Friday
-
Clean, hygienic soul-pop not too dissimilar to Olivia Dean. She chucks in a few of the vocal gymnastics from Beyonce et al, but to be fair, she can clearly sing.
-
Arctic Monkeys tribute act.
-
Best known for Dookie-era Green Day power pop anthems.
-
Jam tribute act.
-
A rootsy Janelle Monae. Great voice delivering sassy soul and R&B.
-
DJs churning out the big Manc anthems into the wee hours.
-
Karaoke but with a live band.
-
Adam and the Ants original drummer, now doing stuff that's got hints of Fat Boy Slim and Transglobal Underground. Rhythmic, beats-driven funky dub and soul, if that makes any sense.
-
DJ, beatboxer and live looper. Doesn't appear to have a beard.
-
The musical lovechild of Sam Fender and Gary Barlow. Neat and tidy toe-tappers with an extra thick coating of pop varnish. Like so many acts in this review, you kinda wish they'd just experiment a bit more.
-
Pop-grunge, not dissimilar to L7 in some places and Wolf Alice in others. There's some Pixies-do-goth happening as well.
-
Melodic gloom-pop, mixing bits of Radiohead with Jeff Buckley and Florence.
-
Handsome, sensible balladeer emptying the cupboard marked "pop-rock cliches". Big choruses, Gary Barlow pained expressions, the lot. Somewhere between Springsteen and a tackier Benjamin Francis Leftwich.
-
For fans of Bilk and the fusing of spoken word with punky backing tracks. It's a bit tacky and has a 'youth club band' feel to it, but it looks like it'll be a lively set.
Click to listen:
-
-
These guys live in the 70s and only own records by Led Zeppelin and T Rex. Cliched, balls-out rock.
Click to listen:
-
See Ellur. Like that but more moody. Sings a bit like Suzanne Vega, which is a plus, but the music smacks of when a member of a boy/girl band leaves and tries their hand at diet-rock, i.e., pish.
-
Biffy Clyro and You Me At Six mixed with a Radio 1 Roadshow. Solid, occasionally powerful-ish guitar pop, but heavily sweetened to the point of being a bit on the yucky side.
-
Emphasis on the dick.
-
DJs
-
DJ
-
Smooth jazz pop instrumentals. Not quite the wanky noodling of fully-fledged jazz, but in that general "oooh, look at me, I'm really good at this" ballpark.
-
DJs dressed as Nintendo characters knocking out partytime crowd pleasers.
-
Most of it is Morcheeba-sounding chill, but then they share a can of Monster, get all ratty and turn into Siouxsie and the Banshees. I just hope they warn the crowd before that happens. Well, I say 'crowd'…
-
A coming together of jazz, funk and indie. Energetic and a bit cheesy (or maybe that's just me not being mad into funk), but respect to them for trying something a bit different.
-
Cumbrian girl-fronted indie-rockers, but they're only just out of the starting gate in terms of musical tekkers and togetherness. It's all a bit demo-ish and shy at the moment.
-
Local young 'uns doing inoffensive and straightforward DIY indie-folk. A few seedlings of good ideas in there, but it all needs more time in the musical grow bag.
-
DJ
-
It's like Idles meets Depeche Mode. Industrial and cranky, but with a pop side that smooths the edges a bit.
Click to listen:
-
Hard to Beat, Living for the Weekend etc. Still knocking out stuff that sounds like that to this day, just a bit more middle aged.
-
90s-influenced dance DJs.
-
Abba tribute act.
-
YouTuber famous for…. I'm not sure what.
-
Less adventurous bits of The Coral, Blossoms and The La's come together to form a setlist full of jangle-indie-pop. If it was absolutely pissing down and they were playing in a tent, I might look in.
Click to listen:
-
Toe-tapping African roots-inspired beats and bass grooves, overlaid with brass instruments being blown as hard as the human lungs can manage.
-
A very rough around the edges attempt at a Fleetwood Mac sound, but it's pretty shaky and embryonic in all departments. Hard to see how they got the call for Kendal, but good luck to them.
-
Trippy swirling pop numbers. Imagine Stevie Nicks on downers. Playing in Tim Peaks (which would be the perfect location if Burgess was selling hash cakes in there).
Click to listen:
-
They make The Wiggles sound like Led Zeppelin. Powder puff, CBeebies smiley pop. Next!
-
Early 90s also-rans serving up carefully crafted jangly guitar pop. They never pushed the envelope, but they were a staple on my Matsui stereo as a 16 year-old so I'll be there for nostalgic reasons.
Click to listen:
-
Sigrid and Ellie Goulding tones from this Lancaster lass. Modern, well mannered pop that takes its shoes off before coming into your house and thanks you for having it when it leaves.
-
Louis Armstrong vocals overlaid onto mid-tempo jazz-funk-lounge numbers. They seem to write a lot of songs about the sea (maybe because they're from Barrow).
-
Young punkers whose favourite band is pretty obviously Yard Act. They can play a bit though. I'd look in.
Click to listen:
-
There must be a lot of Nat Dempseys out there. Can sing, can write a half-decent, sincere-sounding indie-pop tune but just doesn’t have the earworm capabilities or all round x-factor. Unmemorable.
