In Behind The Dance Stage

Neil Jones on streetwise Gregarian monks, Manic Cough, The Loves, Mr Huw and Magic Numbers at Carmarthen's Gwyl Macs

It’s a cloudy day but hey, I’m not complaining. I’m just pitching my my tent behind the Dance Stage for the hell of it and casting chance to the wind, or something like that.

It’s been a pleasant journey up here to Carmarthen, through the countryside speckled with piebald cows and sprawling estuaries, and it was great to be picked in the Gwyl Macs van like a minor character in Postman Pat, the nice driver calling for passengers through the mini-bus window with a loud-speaker before driving us over the dales.

The Welshness of it all hits me straight away in the bus, and not being too well-versed in the language, I feel a little left out and embarrassed, yet I can still appreciate its mellifluousness and wish to myself that my Welsh teachers hadn’t been so obnoxious at school.

A nice group of people watch our bags in the camping area as we trickle over to catch Manic Cough in mid-afternoon, and boy are we glad we do. The last time I saw the Cough was at a Pepperminpatti gig at Chapter Arts in Cardiff, where they tore the place down with their Panther Girl dancers, and today their sound is making the zinc roof of the Main Stage bounce as we head inside.

What a beatific beast Manic Cough now are, purveying a range of stylish art-punk distilled in a Sleater Kinney kind of cool. There’s a moment when singer Annie pouts at the photographer in the press pit, his knees seem to weaken, and I admire him for not turning into a liquid. Bassist Delia Dansette is the most unlikely glam hero you’ll ever see, and a song called 'Bonnie and Clyde' makes the whole band glow in my eyes like embers. Sexy, raucous, propulsive and as punk as f***, Manic Cough are a feast to behold.

It’s back out to engineer our canvasses, and a light breeze works itself into my unpegged tent and takes it dancing across the countryside before I manage to pin it down. A few minutes later though it’s up and looking grand, so it’s off to catch Cofi Bach a Tew Shady who are making some atmospheric sounds in the nearby Dance Arena.

From outside I get the impression that the arena’s been taken over by street-wise Gregarian monks, but as I poke my head around the door I see it’s just the two quaint looking Welsh people rapping to backing tracks. Dreamy hip hop with brilliant poodle-rock hallucinations jumps out of the two unlikely heroes, and ten minutes later we’re standing here applauding till our hands catch fire.

A quiet walk around the site reveals a miniature fairground with some medium-risk rides (the Twisters and that one that hurls you in a circular motion while seated and throws anything loose on your person into the next field) and we get back to the Dance Stage in time for the end of Deadealus, a dapper character working sounds of innovative wonder from a mysterious deck contraption while the irritating stage-compare does his best to interrupt.

I begin to wonder about the wisdom of pitching up behind the Dance Stage during a quick visit back to the tent to gather some extra clothes for the night, the roof bouncing off its hinges in a rhythmic motion to the thundering beats, but the coating of noise does give a kind of outlandish edge to the weekend affair, and it’s back out to head up for Brakes at the Main Stage.

The night is flavoured with a cool breeze, and some festive folk music in the one unnamed tent on the way up lures me in for a quick drink, before the house-band begin to erupt in further flavours of bona fide brilliance, the small cluster at the back dancing like hell to the festive strains. The Dead Regulars is the name, and they add pastoral spice to the Macs mix in atom bomb proportions.

I manage to haul myself away from The Dead Regulars and head up at last to the Main Stage, where Brakes are making fiery shapes of their own. Raucous two-minute nuggets of angular Pop fury fill the shed with edgy wonder, and frontman Eamon Hamilton is on fire, ringing the short bursts out of his guitar with the an alternately demonic and heroic air. Brakes are a total revelation that hits me about the head like the shed has caved in, forty minutes of propulsive, enchanting, helter-skelter sky-scraping shards that make the cloudy night glow picaresque.

The night in question is young, yet disappointingly there’s little or nothing left. Plan B is serenading the Main Stage with his apparently soulful mix of trad rock and trad hip hop, and the venue in general seems to have forgotten the existence of such a thing as the indie outsider. It looks like being a festival of disparate parts, and forced to choose between empty posturing or generic dance nihilism I choose the tent and I-Pod.

Day 2

So yesterday was a mix of inspired music and a lack of late-night organisational inspiration, but today starts with indiepop’s finest The Loves making every that much better. The band are for some strange reason prone to the graveyard slots at festivals, yet still play brilliantly, shooting graceful three minute nuggets of happy/sad wonder out at the shed inhabitants in full Technicolour, exotic keyboard undercurrents weaving melodious miracles through the dual singers’ essence of Pop vocals. I always hope The Loves will reap their rewards and play after the 2 o’clock watershed, but, really where’s the romance in that?

It’s a great start to the day, and the skateboard exhibition soon after is quite good, before Halflight ride the rails on the Main Stage, guitars meander nicely and Sarah Howwels' vocals strive for new constellations. Halflight teeter on the charming side of rock bombast and, veering off on some inspired tangents, make for a pleasing half hour.

