The Edge Of The Sea festival is quite unlike most festivals you will have been to. Firstly it's a two day festival at the Concorde 2 running from 3pm till 10pm with almost non stop music. Last year was the first time I experienced it and in fact had not really heard of it before then. Which is not surprising as it has a very 'word of mouth' feel about it. Almost like a secret society that get together every year. At last years event I did not know much about the bands preforming and was not quite sure what to expect, this year I still don't know much about the bands playing but I knew what to expect… Two days of great music at the Concorde 2 full of people there to appreciate the music.
The festival is the brainchild of David Gedge from The Wedding Present who hand picks the bands playing alongside his band The Wedding Present and Cinerama. The show kicks off straight away with the first band on stage as the doors open so you enter the building to live music. The music alternates between bands in the bar and the main stage throughout the day which cuts down on the changeover times and packs in an impressive number of bands over the two days. Since last years festival I've been counting down the weeks till it came round again and I have the feeling many there do the same…
Of course the problem with the music starting as soon as the doors open is you can easily miss the first band if you get there late. Which is quite likely as August bank holiday, when it happens, is also the weekend all the mods invade Madeira Drive and it can take you twice as long as usual to get there. So typically this happened to me and I missed most of the first band The Satellite Vines. Though this may not have been a bad thing as the last few songs I did catch seemed a bit awkward and they looked a bit nervous on stage. I imagine it's not an easy slot as you are playing in the bar, it's early in the day and typically there is a continuous stream of people filing past you to get a drink or to the main stage. Unfortunately their simple folk songs did not come across strongly against the background chaos but their cover of the Wedding Present song My Favourite Dress went down well and their music was intriguing enough, maybe in a more traditional venue setting the band may come across better.
This year I appreciated the genius of having Cinerama kick off on the main stage as the second band of the day. It's a great way of getting the faithful fans down to the venue early and ensures they will at least catch the bands either side of their performance. This also gives David Gedge the chance to welcome everyone and give the audience a run down of what to expect. He is an entertaining speaker and his chats between songs are often humorous. This years repeated hook was his overused announcement that 75% of the people who bought tickets come for both the days… Or so his spreadsheet stated. Between the nice melodic tunes he also announces the raffle prize for the day and the 'special half hour' which was David playing an eclectic mix of old 78s on Saturday and "Wedding Present Bingo" plus DJ sets from Eddie Argos and Charlie Layton on the Sunday. Cinerama on Saturday were joined on stage by Becca Ware from My Life Story on the flute and guest trumpet player. Also a few tracks from Terry de Castro who joined them on-stage to sing. She joined Cinerama shortly after its inception back in 1998 but had not played with them for 5 years as she in now lives in the USA. While on the Sunday it was more of a regular six piece band and they ran through a few favourites as well as the occasional rare treat. It's so easy to get lost in their music which always has a very film score feel and everyone always leaves with a smile on their faces at the end of their sets.
Haiku Salut are a three piece all female band from Derbyshire who describe themselves as a ‘Baroque-Pop-Folktronic-Neo-Classical-Something-Or-Other’.. They have an amazingly well choreographed set with the three of them bouncing from one instrument to another. From sequencers and loop pedals to harmonicas and acoustic guitars. All of them taking their turn on the drums, sometimes two at a time. It was spellbinding to watch them effortlessly move around the stage, gliding from instrument to instrument while producing some equally spellbinding music. It's very hard to describe their music as it's very complex minimalist music, always with a good driving beat throughout the track.
Terry de Castro took to the main stage next with her own band which has a very distinct American country / rock sound to it. She tried out a new track for the first time and played a cover of Cinerama's track 7x which she said she always wanted to play but David would never let them play it live. The music seemed accomplished but it's not one of my favourite genres so a tricky one to review. I will say that either by chance or design the bass seemed super loud but the long droney notes he was playing reverberated nicely round the Concorde 2's main room, which if you have ever been there you'll know it has quite an impressive bass system under the stage.