-
For fans of Birdy, James Bay and Jensen McRae. Solid, soulful pop with good intentions, no bullshit or tricks, but a fairly low ceiling when it comes to invention.
-
Shape-shifting pop that borrows from Status Quo, redneck yankee stuff, White Stripes and radio-friendly indie. Hard to characterise but probably fun to watch.
Click to listen:
-
Featherweight pop with echoes of Belle and Sebastian and Jack Johnson, but the singles sound like they recorded them during their first ever get-together. Crack on and come back in a couple of years.
-
Rapper from Preston. Not sure what else to say. He's not Rob Base or MC Tunes, put it that way, but he's using it as a way to channel his thoughts and feelings, so good on him.
-
Acoustic singer songwriter dude, hopping from soulful ballads to rootsy and then ska. His day job, though, is running Chai Wallahs.
-
DJ mixing hip hop, house and Indian classical music.
-
DJ
-
Teenagers from Cleethorpes. Modern day Northern Uproar. Best seen at school fetes and U18 discos.
-
Replacement/stand-in for Jacqui Abbott alongside Paul Heaton. Nice enough singer-songwriter tunes, in a KT Tunstall kind of way.
-
It's the sort of poppy, boy band conveyor belt fodder they'd play at a kids disco in Tenerife. Huge choruses, zero depth. Would probably give Simon Cowell a boner.
-
Kate Bush meets Charlotte Church. A lot of high notes and warbling. Musically, it's mainly pretty sparse piano and bass.
-
A queasy-listening fusion of Abba, Bee Gees and Franz Ferdinand. They might just have the biggest crowd of the weekend (minus one middle-aged grump who'll be hiding by the perimeter fence in ear defenders).
-
Sounds like the result of an experiment where someone accidentally mixed Mumford with Rag n Bone Man. I'll leave it, thanks.
-
Drum and bass DJ.
-
Good lord. Part London grime-rap outfit, part circus act, part elaborate fancy dress party. An all-round assault on the senses, that’s for sure.
-
Drum and bass DJ.
-
Slick, well-balanced, grown-up pop reminiscent of Deacon Blue and other pleasant but safe-as-houses bands of that ilk.
-
Now we're talking. This is The Velvet Underground doing good quality drugs with The Libertines. Arty, bluesy rock n roll. Original? Nah, but if you like late 60s garage rock, this is for you.
Click to listen:
-
See Pentire. It's that same soulless, genetically cloned guitar pop, all built around massive choruses that are trying way too hard to be anthemic. This is the alcohol free beer version of indie music.
-
There's about 35 of them on stage knocking out high energy afrobeat, jungle and hip-hop tunes.
-
A 12-piece gaggle fusing heavy rock with big band brass and giving it all the beans on every number. One of a kind, I'll give them that. Could land well in a festival setting.
Click to listen:
-
Covers band knocking out the mega hits.
-
Once madcap pop troubadours hopping from genre to genre, they seem happy being steady eddies these days, settling on a 'La's but quirkier' sound.
-
The singer loves Arctic Monkeys, the band loves the Foo Fighters. Not the most natural of chemical reactions, but it works pretty well.
-
Maybe the Lottery Winners in disguise (their last album was called Koko) or another surprise act. There doesn't seem to be a genuine band called The Kokos who'd be that high up the bill.
-
There's Bloc Party in there, Duran Duran, Kasabian. Confident, catchy enough modern funk(ish)-pop, but all a bit smooth and polished.
-
A genre-hopping buffet of dub, krautrock, electronica and pop-noir. In the video I watched, the singer had put pineapple rings on his nipples and attached them with cellophane. Must try that.
-
Big Catfish and the Bottlemen influences in these guitar-pop anthems. They stand apart from the crowd to some extent by way of the lead singer's really impressive vocal range.
-
Big Vampire Weekend sounds in these skittish, up-tempo art college guitar pop numbers. To give these Barrow-in-Furness boys their dues, they can really play.
Click to listen:
-
Listenable, chorus-heavy guitar pop. Well constructed but doesn't really ignite or get interesting.
-
Posh boys who do a great line in Ramones-inspired indie shout-alongs, especially when drawing on their debut album.
-
A mix of the Bee Gees, Lionel Richie and the music from the 80s arcade game Out Run. It might be up there with the most painfully hipster things I've ever seen.
-
Personally I'd rather drink from the festival shitters, but that's just me. It's all a bit Timmy Mallett indie, making The Wombats sound like Iron Maiden.
-
Boy-girl power pop duo - she's on drums and vocals, he's on guitar. It's pretty basic 3-minute thrashing each time. The screechy agit vocals start to grate long before the first 3 minutes is up.
-
Noughties survivors whose Strokes-with-happiness brand of guitar pop brought them comparisons with The Killers back in the day. Still a going concern and sure to land well with a festival crowd.
-
A bit like a jazz-infused ELO with a little bit of The Corrs. Pleasant and likeable lounge jazz pop.
-
Ok, so we're talking Kraftwerk and Devo mixed with Kasabian. Arty, angular post-punk but with a groove to it. Definitely got something about it.
Click to listen: