Leeds Festival 2011: The Artrocker.TV Review

PHOTOS:
MIKE BURNELL
WWW.ISO400.COM

Somewhere up on the hill there is a four-person tent on the rampage. It is being carried along on a freakish gale - and anyone it hasn't knocked unconscious is being forced to run screaming, as if they're suddenly the stars of some cheap, twisted monster movie.

Word has it that a security team has been despatched to hunt down and destroy the tent - but up here on the Podpad farm, you wouldn't know such chaos was resuming. Podpads are the small, elfen sheds that Artrocker is sleeping in this weekend - pussies that we are - and up here, a man is cleansing his wellies in a stream of cool tap water. Chaos? What chaos?

It is this correspondent's first time at Leeds festival, and the scene is constantly raging between these two extremes: there is Cerebral Ballzy, whose slam-dunk punk goes down a treat, especially when the singer climbs his scaffolding - then appears to fall asleep at the highest peak as the bile-rock resumes below.

Then there are other kinds of extremes: Bombay Bicycle Club's audience might have bred like bunny rabbits, but the band themselves are serene and opium-like. Even the perkier tracks from A Different Kind of Fix sound like they're getting beamed in from a remote sensor in Brian Eno's brain. Naturally, the band whip it.



Operatic vampire Anna Calvi offers the same mournful set she did at Glastonbury, but less guessable is Henry Rollins, who's doing the spoken word thing today. The man cracks out words like a machine gun, pinning our ears to our necks with topics ranging from the natural beauty of the Tibetan people to the deep depression Rollins' suffered after reading George W Bush's autobiography ("I had to listen to Joy Division to cheer me UP!")



White Denim are musician's musicians: men in beards are dancing like they're time travelling, while other more casual observers are less entranced by their complex freak-outs. Luckily we can all agree on Tom Vek - his aloof suaveness, impeccable quiff and abundance of electro hooks win the evening. Big crowd too!



There is something queer about Saturday night's headliners: the singer of Thirty Seconds To Mars is called Jared - while the singer of My Chemical Romance is called Gerard. What is the connection? Either way, the Mars crew suck bad eggs - their set feels like Live Aid meets Michael Jackson's Brit Award gig, all hung on a fragile inflated ego (with allegedly pretty eyes, I am told).

My Chemical Romance are a great deal better: their keyboardist comes on stage dressed as Sonic the Hedgehog after a toxic waste accident, which is always a good sign. The band's set is like some Japanese sci-fi cartoon that's being revamped on broadway, complete with a red haired, leather trousered superhero in the middle of it all. Perhaps weirder still, is that it transcends the schmultz and feels good.



Someone has released Castrovalva's singer from his monkey-cage, and now he is in the audience pit screaming into the faces of terrified civilians. Luckily their tunes rule with a twisted and perverted charm, giving the BBC Introducing Stage a zestful highlight. Similarly playful are Mariachi El Bronx, whose make us feel like we're wearing sarongs at a Mexican wedding.

Meanwhile, there's something wrong with The Strokes: they sound like they're - what?! - enjoying themselves! Surely these are miserable hounds that hate each others guts? Yet tonight they're tight, punchy and play lots of nostalgia-emitting tunes from Is This It? (Having said that, 'Under Cover of Darkness' sounds pretty good too).



Round the corner Mariachi El Bronx have turned into just The Bronx - no trumpets to be found here - and the contrast is excellently brutal. Someone has given singer Matt Caughthran a plastic werewolf mask, and not only does he wear it - but he goes crowdsurfing in the damn thing. Have you ever seen a crowdsurfing werewolf?

Perhaps the weirdest thing of all, is that an untanned and untoned indie pop band from Sheffield are headlining over all this madness. Jarvis Cocker is without a doubt the beloved father figure of the festival - it's as if he's just helicoptered in to make sure we're all warm, sleeping well and eating properly. As for the tunes, Pulp don't hold back - and even the emo teenagers know the words to 'Common People'.