Splendour 2011 review

20,000 sun-drenched people, 536 frightened deer, three music stages playing host to a generous handful of massive acts and more stellar local talent than is reasonable for just one city. Just the sort of shenanigans we’ve come to expect from Nottingham’s biggest and most diverse festival. Now in its fourth year, Splendour once again proved itself to be every bit the perfect one-dayer.

 

Breaking the levee on the day’s torrent of musical escapades on the Jägermeister

stage were Harleighblu, whose funky soul rhythms, jazz undercurrents and arse-shaking beats were perfect to beat away any remnants of the crowd’s Saturday night excesses.

Future Sounds of Nottingham competition winners The Money opened the main stage with swagger and faultless style. They performed with the unfazed confidence of a band who could have been playing to five figure crowds for years, and their perfectly polished pop-rock anthems went down a storm. Expect big things to come for these guys.

 

High-tailing it back to the Jäger stage I caught Royal Gala hammering the crowd with their always brilliant blend of dirty latin rhythms, breakbeat drive, brass-soaked melodies and raw vocals. A cracking mix of multi-national musical soul and big Nottingham attitude.

After forking out a quite extraordinary amount of money for a pint of local ale I headed back down for another fix of Notts-tastic talent in the form of Swimming. With a laid back vibe that was as potent as it was mesmerising, their glorious mix of dream pop, electronica and experimental sounds with soaring waves of guitar and captivating vocals showed that they are rightly hailed as one of the city’s most innovative and interesting bands.

 

In my first departure from the local scene I made my way to the main stage for Cast. Churning out their anthemic mid 90s classics that permeated the salad days of Brit-pop they were a big hit with the crowd, and had everyone around me gleefully singing along.

 

On the intimate Courtyard stage, Cecille Grey delivered a cool and smoky set of jazzy numbers with folk overtones and beautiful, honey drenched vocals. Charming, chilled and sexy - lovely stuff.

 

Recently signed to Atlantic Records, Dog is Dead are destined to become a helluva lot of people’s new favourite band. They have matured a lot in the last couple of years - retaining the cheeky element to their songwriting that makes them so universally likable, yet the glockenspiel plinks, saxophone blasts and stellar multi-part vocal harmonies are now encased in a decidedly more anthemic indie pop package. They were tight, inventive and played like their lives depended on it. At the end they announced a forthcoming headline show at Rock City on 17 December. Go see them before they get massive!

 

I then managed to catch a glimpse of Petebox - beatboxer extraordinaire and a solid pillar of Nottingham’s hip-hop scene - rocking a heaving crowd in the LeftLion Courtyard armed with acoustic guitar, loop pedal and most importantly his sanity-defying vocal chords.

The first of the day’s headline acts, Blondie were every bit as awesome as expected. Kicking out their biggest and best hits alongside a chunk of material from their genre-defying new album, they proved for the umpteenth time why they are one of the greatest bands to grace the world’s eardrums. Debbie Harry was resplendent, delivering punch after punch of energy with ferocity, grace and undeniable New York cool. At 66 years old, she showed 20,000 people that age can suck it, and remains to this day one of the most marvelous musicians alive.

 

Feeder were up in the penultimate slot and delivered an incredible set of stone cold classics that lifted the crowd to a plateau of grinning, singing gleefulness. Their anthemic sound felt perfect in the surroundings, reverberating across the Jägermeister hill and dripping with pure rock n roll. Highlight of the set was early-era song ‘High’, which caused a beautiful audience singalong and I’m sure brought a tear to the eye of a few die-hard fans.

Closing up the proceedings were the purveyors off filthy, disgusting gorgeousness - Scissor Sisters. As camp as the Beegees at Christmas, they strutted, pouted and stomped through a set of inherently dancable chart-toppers. Love them or hate them, just you try and resist having a dance to them after a day of sunshine and cider - I dare ya.

 

As I waited for my taxi home, reflecting on the day and feeling the heat radiating from my rather impressive sunburn, it occurred to me how bloody lucky we are to have this on our doorstep - a festival so diverse, so eager to showcase local music as well as bringing in the crowds with big name acts, and in such a gorgeous setting. it’s all a bit, well, splendid really.

Splendour festival took place at Wollaton Park on 24 July 2011.

Splendour festival website