VISIONS FESTIVAL – VARIOUS HACKNEY VENUES, LONDON 23.7.22
I must confess that I didn’t initially find the line-up for this year’s Visions Festival particularly inspiring. However, luckily the bands on the day proved precisely how wrong I could be! For this year the festival took over a host of new spaces: Hackney Church, Round Chapel, Oslo, Chats Palace and Paper Dress Vintage.
We made our way to 1A Amhurst Road, Hackney, E8 1LL, which is home of the Oslo venue for the first act of the day, Home Counties who were on at 2.30pm. The Brighton & Hove News Music Team had witnessed their set at The Prince Albert in Brighton back on 7th November last year as part of the Mutations Festival.
They are not from the Home Counties at all but are from Bristol, and comprise Will Harrison, Conor Kearney, Barn Peiser Pepin, Sam Woodroffe and Dan Hearn. Their music is post-punk with a slightly funky edge. With their angular guitars they sound like a cross between The Pop Group and The Gang Of Four. Some of their song titles are drily humourous, examples being ‘Ad Gammon’ and ‘Modern Yuppies’. With their adventurous (albeit late 1970’s/early 1980’s based) music and interesting lyrics, I shall definitely be endeavouring to hear more.
Home Counties setlist:
‘The Home Counties’
‘Ad Gammon’
‘Back To The 70s’
‘Modern Yuppies’
‘You Break It, You Bought It’
‘White Shirt / Clean Shirt’
‘Village Spirit’
‘Redevelopment’
More about Home Counties HERE and forthcoming concerts at Oslo can be located HERE.
Next we’re off to St John’s Church for Dana Gavanski, who is a Canadian-Serbian singer/songwriter based in London. Her music is bouncy indie with occasionally ethereal vocals. Unfortunately the acoustics of St John’s (renamed ‘Hackney Church’ for today’s shenanigans) are not suited to amplified music, being a church and all, and it is sadly difficult to hear much with any clarity. Dana has a new album out called ‘When It Comes’, and six of the eight songs played today come from it. Very good they are too! Certainly good enough to make me give the album a listen.
Dana will be performing live in Brighton (courtesy of promoters Love Thy Neighbour) at The Prince Albert on 11th September, with doors from 6pm and finishing early at 9pm. Support will come from Cornelia Murr – Purchase your tickets HERE.
Dana Gavanski setlist:
‘I Kiss The Night’
‘Catch’
‘Indigo Highway’
‘The Day Unfolds’
“(Unknown cover)”
‘Under The Sky’
‘The Reaper’
‘Letting Go’
We have a walk in order to see the next band, who are playing at Homerton Chats Palace. This dear readers, is Fat Dog. I know very little about them other than that they are pretty damn raucous and that they had played at the Green Door Store in Brighton back in May as part of The Great Escape.
I knew within thirty seconds of arriving at the venue (and somewhat miraculously making my way down to the very front – well, this was nanoseconds before the moshpit started up) that the walk from Hackney was worth every step! As well as being raucous, they are breathtakingly anarchic too. In their music and performance there are elements of Fat White Family, Black Midi (certainly in terms of humour and wit), and Warmduscher, but without much of the latter band’s funkiness. I am safely tucked at the front left of the stage. I have a good view of the moshpit, which is beyond energetic. Like all good moshpits, if anyone falls over there are always numerous pairs of hands to lift them up. The singer is obviously so enamoured with this that he spends the second half of their set singing immersed in the pit.
The band has a high degree of musicality with a lot of different influences: jazz (they have a sax player, and the keyboard player also plays what looks like a clarinet), metal, ska, techno…. Can’t wait to hear more. Probably my band of the weekend. They overrun by ten minutes. Punk (among other things) isn’t dead. Anarchy in Homerton!
More at www.facebook.com/fat.daawg and watch them live HERE.
We now have more exercise hot-footing it back to the Oslo for Deathcrash, who played live in Brighton back on 17th February at the Green Door Store. Deathcrash are described as a post-rock band and are from London. I personally would describe them more as art rock, their music is artful, inventive, and it rocks. Sometimes. Much of their music is quiet and delicate, but with loud passages. There’s plenty of light and shade. They play the Green Man and End Of The Road festivals this year, so you can see them and decide just how you would choose to describe them.
This was my second encounter with the band, having witnessed them thrilling punters last November at The Prince Albert in Brighton as part of the Mutations Festival, when I described them as thus:
“I squeeze my way into a fairly packed Prince Albert to be impressed by deathcrash. Their dour, doomy rock is pleasingly complex. Their bassist has a five string bass – always a sign of a serious musician, and deathcrash’s music is nothing if not serious. Also on offer are the vocalists Fender, drums with Akai APC Key 25 with M-Audio and Laptop, and there’s also a Fender Jaguar. Vocals are mainly spoken, and there is an impressive use of dynamics, with crescendos and decrescendos aplenty. The musicianship on display is simply jaw-dropping. Their music has to a large extent captured the mood of lockdown, and as they have now signed to Untitled Records, I look forward to hearing a lot more from them before too long. Find them on Bandcamp”.
Deathcrash setlist:
‘Sundown’
‘Horses’
‘Wrestle With Jimmy’
‘Unwind’
‘Doomcrash’
We stay at the Oslo for The Golden Dregs, who I have reviewed for The Brighton and Hove News more than once. They remain accomplished and interesting. One song reminds me of ‘Sweet Home Alabama’ by Lynyrd Skynyrd. Coincidentally they have three guitarists as that band did. They’re great players, and have a wonderful sense of feel.
They were in Brighton back in May when they played the Komedia as part of The Great Escape. To find out more about them, you can read my report on their performance at The Lexington HERE
I drop into Hackney St John’s Church on Lower Clapton Road, E5 OPD and catch the last couple of songs from Mdou Moctar’s set and wished that I had caught the whole performance. It’s not everyday that you get to sneak a peek at a Tuareg rock artist and his band who hail from Agadez in Niger. Mdou is like an African Hendrix, and not just because he plays left-handed. This is incredibly exciting music and I wish that I could have heard more of it.
Mdou Moctar immediately stands out as one of the most innovative artists in contemporary Saharan music. His unconventional interpretations of Tuareg guitar have pushed him to the forefront of a crowded scene. Mdou shreds with a relentless and frenetic energy that puts his contemporaries to shame. He too has recently performed at Komedia Brighton which was back on 6th April this year.
So now we turn to tonight’s headliner: Black Country, New Road, who are in the echoey splendour (well, at least visually…) of St John’s Church. This is the first time that I have seen the band since the departure of vocalist Isaac Wood. Initially the intention was for bassist Tyler Hyde to take over on lead vocals, and she does on some songs, but other songs are sung by different members of the band. Georgia Ellery appears to be absent, with another girl playing violin in her place.
In a particularly brave, indeed some would say foolhardy move, the band have decided to play a set of entirely new songs. This is as a mark of respect for Isaac Wood, who announced his departure from the band in January this year, with mental health issues. The band have said that his place in the band will be held open for him, so hopefully Isaac will recover and return to the band in due course. In the meantime no songs from their first two albums ‘For The First Time’ and ‘Ants From Up There’ will be played live. Once again the deathly acoustics of St Georges Church hobbled the sound of yet another band. Black Country, New Road’s music is long on detail and subtleties, which were lost in the cavern of the church’s roof. At one point Tyler Hyde’s vocals were all but inaudible. What I could pick out of their performance certainly sounded interesting, but I shall wait again to see them in a regular music venue.
Black Country, New Road setlist:
‘Up Song’
‘The Boy’
‘Geese’
‘I Won’t Always Love You’
‘Across The Pond Friend’
‘Laughing Song’
‘The Wrong Trousers’
‘Turbines / Pigs’
‘Dancers’
You can currently watch their performance HERE.
All in all this was a very pleasing day. The programming was quite adventurous and I saw some fascinating new acts. It’s a brave festival that doesn’t rely on established artists, and this one was particularly well curated. Early bird tickets for 2023 are already on sale. I may well invest.