The drizzle persists outside so it’s a swift hot chocolate and a sit down to see Cate Le Bon on the Main Stage next, and her band make a beguiling folk sound. Le Bon sits in the middle and floats in and out of her tracks like a butterfly, one particular piece featuring her whole ensemble and a little girl on backing vocals being particularly special. It’s fuzzy folk-pop at its poignant best, grand and festive.

Seal Cub Clubbing Club follow soon after like a rap around the head with their captivating epic indie rock with a nod to Radiohead here and Clinic there and two nods to the underground and three to melody, and it’s back outside into the strong breeze to prepare for the night fare.

The wind gently shakes my tent as I soak up some water that seeped in through an open hatch, and the night starts with Mr Huw rocking it to surrealist constellations at the Acoustic tent. I haven’t ventured in here before, nothing’s really dragged me in in passing, but Mr Huw are really something, a sun-glassed and space-suited duo out to slay us with intergalactic magic. The debut Mr Huw LP has been a fixture on my stereo recently, so I’m not completely new to their sound, yet it definitely feels like it, a lo-fi wonder becoming a kaleidoscopic feast before my eyes.

There’s just the two of Mr Huw at first, butthen they’re joined by the Welsh indie’s No 1 glamorous lady Swci Boscawen on vocals, who dons a matching pair of cartoon glasses (lady-size) from her pocket and joins in seamlessly to rock it further into surreal realms. Offering smiling beguilement in the Carmarthenshire drizzle, Mr Huw are absolutely fantastic.

After the set we wait for the weather to clear a bit, and it’s off up through the venue grounds. It’s a typical Welsh Sunday, and everything seems to be shut. They’ve even taken the rides away, but there’s some celebration festering back at the Main Stage, so we head there.

Zabrinski have been etching strange indie rock opuses for as far back as I can remember, including a world record three-day long single (I exaggerate), and this is their last ever gig. They’ve obviously built up a big Mid Wales following over the years, as the Main Stage area is packed, the crowd hanging on the lead singer’s every word and every bit of instrumental dynamite. It’s a good send off for them, a huge feast of indie rock posturing that veers just close enough to the sensitive side, piquing the outsider soul with remnants of poignancy.

It’s back down to the acoustic tent now, where Supergene defy their programme description as a “kooky live band, fuck yeah!” A great crowd has gathered, and the long-fair-haired, spectacularly fringed man in glasses leads his band through some spiralling and poetic open numbers. Supergene are robust, stylish, and generally ace, knocking out three-minute wonders that fall somewhere between Hefner and Pulp, lyrically grand and musically propulsive. It’s heady stuff, singer Aled Thomas intense and natural as he blazes the trail, and we roll out half an hour later thoroughly conquered.

A fantastic children’s acrobat display follows at the Main Stage, in which a young boy balances on a giant ball and collects a throw balls from a young girl on stilts, only falling off the once, while various pals show off their gymnastic flair with backflips and summersaults. Radio Luxembourg are surely impressed on the Main Stage as they tune up, and a tinge of excitement greets their appearance.

It’s been a downplayed but grand day of music, and Radio Luxembourg now take it to a new level. I remember them being about as far back as I can think, but surely they haven’t always been as good as this? Throwing themselves into their show with immediate gusto, the shed soon pulses with ebullient sounds, Dylan Hughes’s furious but spectacularly Pop keyboards jumping out at us in kaleidoscopic colour while singer Alun Gafney weaves frenzied, cartoon lyrical trails. It’s a thing to behold, perfect Pop diamonds spinning with outlandish abandon into the grey grey night, sparking a rush of adrenalin that floats us in the air. Forty minutes later it stops like nothing’s happened, the only remnants the four-mile smiles etched on all of our faces.

Luxembourg will be hard to beat, so it’s a relief that next up is a man who doesn’t have to beat anyone. Meic Stevens is a great addition to the bill, and has attracted a healthy proportion of the young Macs crowd, including Romeo from The Magic Numbers, who stands at the front in total eagerness. What follows is a lesson in humbleness and acoustic grace, Stevens’ songs aged nuggets played with all the wisdom under the sun. I would never say something like that lightly, but a Welsh Johnny Cash comes to mind, and it’s great to see an audience of various ages all utterly enchanted by his vintage, lyrical folk magic.

It’s a short break for a beer or two at the Main Stage bar for one or two local Felinfoel ales, before a huge an artfully drawn curtain is lowered featuring four familiar caricatures, and the place bursts back into life. The Magic Numbers rain Pop festivity down on us in a sultry manner. Frontman Romeo oozes a brilliant gregariousness, and these are pop song with ten mile wide smiles and the shimmer of amillion suns. To be honest, immersed in the underground, and with a complete disregard for anything on TV and radio, The Magic Numbers had passed me by. But this is music that has crossed the commercial divide with utter grace, poignant, twisting melodic blasts that make me jump up and down inside.

Gwyl Macs has been a mixed bag, again tonight there’s nothing after The Magic Numbers to interest me, but I can take that. Macs has got off to a promising start, and if it can branch out a little for next year, it’ll be well worth returning. The Mid Wales scene is just waiting to take off.

© 2007 Neil Jones

© Miwsig