Bella Union is 15 (Part 2) - EOTR 2012

It has certainly taken me a little longer than I intended to put this, the second half of my account of Friday at End Of The Road Festival (EOTR), together but my ambition increased as I was writing the first part and I decided to include some stuff about bands that were performing but that for reasons of clashes I was unable to catch on August 31 but have had the good fortune to see live at other recent festivals.
I am indeed going to start with one of them, London four-piece 'Veronica Falls', fronted by Roxanne Clifford that appeared on the Big Top Stage at 20:30 on Friday (whilst I was watching 'The Low Anthem' on The Garden Stage).
Here they are performing at the first No Direction Home Festival at Welbeck Abbey back in June this year - a festival that has the same team as EOTR behind it.

  

They were excellent then, notably including several new songs not on the album, and I heard similarly good reports about their more recent performance at End Of The Road.

    

The act that had preceded them on this stage at EOTR was the Swedish electro-gaze duo of Fredrik Balck and Maria Lindén, with bass and drums for the live gig, otherwise known as 'I Break Horses' and touring their 2011 début album 'Hearts'. It proved to be a quite fascinating dichotomy. Whilst on the recorded version, to which I am listening as I write this, the music is really rather soothing and fittingly autumnal - evoking mists and mellow fruitfulness - the same proposition live is by turns squally and unpredictable; decidedly that of the darker side of autumn, of gales and lashing rain but also sudden, striking glimpses of the sun. Given the recent renewed interest in releasing live albums, which really ought to be the basis of a future post, this would certainly be an interesting prospect.

'I Break Horses', The Big Top Stage, EOTR 2012 performing Winter Beats.

  

The first Bella Union act to grace a stage on Friday was a four piece from Oklahoma that, in terms of live music certainly, was quite new to me. I was impressed...

'Horse Thief' live on the Big Top Stage at about 11:55 on Friday morning.

So good in fact that one way and another I saw them play two complete sets within the same calendar day - and there aren't very many acts or artists about which I can say that.

As for the next band what can I say? It is the third time I have seen them live at EOTR in four years... It is of course 'The Low Anthem'...

On the Garden Stage, where else, at 20:20 on Friday.

  

Then came the really big decision. 'Midlake ' headlining The Garden Stage at 21:45 or 'Beach House' doing that duty on the Woods Stage from 21:30. This was for me one of the easier decisions of the day and there was no chance that it would be anything other than watching all of one or all of the other. I have seen 'Midlake' twice live but never Baltimore's 'Beach House'...

'Beach House', The Woods Stage at EOTR 2012 at 22:03 Friday evening.

        

This was one set, of only a few, where I had no particular interest in being right at the front --- for me it was almost entirely about the music performed live and it certainly did not disappoint.

When they came off stage, at about 11pm, there came the realization that it was now 11 hours of live music today and with four hours more still to go - and then to do it all over again for the next two days.

Looking at things in another way...

This follows on from my musings about Latitude 2012 that I posted yesterday. I have to say that the music line-up as currently announced looks pretty strong when compared in some ways to the last couple of years and that does answer one of my criticisms of 2011 in particular. There are plenty of acts new to me at the top end of the bill - Bon Iver and Janelle Monáe being two that quickly come to mind- that I'd like to see and plenty of others that I have seen before but would be delighted to see again - Bat For Lashes, Chairlift, Laura Marling and Soko being four that I have seen at Latitude before that readily come to mind. In addition there are a whole lot of new/less well know acts that are on my radar and this number should grow as more are announced.
This is the point at which I will add my next caveat: in the last few years the 'Lake Stage', formerly 'BBC Radio 1 Introducing' (by Huw Stephens) has been decidedly a hit and miss affair - good but often woefully underused. I have noticed no specific mention of it in the current programme this year. The Sunset Stage has kept up a much better reputation in my view but it is the relative lack of attention to the smaller, more intimate venues that has bought about some of my ambivalence of late.
It is also a two-edged sword because many of the acts already announced, and who are likely to perform on these stages, are already announced for other festivals including, vide supra, NDH 2012 and EOTR 2012. The first artist announcements for Truck Festival 2012, which has reverted to being a two-day festival, are imminent. If the newer or merely less mainstream is your priority, as in many ways it is mine, then that is surely a consideration too. That said, however, having seen Anna Calvi live on the main (Obelisk) stage at Latitude 2011 I can't wait to see her live at EOTR - for which she is confirmed.
The third aspect, and as far as I'm concerned it is no fault of Latitude per se, it takes me two days off work and a considerable cost just to get there and to get back.
I could probably do any two of Truck, Priddy Folk Festival or Shrewsbury Folk Festival (which keeps being recommended to me) for the same cost; travel, food and beer/cider included!  On the other hand I could just do any one of them and have £120 to spend on new recorded music - and that could even include quite a lot of vinyl.

It is Record Store Day soon --- 21 April 2012. Does anyone fancy getting as much, and as truly varied, vinyl and other goodies together as we can muster in an attempt to woo back those lost to real music - both recorded and live?  More important even than that, to educate the generation that has never really known it at all.

Do I stay? Or do I go? - Latitude Festival 2012

It's decision time folks... I've been to the last five, but whether I go to Latitude 2012 is largely down to you this time. I had a few issues with Latitude 2011 and the weather wasn't really one of them although it was an inconvenience to all.  What do you think about the line up (as already announced) below? Please note that I go almost only for the music.

If I stay (much nearer home) I still have the option to go to Priddy Folk Festival, or indeed the revived Truck Festival instead. If not those then plenty of other opportunities are available and I'm already going to 'No Direction Home 2012' (its first offering at Welbeck Abbey, Nottinghamshire) and 'End Of The Road 2012' so I'm hardly going to be feeling left out. In fact the line up announced for these, and it is far from complete, is pretty amazing from my personal perspective and is something about which I shall comment in more detail very soon.