Fortuna Pop! Winter Sprinter 4

Now to Evans the Death, making a late challenge for the noisiest opening act upstart Fortuna band playing the Winter Sprinter, and they are certainly right up there in the reckoning. A fantastically good fun set, albeit created out of a somewhat shambolic performance which, as far as I could tell, only helped to endear the band to the crowd even more than usual! A couple of great sounding new songs got an airing alongside the more established stuff from the debut album, and only one bass guitar got broken...another rip roaring start.
Next up came Milky Wimpshake. For want of a better expression they can only be described as a proper indie band, and I mean that as a strong compliment. Plenty of up and coming, and frankly plenty of longer established bands could stand to take a long look at how Milky Wimpshake go about the business of being a band. So many great memorable songs, a close to perfect live sound and a lightness of touch that somehow managed to ensure that everyone watching and listening had a great time throughout the set.
The final band had to come around eventually with this being the final day of the four and it seemed that time had come with the arrival onstage of Comet Gain, who proceeded to produce a masterful set of indie perfection combined with music hallesque put downs and comic interludes whenever seemed appropriate...and certainly in response to repeated increasingly philosophical song requests from the crowd! The band are simply spectacular when in full flow and really shouldn't be missed if the chance to catch them happens to present itself. They remain absolutely adept at drifting from indie pop to freak out psyche jams and everything in between at the drop of a hat. Quite a thing to behold. You can hide your love forever was especially strong and a little moving, perhaps it should represent the four days alongside Memorabilia. Even after the set had ended the fun didn't stop, as David managed to start up an accidental encore while attempting to retrieve his guitar from the stage. A fitting end to the week.

After a truly epic four day stand somehow held together by Fortuna, wiaiwya manfully manning the merch table / cubbyhole, and, last but not least, the bench seating upstairs at the Lexington it can only be said that the entire event has set the bar extraordinarily high for every other gig that I attend this year.  While the first night unarguably left the strongest impression on me I've been startled at the sheer quality of the 12 bands who played, and in fact all the DJs who leant their services. Without doubt this stands as the strongest consecutive lineup that I've witnessed and quite possibly the most fun that I've ever had so early in January!
This was the kind of thing that people should realistically only be allowed to dream might happen.

Fortuna Pop! Winter Sprinter 3

And so to the Wednesday night, with the chance to see three quite different but equally appealing bands in very much different stages of their respective trajectories (but more about that later). Put simply Haiku Salut are a wonderfully infectious, rambunctious, and perhaps a little ramshackle sometime electro alternative trad all female three piece instrumental band...oh, and are utterly impossible to take your eyes and ears off of. I'm quite certain that this must be a popular consensus as the atmosphere throughout the set was intense to say the least. They are one of very few bands who can render a crowd entirely speechless to such an extent that there wasn't even any background chatter audible during the quieter elements of the set!! They also happen to have just released a debut album called Tricolore on the How Does It Feel To Be Loved label which I for one bought immediately after their set.
The midsection of the night was dealt with by Shrag, in somewhat bittersweet circumstances given that this was to be their second last ever show before heading their separate ways. Incidentally, the last show is scheduled to take place on the 15th March also at the Lexington. The band played as exceptional a blistering set as ever, as if to not allow those present to dwell too long on the impending melancholic realisation that only a couple of hours of such perfect noise was destined to be heard in the flesh before it is lost to time. They remain everything that anyone could realistically want from an indie band (or any band for that matter) and rattled through a glorious set with only the occasional unplanned (broken guitar string related) awkwardly entertaining intermission where Helen kept the crowd entertained while Darren Hayman acted as impromptu guitar tech! Truly one of a kind, a sad but ultimately uplifting experience...
Headlining after what had already gone by could only be left to one band, and that band was Darren Hayman and the Long Parliament, who can somehow always create a unique quietly raucous atmosphere without the crowd entirely realising what has happened. If any other band can mix a top rate back catalogue with a suite of six new songs from a semi-concept album telling the story of the 17th Century Essex witch trials then I haven't seen them...The songs from the new album really came to life while the older material remains (perhaps predictably) as excellent as ever with each band member playing perfectly in isolation while combining to create a truly magical and absorbing sound. Emma's Wurlitzer organ playing in particular seemed to add an even more magical dimension to everything; such a beautiful sound being lively, melancholy then bouncy at each turn. No wonder it suits the songs so well. Darren Hayman himself was also on top educational form between songs, imparting knowledge on topics as diverse as the background to the witch trials and the relative merits of braces being worn on stage! A spectacular ending to another night.

