Offset Festival 2009

So on Saturday morning I headed to Brighton station to begin making my way to Hainault. I got a bit worried when I was sitting around waiting for the late Lutworth to arrive as I saw a lot of proper youngsters with camping gear who I suspected were heading to the same destination. Anyway, finally we got to London and headed to Hainault one of the last stops on the red line (one before Grange Hill!). We got to the site and put our tents up along with about 4000 other people (3000 of whom were sporting the disheveled tights look with big boots that wouldn’t look out of place on an apocalyptic builder) but it felt like less. When we headed into the main arena I was really surprised by how many music tents the organisers had squeezed into such a small space, but it really worked. Wherever you were you could here noise from different stages clashing with one another, but as soon as you went inside a tent the sound was great and you got no bleed from any other stages near. All together there were 6 stages and a comedy tent the size of my dad’s little shed. The stages were billed as playing different genres such as “tranny grunge to gypo techno”. We wanted to go to a bar but we walked into a tent selling vintage thrift.

Anyhow, the first band we caught were The Duloks who were on the new band stage. They were an all girl quirky electro comedy act that were enjoyable to watch in the festival context. Later at the same stage we saw Wet Dog playing their catchy primitive clashing melodies, which was definitely one of my highlights of the festival. Check out the interview we did with them HERE.

The Duloks

Wet Dog

Drum Eyes and Damo Suzuki were next on our agenda. We headed over to the Loud & Quiet stage to see DJ Scotch Egg’s instrumental doomy band project Drum Eyes, which led perfectly into the entrancing non-stop progressive style of Damo Suzuki the singer from Can.

We needed more cider before heading to the main stage to see The Slits. Unfortunately when we got to the stage the show never really got going with complaints about sound clarity being made after pretty much every song. I just didn’t get into this set at all. The huge stage invasion towards the end was quite funny though.
The Slits stage invasion

It was time for Metronomy who played the first ever offset a year earlier and were “the event of the summer”, according to the festival programme. We went to the loud and quiet tent, it was packed and there was a real buzz. Then an announcement was made that the band was being moved to the main stage. I wish they hadn’t bothered. There was then quite a long wait for everything to get sorted but this just added to the hyped up atmosphere. It was still only 10.30ish and this was the last band playing that night! Anyway Metronomy appeared and played a big set that everyone could party to. The live band thing bolsters up every individual sound and made the whole set more fun and enjoyable to watch and dance to.

We weren’t sure what to do with ourselves next but we stumbled across the comedy tent. The guy in there was a twat and seemed to be forcing people into doing open mic slots. Anyway he soon grabbed Japelling, “saying ok you’ll do.” This was a bad idea on the ‘professional’ comedians part as he felt the full force of some seriously funny insults that the audience obviously agreed with as they were cracking up. A couple of highlights from Japelling’s set was the joke about the man with a hat and the moment he spun out on stage and didn’t know where he was or what was happening. Ha, very funny indeed.

Sunday I woke up feeling shit as was to be expected. I got into my insular state, my survival mode and tried to make it through the morning. We spent most of Sunday walking round the different stages, laying down in the sunshine seeing what random bands were like. I heard an amazing remix of Metronomy – Heartbreaker by Black Devil Disco Club in between sets on the main stage.

Then we met Jazzman John, you can read about him HERE. He told us to check out a band he was introducing called Chapter Sweetheart. They had a really old-skool punk vibe with a bit of pretentiousness thrown in for good measure. Reminiscent of bands like The Make-Up or a more hardcore, soulful version of The Fire Engines but still with that jangling swagger. They definitely had a lot of potential and confidence but seemed like they were still polishing the songs for their live set.

Jazzman John

Later in the day we caught Wild Beasts, who I guess are the English countryside’s answer to Animal Collective, however these guys swear and sometimes reference the footie. After having our first meal of the festival, a delicious Ghanaian curry, we made our way to what would be the finale of the festival for us, The Horrors headlining the main stage!

Oh and this guy dropped his phone down the toilet. He was anxious to get it back because his coke dealers number was on that phone.

Words: Murley Bassey

Photos: Lutworth and Lyrical B

Tags: duloks, metronomy, off set, off set festival, offset, offset festival, the duloks, the horrors, the slits, wet dog, wet dog off set festival, wetdog, wetdog offset