Truck 13 // Day 1 – Hill Farm, Steventon 24/07/10

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Photography credit | Anika Mottershaw

Truck is its own beast. Hell, it has its own beast, in the form of its cutely furry Truck monster mascot, who didn’t seem to make many appearances this year. Most of the times I saw him (her?) he was sulking motionlessly, which may be to do with the fact that Truck is now officially a teenager. Its format more or less the same as last year’s event, Truck’s lucky 13 retained the festival’s usual distinctiveness. Given less of a local media leg-up than the more sober rival Oxfordshire festival Cornbury, which took place at the start of the month, Truck nevertheless remains impressively local. As ever, the Rotary Clubs put on the food, Steventon’s vicar masterminds the ice cream stall, local brews are on tap, and the county’s only surviving independent record shop, Witney’s reliable Rapture, occupy the merch tent which itself plays host to local bands as an impromptu seventh stage.

By the time we’d got to Hill Farm, navigated the press tent and set up camp, the first band we were able to catch was Savoir Adore, who opened up the Market stage. A bit of an unknown quantity to me, this thumping little New York group were good fun, only slightly hamstrung by the thin crowds of the smaller stages on opening afternoon. As it later transpired, they were the first in a line of great boy-girl duos we saw across the weekend – they’ve done a Daytrotter session, if you’re into that kind of thing. After a quick lunch, next up was another New Yorker, Thomas Truax. Somewhat dwarfed on the main Truck stage and not blessed with a particularly huge audience, Truax soon got into the swing of things, exploiting his mastery of his unique self-made instruments and quirky narrative songwriting. His ‘The Butterfly and The Entomologist’ was an early festival highlight, as was his abrupt, wandering expedition into the crowd, gathering a following of intrigued punters and photographers.

Thomas Truax

The Beathive is a tiny little tent near the Market stage and campsite which is generally dedicated to electronic artists and DJs. As Saturday afternoon wore on, that’s where we found our second duo-to-watch Visions of Trees. There’s nowhere we’d rather have been right then, transfixed as we were by Sara’s ethereal vocals, gentle swaying and queenlike waves of the hand. ‘Sometimes It Kills’ sounded particularly wonderful in a live setting, its soft swell being perfectly suited to the cosy Beathive. Rendered suitably dreamy, we made our way over to the Village Pub, a gazebo-based stage sandwiched between the Truck stage and the the more enclosed, infamously fragrant and aptly-named Barn. Our hosts there were local boys This Town Needs Guns, hailing from Oxford and playing selections from their 2008 debut Animals. ‘Zebra’, ‘Gibbon’ and “Chinchilla” were all on the menu, but I couldn’t tell you which was which. It was all certainly enjoyable enough, mind.

Swiftly returning to the Beathive, we were greeted by Active Child. I can’t claim that I was blown away by Pat Grossi’s project, which to a large extent drifted by. It was all just a little too sparse for me, not one of the electronic acts which I felt benefited from the live environment provided by the Beathive. I was similarly unshaken by Esben & The Witch, whose set was the first we saw in the converted cowshed that is the Barn but was plagued by a long delay, some unpleasant feedback, and generally being just a bit boring. Thankfully, Darwin Deez rescued the situation, with a tremendous set that was so over-subscribed that in retrospect, the Truck organisers might have regretted not putting him on the main stage. The immaculate dance routines between each song – to the Pointer Sisters’ ‘Automatic’ among other things – were at least as good as the set itself, which contained spirited outings for the singles ‘Constellations’ and ‘Radar Detector’, the first tracks we’d heard which had more than a few Truckers singing along. It was just a shame that the indoor nature of the Barn meant that some missed much of what was a thoroughly entertaining set.

Hippy

For our next move we elected to await Bellowhead, who were to become the second act we’d see on the Truck stage. I was slightly perplexed to see Jon Boden dancing around in a less-than-folky blindingly shiny suit, but certainly not left disappointed by the huge folk band’s output. The 11-piece (?) group really filled an important “big band” niche, so dominated had our day been by smaller acts. Truck’s intimacy means it’s not uncommon to see members of bands enjoying the proceedings with the rest of the crowd, and for some reason Bellowhead seemed better at attracting other musicians than anyone else – Thomas Truax was in attendance, and (I think) Sara from Visions of Trees came dancing past us as the band entered the explosive outro to their last song.

It was appropriately dark by the time the rather excellent Phantogram made their appearance at the Village Pub, and the gloom made their electro-rock sound and lights that much more absorbing and effective. Not having heard their record wasn’t a major obstacle to enjoyment, but I’ve subsequently given it a listen and suggest you check it out if you haven’t already – their taut, cerebral and atmospheric music sounds almost as good on record as it does live, and Sarah Barthel is a subtly mesmerising performer, releasing her vocals while rocking gently behind her keyboard.

The Silent League

We were so caught up, in fact, that we missed the very start of Mew, Saturday’s visiting Danish headliners. We managed to tear ourselves away and made a quick dash back to the Truck stage, where we not surprisingly found the largest crowd by far that a band had accumulated. I must confess that the little I’ve heard by Mew in the past has never quite sucked me in; I’ve found them a little cold, a little difficult to grasp. Although the sometimes unusual song structures and Jonas Bjerre’s alarmingly high voice remained a little obstructive for a few minutes, before long my hesitance bled away and I was well onboard. Appropriately grand in scope, Mew’s sound was made even more perfect headline material by the superb lighting effects, and before long it seemed that the crowd, who had at first appeared as hesitant as me, had also been swept up. We didn’t need to catch what was being sung to be thrilled. And to think, some people had been watching Ms. Dynamite at the Barn!

So ended Saturday at Truck 13. Some Mew-watchers wandered on to the Beathive, Barn or Market stages, where DJs would take control for a few hours yet, but we retired to the camp, tired and knowing that the likes of Summer Camp, Future of the Left, and Fucked Up awaited us on Sunday…

Holly Miranda