I have very kindly been passed a link to a whole load of videos taken throughout the Sprinter. Here are a couple of them, have a look around as there are a lot more once you are in youtube!
Allo Darlin'
Spook School
Tender Trap
Withered Hand
Joanna Gruesome
Herman Dune

Nine bands down and one more night to go now...assuming anyone can stand to read a fourth installment (this review has ended up dramatically longer than I had envisioned!) it will be up just as fast as I can type it.

Fortuna Pop! Winter Sprinter 2

And so to the start of the second day with any cobwebs being firmly blasted off by Joanna Gruesome opening proceedings. Loud, fast, manic, (mostly I believe) Welsh punk pop of the finest order. I'm certainly looking forward to hearing more of their music, both live and hopefully recorded in the not too distant future. A quite perfect start...or should that be continuation...
Up next came an acoustic set from Withered Hand, which I am given to believe was quite different to the usual full band experience. I have to admit to having not seen the band live before so stand corrected if I am mistaken on this! Simply, I can only say that I loved the acoustic performance; All intensely beautiful heartfelt songs played on just guitar and harmonica. The only addition to this format came in the guise of the wonderful Pamela Berry from Black Tambourine who joined on co-vocals for a couple of songs, adding an even closer feeling of intimacy than had already been the case. Throughout the set it almost seemed that the Lexington had been transformed into a dark, dingy cafe, which must mean something! Ultimately it was and is impossible not to like the man and the music.
Herman Dune frankly rocks, and I certainly didn't go to the Winter Sprinter expecting to say that!! Supreme country and folk tinged guitar songs played to perfection by David and Néman. Such apparent simplicity combined with a peculiar authenticity adding up to an excellent set that kept me, and presumably everyone else so gripped that it came as something of a surprise when it was time for the last song of the set and indeed the night. That this last song, played as an encore, turned out to be a cover of Pale Blue Eyes by the Velvet Underground / Lou Reed only added to the extraordinary, almost unbelievable quality of the night and previous day.

Once again, more to come just as soon as I get around to writing it...and continuing a theme, could it be possible for the third night to maintain the outrageous quality already witnessed?

Fortuna Pop! Winter Sprinter

I spent a fair part of last week at the 3rd annual Fortuna Pop Winter Sprinter which, perhaps unsurprisingly, turned out to be quite a series of gigs.

Festivities kicked off at full tilt on Tuesday 8th with the Spook School and I'm fantastically glad to have finally seen them live. Outstanding songs, great fun sound, noisy, tuneful, wistful, melancholy all at the same time and I can only see them getting better; surely destined for big things. I must say that it is particularly enjoyable to hear some strong scottish accents in a young band as well!!

Next up (and I can only assume this lineup was taken from my dreams) came Tender Trap who were utterly outstanding in playing a set which I felt to be somehow strangely emotional throughout. Perhaps it's the normal state for them and just a sudden realisation for me because I have never seen Amelia Fletcher performing from quite such close range before... Memorabilia in particular was just something else, extraordinarily intense. Someone in the room must have been crying. An astonishingly good performance.

Allo Darlin' performed headline duties for the first night. With Elizabeth Morris very nearly coming straight to the gig off the back of a flight from Australia one might have expected, and certainly not been disappointed, if the band were a little rusty. That couldn't have been further from the reality of what followed and now stands as my favourite Allo Darlin' gig, which is saying something. Elizabeth seemed to be living every word of every song, almost like an entire story was being played out on the stage. Following on from Tender Trap, it also seemed a peculiarly emotional set where an hour had suddenly passed in the blink of an eye and we found ourselves in three song encore. The whole band are simply astonishing together with the maturity and talent to take every song in a thousand different directions while still staying true to what makes each one so perfect in the first place. I simply can't believe that they won't make it seriously big very very soon. An utterly mesmerising set by undoubtedly the best band anywhere right now.

I had originally planned to post about all four nights in one go, which is why I waited until the end rather than doing them after each night, but have decided to do them semi separately anyway...so more to follow!

It's safe to say that the remaining nine bands had an awful lot to live up to after such a spectacular opening...