Never Ever Festival - Day 1

Chris Leo, PO Box, Metro, Do Androïds Dream Of Electric Sheep, Raftside, Mutiny On The Bounty at the Centre de Loisirs in Steinsel, October 14th 2005

The Never Ever Festival, in its seventh year already, has been the first address for Centre de Jeunes music festivals. Where most or all other such like centres always show huge amounts of ambition, the guys from Steinsel also try to get their program more international. This year, due to a possible scheduling conflict, they decided to co-organise together with the Schalltot Collective. This had the advantage of drawing the typical concert goer crowds, but also unfortunately the drawback that the local community seemed to stay mostly away.

Tonight I missed Mutiny On The Bounty, as they were just playing too early and anyway it's not as if I hadn't seen them before. Raftside was in the middle of his set when we arrived, and I would be a liar if I said I was looking forward to him. I like the stuff he does on CD, with full instrumentation, but seeing him alone live on stage, looping his guitar and adding layer upon layer of sound, with his nasal voice singing weird stories and playing angular noisy solos, is a whole different story. Raftside should either get a band or only play locations where people can sit down and listen, because this is just too challenging to stand there in front of a big stage with not that much going on. Some people liked it, but the Centre de Loisirs was still rather empty at this time of the day.

It wasn't that much better for Do Androïds Dream Of Electric Sheep?, a band that is really hard to miss these days. Live they are probably the most energetic band in Luxembourg, especially since Psey took over the bass. This guy is dangerous and nearly killed guitarist Marius with this instrument tonight. He's just full of this unmanageable energy, and like and ADHD kid he's jumping wildly around, making you wonder how he can still play his bass. Or is it all playback, like those perfectly styled Britney Spears shows that also combine stylish dancing and impeccable vocals? Anyway today the Androïds appeared on stage wrapped in toilet paper, not a bad idea with this intestinal virus that is making its rounds lately. And let's not forget the bird flu. Some people were complaining about sound issues. Yes, it could have been better, but then I can't remember ever having head optimal sound at a Centre de Loisirs or a similar location. It's was bearable, and hey, even the Rockhal had sound problems last week at their festival.

Metro continued, and it was here that we first really noticed a problem with the timetable. As much as I like many kinds of music, it was too much genre hopping between the bands. Instead of grouping the quieter and the harder bands in two blocks, we had to listen always first to one and then to another. This didn't make for boredom, but it also took some of the action out of the whole thing. Tonight was the first time I saw Metro as a three-piece, and while this gave much more prominence and freedom to their bass player, their music also lost some of its juice. With harder rocking bands, one guitar can distort so much that you don't notice the absence of a second guitar, but largely undistorted indie rock of Metro fell into an interesting bone dry direction that worked well for the first half dozen songs but then made the whole thing a bit too monotonous. Metro are still one of the better local bands, with the experience of the involved musicians guaranteeing it. Especially singer Olivier has one of the more charismatic voices in the genre, reaching the high notes without embarrassing himself, and the busy bass guitar gives your ears quite an experience. They even have already two or three songs with real hit potential.

PO Box were the secret headliner of the evening, having brought a dozen willing fans that did their best to get the crowds moving. When it comes to ska punk, they are probably one of the technically most versatile in the near vicinity. But when it comes to originality, you have to look with a microscope. The horn section did some interesting stuff from time to time, the bass guitar was more than able, but the guitars only played your typical two tone ska rhythms. The drums had a lot of power, and the vocalist also had a good enough voice, but in the end it left me with the impression that I have heard to many similar bands in the past, and this didn't bring me personally very much. Some of the disappointment may have come from the fact that I was tired and expected them to play after Chris Leo. This way I had to suffer through 45 minutes of generic ska, well played but really nothing new.

We all know that Americans don't like French people too much, but did Chris Leo really have to have the stage cleaned after the PO Box show? To be sincere, the ska punks really made a mess of it, spraying it full of champagne to celebrate the 200th show and the birthdays of two band members, giving you the impression that French people all have sex on the same day.

Chris Leo received already early fame in bands like The Lapse and Van Pelt, and is also Ted Leo's younger brother. Tonight he played with a stand-up bass player with a really unusual double bass guitar. The duet was called Vague Angels and played acoustic singer-songwriter folk, reminding me of Bob Dylan, but also being quite deadly at this late time of the night, so that I left already after the second song. His brother Ted had more energy half a year ago at the Kulturfabrik, but had Chris Leo played earlier tonight, I certainly would have listened to a couple more songs.

This first Never Ever Day had between 200 and 300 people (you never know at festival, with them coming and leaving all the time), the music was mostly very good, even if the bands could have played in a different order, the admission price was more than acceptable, considering the competition, so that we are only left with the same problem like every year: the boorish security, that showed during the one possible event this night that they couldn't apply restrictive force but had to jump three men high on the possible perpetrator. Sorry, but this was way too much force and you should wonder if those wannabe rambos where not better of in the Foreign Legion or some such place where they can outlive their macho behaviour.

More from me tomorrow!