Back in the bar area The Jet Age kicked things up a level as the token punk band of the day. Another three piece, this time all male, provided a sold stream of wailing guitar solos and chuggy chords of their punchy songs. It was hot, sticky and humid all weekend and the Concorde 2 seemed to be a heat trap making it almost unbearable at times but listening to The Jet Age in those conditions felt like you could shut your eyes and easily imagine you were back in the CBGB club.
The Woodentops were an interesting if not very gripping band. Just the two of them on the main stage, one with a rather thin double bass and the other with guitar, both acoustic instruments. Both of them shared the vocals, both were quite dynamic on stage and quite watch-able… Unfortunately there was not much depth to their rock n' roll style music and towards the end it started to grate a bit.
To close off the afternoon session was Watoo Watoo a French band that got off to a terrible start as their ageing laptop they used for the backing track kept cutting out on the first track. After a couple of aborted restarts they skipped on to the next track and things seemed to go more smoothly. It was an interesting band if nothing else because it was just Pascale on vocals with her husband Michaël on bass playing French indie pop tunes. Pascale had a lovely captivating vocal style and the simple pop tunes were very easy listening.
My Life Story are a band David Gedge had earlier said he had been wanting to get to play for a while and you can see why. They were a good warm up act for The Wedding Present and their 90s Britpop indie songs went down well. They had bags of energy on stage and were very entertaining between tracks with the singer Jake Shillingford's quips like playing the B-Sides as “The record company chose the A-Sides and the B-Sides were the tracks we wanted”. Jake also threw in a couple of solo tracks near the beginning of the set and of course their biggest hit Strumpet along with another joke from Jake saying they wanted to be a band to be remembered for their great lyrics and their most popular track which had the weakest lyrics. Which is basically singing la, la, la for most of the choruses. A very entertaining band who David Gedge said he was surprised to find out they are now living in Brighton so keep an eye out for them playing around town.Sunday
The second day started with The Fiction Aisle who I last saw on one of their first ever performances at The Prince Albert a while ago. They had a big band back then which was squeezed onto a small stage and they looked equally squeezed on (and partly off) the bar stage. With Tom White on-stage accompanied by the wind section, bass and drums while the keyboards, extra guitars and the trumpet player off the stage taking up the entire back wall of the bar area. The band and music seems to have developed since I last saw them and it was a much tighter sound. In fact considering the size and complexity of the band line-up the sound engineers did a great job, making sure all sounds could be heard from any corner of the room. Their pleasant laid back music was a good start to the final day.
After today's set from Cinerama we moved on to the second band on the bar stage, which in the interim had turned into quite an oven! Witching Waves were great though, a fantastic three-piece with your standard old school drums, bass and guitar. I was particularly taken by the drummer, her vocals were worthy of the Riot Grrrl greats. There was something quite post-rock about their arrangements, particularly from the guitars and the balance between the singer-guitarist and singer-drummer both sharing vocal duties perfectly – it was really well done. It's a shame the space had become so intolerably hot as after a few numbers, I retreated to listen from near exit door where I could catch a bit of much needed breeze from outside.
Next up were 'The Donalds' – a hastily assembled all male group covering the songs of the Donnas; the quintessential all-American all-female 90s hard rock band. They were fronted by Eddie Argos, the lead-singer of Art Brut, who was on hilariously good form, quipping about how much David Gedge loves it when you call this the 'Gedge Of The Sea Festival' and making jokes about borrowing the man's tablet; “Oh, I know the words, I'm just looking at pictures of my son online and checking e-mails”. I wasn't sure who 'Donald MacF'n'F' was really, but he played the role of lead-guitar hero to a tee, with monstrous riffs and squealing solos. At the back current drummer for The Wedding Present, Charles Layton, was obviously having a whale of a time alongside Brighton-bassist Seb Falcone. A highlight of their set had to be their bizarre decision to include a cover of Paul McCartney's Bond theme 'Live And Let Die' played as if the Donnas had decided to cover it… and it worked a treat!
