye T-shirts (I kid you not) and applauded their frontboy’s enthusiasm for crowd-wandering, something few Sundae bands were brave enough to do. We weren’t quite as keen on their somewhat sex-crazed electro-pop, but hey the music’s secondary right? Liam Frost prompted the day’s first visit to the indoor stage in DeMontfort Hall, and became the day’s warmer, more masculine equivalent of Lou Rhodes from Friday. He said he was looking forward to Tinchy Stryder later – “no, seriously” – and people booed.

Completing our circuit of the four main stages during our first four acts of the day, we hit up the Musician’s stage for a certain The Leisure Society. As ever I found the venue a little constricting, and the band looked somewhat constrained by the lack of space, but they didn’t allow it to affect them too much, arguably reaching their peak with their cover of Gary Numan’s “Cars”. The stage’s MC Kevin Hewick congratulated them on their performance and recommended X Factor starlet Diana Vickers, next up on the main stage; people booed. “Don’t boo!” Hewick pleaded, “she’s a lovely girl!”

We er, didn’t see Diana Vickers (sorry) but instead waited a little to see Laura Veirs on the indoor stage. She was a real treat, joined by a small band to play her warmly inviting songs. My highlight was her performance of the title track from her latest LP July Flame; the harmonies in the climax were a genuine top-5 festival moment, actually. Wonderful stuff – I was fascinated to hear that she’d continued to tour for the bulk of her pregnancy.

Next up we returned to the Musician’s stage to see Londoners Goldheart Assembly, another band I was excited to see having had them recommended by Steve Lamacq. Their album Wolves & Thieves is a great listen and they played from it rousingly from 6pm, after which we popped backstage for a casual chat with them, look out for the interview in the coming days. Oh and “King of Rome”? Still one of my songs of the year, live or not.

Chatting with the crew of the good ship Goldheart ate up some of our time, but we were able to catch a bit of the rather lacklustre Go! Team. To my mind, they just didn’t do enough to justify being so high up the bill on the main stage despite having not not released an album for very nearly three years. Saturday seemed to have flown by very quickly indeed; all that was left was another set choice that would split the crowd down the middle just as the Roots Manuva/Seasick Steve one from the night before.

This time around it was a toss-up between Tinchy Stryder and The Fall; and I must confess that the the fact that Mark E. Smith’s men (and woman) were playing indoors contributed to our decision, even if the evening was a little brighter than most of the weekend so far. Never a follower of The Fall, their performane in DeMontfort Hall confirmed that I really don’t get them. They certainly ratcheted up the tension, one of the festival’s best and most aggressive drummers appearing on stage first and hammering out a hellish beat while the others arrived one by one until Smith slouched on to huge applause. They were a fair number of die hard Fallen in the crowd, who unlike us had some idea of what was going on. It was loud, it was repetitive, and it was lost on me. Can’t say I’d have swapped for Tinchy Stryder, though…

Whilst Black Carrot, Laura Veirs and Goldheart Assembly had provided some real highlights, Saturday hadn’t quite reached full velocity. That was to come on Sunday, with the likes of Mumford & Sons, Summer Camp and The Low Anthem to look forward to, and even (at last!) some better weather….

Photos courtesy of Joe Collins