Duels @ Joseph's Well
By Dave Procter
It's a simple idea - get a lot of bands and cram them into about 2 days (hours wise) of Joseph's Well indoor festival action. And see who comes out grinning the other side 50 odd hours later... so then to Friday night. The KBC are über now and of course writing that is so über now also. There's lots of hihats and I mean lots. It's the Rapture meets other über now influences. But, is that all? The flock bleats hihats, the shepherds provide. O Fracas are way too talented for ones so young. It's a heady brew of angular, spiky, jazzy and crowd mitheringly, in a nice way, mungmouse. Soon to be signed, but to which of the assorted A&R men assembled? Newcastle's Kubichek! are the first to change things a bit, with shoutiness, rough edges and loud guitars. Endings of songs also seem of little concern finishing at the same time wise, bringing back nostalgic visions of early Incident gigs. Full throttle strumming is used and I thought I heard the phrase "sugar walls" used. Surely this phrase has not been uttered since Sheena Easton asked us to, ahem, slip inside her's in the early 80s. How rude. It's now got to the stage where my scribbled notes are becoming increasingly difficult to read, but what I can report is that This Et Al are loud and their tunes are ace. Similar amounts of thumbs up go to "headliners" Duels, whose Blur and SFA influenced pop nuggets are a treat and even the lack of keyboards at the start can't dent that.
This review of the Transmission Weekender continues here.