I continued back and forth to check out The Proctors playing on the bar stage, a four-piece who conjured up the sounds of 80s indie-pop groups like The Cure and The Smiths with a pleasant pairing of jingly-jangly guitarists who worked well off each other. The main singer and song-writer, guitarist was full of witty self-deprecating charm, but his enthusiastic performance, whilst matched by his excellent backing-singer bass-player, contrasted heavily to the lead guitarist who had the sort of stage presence I would imagine Cameron from Ferris Beuler's Day Off exhibiting. I'm criticising him for being a bit wooden, but the important point was his top quality guitar playing and tone. On request they played, 'Fun Sunday', although the front-man did much to dispel any suggestion this might be an appropriate song for the day as, with this being a bank holiday at The Wedding Present's festival, we might actually be enjoying ourselves and the song is supposed to be deeply sarcastic. Sunday being ruined by the anticipation of Monday's return to work. Pascale from Watoo Watoo joined them for a song called 'Ember Days', which sounded like a mellower version of The Cure's 'Just Like Heaven', although I think Pascale might have been having a bit of monitoring trouble.
After a brief break for libations I walked through to catch Ten Five Sixty on the main-stage; my first impression on their opening notes was that they had the most polished sound of the day. They were almost Kings Of Leon-esque with a bit of Stevie Nicks in the female vocal delivery. The atmospheric opening, with a beautiful sounding guitar and sparse drums still failed to hit a satisfying dynamic development. The band were lacking a bass-player, and although there may have been some low-end on backing tracks it sounded like the engineers were compensating for the lack of bass guitar by turning the kick and floor tom up super-loud. The effect sounded a bit hollow whenever they hit any bigger moments in their songs. I also felt the singers 12-string guitar was a bit under-utilised. Obviously this end of the afternoon is not a great slot as I'm sure a lot of the crowd choose that moment to leave the venue to get some food before the final leg. They also suffered from a lack of between-song banter – without engaging the audience they were steadily losing them and I'm afraid I became one of the victims!
After our break for food we returned for a stunning and hilarious set from Dream Themes. The band came on to 60s sitcom sounding music and stripped out of hazmat suits to reveal convict jumpsuits. This band play instrumental TV theme covers, ranging from 'BBC News', 'Dallas' and 'Star Trek' to 'Dr Who', 'Quiz Wizard' (The Blockbusters theme) and many more. Their set was full of hilarious scripted (and non-scripted) banter and plenty of costume changes. The drummer and bass player were excellent and solid while the keyboard player was a bit of a virtuoso with all the right sounds and the guitarist added a bit of shonky punk rock spirit and a dynamism that never let up. It was excellent and certainly a highlight of the weekend! I didn't think I'd find what is undeniably a novelty band so entertaining but these guys nailed it, striking the perfect balance between being well prepared and haphazard!
The Wedding Present perform Saturnalia in it's entirety over the two days including all the B-Sides. It was the bands fifth studio album, released in 1996 and it's a very consistent and pleasing body of work, which came to life as it was performed by Gedge and his excellent band. There's a lot of rock on this record, and at first the guitars seemed out of balance, when the guitarist Sam first kicked in his distortion it was extremely loud and almost over-whelming – but in a way that was actually pretty enjoyable and grungey, re-calling the quiet/loud obsession of 90s arrangements on the grungier side of things. They also tried out a new song, which seems like a regular event at these gigs, called Emporia. A song that started very dark and melodic but builds into heavier rock track by the end. They also performed 1000 Fahrenheit which was a real crowd pleaser. Earlier in the weekend Gedge had to pop out of the venue to grab a prize he had forgotten to bring and as he said “I've never had to leave the building before” was surprised about how much else was going on around there with the mods and other stuff. He had proposed moving the date to another weekend but announced at the end that the feedback he had got was everyone loved it on the bank holiday so with that he said “I'm nothing if not a democrat” and it looks like same time next year. Adam Kidd & Jonski Mason