Oceansize @ Faversham
By Graham Mears
Experiencing the sunshine mixed with alcohol and excessive loud noise is never good for the body after your stomach's feeling turgid from the day before. Luckily for those who came to the Faversham today, there'd be more worry about catching the earlier bands' sets than sunstroke. I arrive after following the noise from the hospital around the corner to be greeted by a whimsical cat call from a messy haired tramp man standing next to a giant inflatable alien. As interesting as the stage props appear to be, the music booming from the stage scares me away to the bar where I am reliably told from a friend that the first few bands weren't any better, shame.
The first band of the day I do manage to see are Samsa. Over the last two years of browsing the LMS site & forums I've only heard the name dropped a few thousand times but this was my first witness to their live performance, and what a performance it turns out to be. Samsa don't appear to be creating anything amazingly inventive or original, but this doesn't matter at all because if you've got a good song that's all you need and thankfully Samsa have a whole set of them. After stirring a fair few of the crowd from the benches to the stage they manage to get better every second, finishing their set through a beautifully distorted guitar droning out of the amps till the guitars simply dropped to the floor. They announce free CDs which are gone within two minutes. Note to self, must take more notice of local promotion.
I manage to spectacularly miss a couple of bands thanks to a few cringeworthy games of pool to wander outside and see another band I had been meaning to see before, Vib Gyor. I'd heard them accused of sounding like bands such as Sigur Ros which is pretty far from the point. Instead beautiful guitars transcend from the amplifiers followed by a beautiful voice which shocks you every time the vocalist opens his mouth, and are more akin to a band such as explosions with the sky with an indie sound heavily influencing the heart of the songs. The band doesn't have an immediate stage presence as such, minus the occasional shuffle around the stage but with ambient sing-a-long melodies transcending into the ears like this it's not essentially needed. After a rather surprising storming set my girlfriend wanders to purchase the CD, which I intend to steal before the night is over.
Next up are four day Hombre, with a name I manage to spectacularly mispronounce at every attempt somehow... must be the summer heat. I had witnessed them live before - supporting Oceansize oddly enough - a few years back and was impressed back then but didn't feel they represented themselves on CD in quite the same way. They're on form again today and produce a good performance but by the end of the set there's not enough alteration, and a set of nice indie pop songs can turn into a set of average blandness quite easily in the space of half an hour.
After returning to the benches the soundtrack inbetween the chatter is the rather danceable Loqui who sound rather damn good, but unfortunately by the time we get to the stage it's over and having seen The Scaramanga Six before I decide to wait for the main act many of the people had been waiting for, Oceansize.
It's hard to describe the Oceansize live experience for someone who's never heard of the band before. Many times in the past I have heard and created myself many silly little labels the band could fit under, but as always none seem quite accurate enough for the absorbing performance the band seem to effortlessly muster immediately as they set foot onstage. Starting with new material the guitars cascade and collide together (the band have up to four guitars blaring at the same time) with Mike serenading the audience one minute and caterwauling to half of Leeds the next. Quickly breaking into live favourites from their debut album Effloresce "One day all this could be yours" and "Catalyst" show the band layering vocals over each other beautifully and then cutting a song off into layers of noise that would make a Young Team era Mogwai proud. The real beauty of seeing Oceansize live is simply the way they capture you from start to finish with every aspect of the live performance. By the time they finish with "One out of none" from last year's Music for Nurses EP there's not many people left motionless. They're about to release their sophomore release in the autumn of this year and just maybe it'll set them apart as one of the most innovational British bands in existence. Judging by today's performance, the crown is already theirs.
