Indietracks 2010 - a review

A couple of folk have stumbled across my blog from google seeking a review of Indietracks 2010, so I feel I must oblige.

I was just going to scan in a list I made on the Saturday afternoon of folk who I know who I'd seen, much in the style of Indiepop Eyespy. But its hardly a review and a little creepy truth be told.


I didn't really go to see lots of bands, I've been to plenty of gigs already thanks, the bands I wish to see I've seen before and the bands I haven't seen before, I'm too far from the online social circuits to really appreciate. Instead I was at Indietracks cos I go to Indietracks every year and its a pleasant weekend.

We arrived on Friday evening, set up our tent, I checked in on Foursquare and wandered to the festival site in time to catch half of Allo Darlin'. They were good, better than they'd been the other night at The Luminaire in London, dropping in a short Bangles Walk Like an Egyptian interlude was a wonderful stroke of genius.

Anyhoo, I'd had a long drive and I needed beer, so we headed over to the Diesel shed for real ales and some of that lovely bumping into people we know from gigs.

Everybody was in the French Resistance... Now were on the outdoor stage when we emerged with beer. I can't say I quite 'get' any of Eddie Argos's bands. Art Brut are just kind of shouty and don't have any hooks that appeal to me, sure all the comics references are cool, but I've seen that before with the Plimptons. And so with 'French Resistance... Now whilst the historical accuracy of some of their songs is neat, they're just iconoclastic and affected. He's like a stand up comic in some ways.



The Just Joans were great, its been months and months since I last saw them. The newer songs "Why are we so lonely Steven" and "Stuart had a dirty book" and "Wee Helen Got Married" were neat additions to the Joans's opus. Earlier in the day I ran into Dave Just Joans and marveled at how great it would be to have hundreds of people singing along to their anthem "If you don't pull", Dave rolled his eyes.

And sure enough hundreds of people didn't sing along.

Its truly a great song, maybe not quite fitting in with the rest of their style, too coarse and vulgar, "I hate this place and all these people" is too much a roar of frustration from the next in line to the Belle and Sebastian/Camera Obscura throne. But they've never done the song justice, I've said it before and I'll say it again, If You Don't Pull needs a choir belting out the chorus, but more than that, it needs a Pavaroti opera singing "take my hand, lead me far away from here", and a 1987 Bill Drummond snarling the verses, can we get Edwyn Collins in to produce it? I'll pay for that myself.

But then it wouldn't be a Just Joans song.

After they played there was a frantic dash to the Outdoor Stage to catch The Smittens




At this point I hereby provide an interlude in the form of a guestpost that I found blowing down the street on typewritten sheets of A4:-

I wasn't saying that, I was just suggesting, I wasn't saying I was going to do it, I was just suggesting you don't use such harsh terms.

To describe someone who provides some entertainment and silly jokes, perhaps not taking themselves too seriously.

It was nice and there wasn't any fighting. There was an eclectic mix of people and the atmosphere was cheerful, excited yet relaxed and quite English despite the presence of lots of Spanish.

It was warm and yet if you felt the chill coming on you could disappear into a charming bar on a train where the barman was a bit eccentric and smelled of wet dog.

I can't remember about the bands, we didn't watch many of them, its not really my cup of tea. But I did enjoy The Just Joans having listened to them on my handsome and generous boyfriend's ipod for so long and also The Calles, The Smittens and The Primitives.

I feel it could have been improved by a campfire or the band Earth Wind and Fire. And also naked arm wrestling. That's what I wrote.

Look, don't publish that, all right.

Stop writing you bastard.