Broadford, Isle of Skye, 25-26 May 2007

Mylo (photo - www.mylo.tv)

THE HUGE explosion in music festivals in Scotland over the past few years has seen a vast number of festivals spring up, seemingly out of nowhere, with every weekend between mid-May and the start of September seeing yet another set of stages appear in some part or other of the country.

Of all Scotland’s summer festivals, though, Skye has the advantage of arguably the best location: wide-open skies, the sound looking over to the mainland in front; the mountains of Skye, rising in ominous, gorgeous ridges, behind.

Complementing this is the festival’s free-flowing line-up. On the Friday night – formerly strictly for the dance crowd – the main stage kicked off with a rousing performance from Injuns, fresh from releasing their debut album, and back on home turf.

They’re a riot of tunes and energy, and a well-needed antidote to the clouds gathering outside. By the time Echo & The Bunnymen take the stage later the same evening, the heavens have opened, not even waiting for the band’s rendition of their classic ‘Ocean Rain’.

Ian McCulloch, forever the snarling misanthrope, is nevertheless drenched in sullen charisma; come a brooding take on ‘The Killing Moon’, he looks like a man revitalised.

After this, one of the highlights of the festival. Ash have been churning out sparky bubblegum rock for nearly 15 years now, but they’re a band who remain aware of exactly what buttons to push.

Hits are rolled out: the acidic blast of ‘Burn Baby Burn’; the grinding melancholy of ‘Goldfinger’; ‘Angel Interceptor’, whose chorus sings with joy. It’s ‘Kung-Fu’, however – written by frontman Tim Wheeler when he was only 16 – which takes the prize: a rumbling nugget of pop perfection, full of handclaps and teenage kicks, it almost lifts the roof off.

Over on the Non Stop stage, the kicks are not so much teenaged as middle-aged, with a set from The Buzzcocks, one of punk’s most vital outfits. Their hair may be thinner, and their waists rounder, than when they first appeared, but they’re still a riot: tight and angry, with coiled riffs and swirling basslines. By the time of the inevitable final song, ‘Ever Fallen In Love With Someone (You Shouldn’t Have)’, the tent is a heaving mass of bodies.
As Kasabian take the main stage, the It’s On stage plays host to Glasgow band Fortunate Sons, a rollicking country blues band whose gruff tunes and keening harmonies are a deft combination of grit and beauty. By now, the rain’s gone, and the sun too, and Kasabian attempt to make the night their own.

After the adrenaline rush of Ash’s performance, their loping lad rock feels a little flat, but they drag the crowd with them. Kasabian have been anointed by the music press as natural succcessors to the likes of The Stone Roses and Oasis, and it’s not hard to see why: in the swagger of frontman Tom Meighan, and in Serge Pizzorno’s soaring guitar lines is all the cocksure confidence you could need.

Anthems like ‘Shoot The Runner’ and ‘Empire’ are sung as much by the crowd as the band, and they fill the tent with testosterone-fuelled energy. All that’s left is for local hero Mylo to keep the crowd dancing, which he does with his usual aplomb; that he turned down an offer to DJ at the Monaco Grand Prix the same weekend says all you need to know about his affection for the festival.

Saturday brought sunshine – plenty of it – and some hi-octane performances from Hull punk survivors The Paddingtons and Glasgow newcomers We Are The Physics. For the entire weekend The Shipping Forecast stage has seen young and old alike tuck into traditional music, not to mention local seafood.

Of all the performers there, though, it’s two from opposite ends of the spectrum which prove to be the highlights. Gaelic singer Arthur Cormack’s set is captivating, his sonorous, plaintive voice a treat to hear; whether you speak the language feels almost immaterial – the emotion seeps through in his tone.

Towards the end of the evening, Devonian singer and fiddler Seth Lakeman has the crowd in raptures, his ragged, wonderful songs played by a band who favour spontaneity and feeling over slick presentation.

John Martyn is a titan of Scottish music, and not just because of his bruising physical size. His set sees the Non Stop tent full of bodies, none of whom leave disappointed. Martyn’s colourful off-stage life – drugs, alcoholism, divorce – can often overshadow his talents, but not on this occasion.

His limpid guitar playing and that voice – equal parts gravel and honey – are still something to behold as he rolls through three decades of his back catalogue, paying scant attention to genre boundaries or convention.

Funk, soul, jazz, folk, rock, are all thrown together, but Martyn never sacrifices clarity for the sake of it; his are songs which flow with the natural rhythm of a great river.

On the main stage, The Aliens, who rose phoenix-like from the ashes of The Beta Band, journey into the stratosphere. Their songs are extended, psychedelic freak-outs of the best possible kind; full of hooks and neat touches, they stretch out like dozing tigers, before springing to life, claws bared and teeth sharpened.

A dazzling light show enhances the intensity of their performance, after which Dirty Pretty Things seem a little adrift, a little too anchored in the squalid reality about which frontman Carl Barat sings. That said, their tight, chugging melodies pack punches.

It’s left to Primal Scream to close the night, which they do with typical swagger. Not all of their set works – there are lulls between hits such as the menacing ‘Kowalski’ and ‘Rocks’, still the best Stones boogie not to have been written by Mick and Keith.

But they redeem themselves during the encore, a sucker-punch one-two of ‘Loaded’ and ‘Movin’ On Up’. As the sound faded from the speakers, the crowd continued singing, all the way back to the campsite, swaying in the night air.

© Leon McDermott, 2007

Links

• Isle of Skye Music Festival