Off Festival @ Katowice, Poland

PHOTO BY:
JACEK POREMBA

If you braved any of the UK’s festival mainstays this year we can almost guarantee that the following things happened: You paid at least four pounds for a pint. You had a large amount of that pint spilt on you by a pissed-up idiot in neon/ after-dark sunglasses/ ironic headgear. You had to sit through a headline slot by Muse. Etc etc etc. The list is as predictable as it is long.

If you’d have been a bit savvier about things however (no offence to the UK – we had some good times aside from the U2), you would have found yourself in a place where the beer is cheap (£1.50 a pint!!!!), the people are lovely and the music is as weird as it is brilliant.

Off is basically a festival that could never happen in England. Headlined by a group with a soft spot for a lengthy instrumental (Mogwai), a group playing an album released two decades ago (Primal Scream) and one of the most anti-social bands in recent memory (PiL); it’s so against the grain it’s ridiculous. But by god it’s refreshing.

Instead of the usual festival circuit regulars you get Low serenading the blackened 2am sky with unbelievable gorgeousness, Ariel Pink’s Haunted Graffiti bringing the hazy party vibes, Twin Shadow being a total dreamboat and Xiu Xiu getting the kind of rapturous adoration that they only get in our dreams.

Warpaint (one of the less bizarre bookings) may have been taken to the indie world’s collective bosom, but their hypnotic bass-led grooves and layered harmonies make a damn sight more sense in the context of these peers; Suuns are shoved on at ridiculous-o-clock in the morning but sound like an absolute behemoth - a filthy, droney cousin of Battles - and Frankie and the Heartstrings may be fighting against the biggest down-pouring of rain in (possibly) history but they’re still the jauntiest, cheekiest propositions in town.

So yeah, Off has its downsides – the food is downright bizarre and, very frustratingly, you can’t actually take drinks into the main arena – but for a line-up this rewarding it’s worth taking a few hits. Next year you’d be wise to add a passport to your festival gear. And a hip flask.