Never Ever Festival - Day 2

Katzenstreik, Maserati, Gem, Lafa Connected, Pinboys, John McAsskill, Peters, Treasure Chest At The End Of The Rainbow, Pillow, Slingshot Dakota, The Spooky Symphony at the Centre de Loisirs in Steinsel, October 15th 2005

If the program on Friday was comparably small with "only" six bands, this Saturday offered eleven bands, making it hard for anyone to follow them all, but at least the quality was as high as never before on the Never Ever Festival.

The local newcomer band Spooky Symphony just played too early for me. When I arrived at 4.30pm, Slingshot Dakota must just have started their gig. On CD I was not overly impressed by their Rainer Maria like emo pop, but live they lived up to new heights. Without a bass player, this charming three piece from New York showed that even emo bands can be full of joy and fun. Even if the band looked helpless on stage at times, this worked all to their advantage, making their approach to live music similar to early Woody Allen movies... maybe because of the band members' glasses? The vocals were shared between the guitarist and the keyboard player, and while this combination of male/female shared vocals sometimes feels awkward, Slingshot Dakota knew how to take the most out of it. Their superb songwriting did the rest to get smiles on everybody's faces. Except that everybody at this early time of the afternoon were hardly fifty people, and many people (also later on) wondered why such a great band like them had to play so early in front of so few people. If more local bands had played before, they would have brought already their loyal crowds and given more of an audience to the foreign bands. Well, it can't be changed now, but Slingshot Dakota were not only the best band of the evening, but also the best one to have ever played the Never Ever festival. If you like music somewhere between the nerdiness of Ben Folds and the emotions of Rainer Maria, you know where to look.

Next up were Pillow from Belgium. These guys had as much stage presence as a student band on its first show at the school's Christmas party, but when you closed your eyes, their instrumental post rock had its moments. Yes, they reminded a lot of Mogwai, mostly because of the sometimes three guitars all playing at once, but whenever they decided to have on their guitarists take over the keyboards or this weird analogue monster instrument, they added depth to their music and were really good.

Treasure Chest At The End Of The Rainbow, just back after a Canadian tour, played melodic indie math rock, probably inspired by countless bands normal people never have heard of anyway. Their biggest asset is that they not only have four people that play instruments, but that all four of them share the vocals. On CD that's nice and good, but live that adds really width to their stage performance, and even if you don't get stage antics as with Androïds the day before, the sharing of the vocals lends their music the necessary dynamics which sometimes lacks likewise bands.

Then it was 7pm, and Lex and I decided to miss Peters and play a game: drive northwards until we hit the first Italian or Asian restaurant. We found a Chinese place in Helmdange and stayed for an hour, all alone in a huge restaurant, feeling awkward but getting some well deserved rest for our tired legs. That's one of the problems with festivals like these: there are just no opportunities to sit down for a couple of minutes, and once you're as old as we are, it will be hard to stand non-stop for eight hours.

Anyway, when we got back, John McAsskill had just finished their soundcheck, so we were just in time. It was the first time today that I saw them with their interim drummer David Hasselhof who looks a lot like Claude, the bass player from Couchgrass. The sound was awfully loud, close to distorted, and John McAsskill delivered one of their typical shows: drinking alcohol on stage, smoking cigarettes and telling the mostly minor audience that drugs and alcohol are not always bad. It is good that we still have role models that take care to mould people's personalities. Yvil McAsskill, a crossbreed between Lemmy Kilmister and Helge Schneider, said that they don't want to play many more concerts in Luxembourg for some time, which is understandable, because they must have been the most active local band last year. Let's hope they soon find a definite drummer and that they will return with new songs.

Pinboys from Denmark was something else. There are silly bands that wear make-up during their show, but the members from Pinboys could already be seen before all made up for their big evening, and if their clean pop punk sound may have been the hit at a twelve years old's birthday party, today they seemed a bit out of place between all the indie and garage bands. Their cute singer was dressed like a Funkenmariechen on a Southern States Carnival, and the rest of the band fared no better. Their only cool moment was when they covered an old Iron Maiden classic, but the rest of the time they sounded like a casting band trying to win an Emergenza competition. It was well done, but too clean and hardly with any soul at all. If the first song made me smile, especially the way their lead singer held the microphone at this weird angle all the time, so I became tired of it already during the second track and had to get some fresh air during most of their show.

Everybody was waiting for Lafa Connected, an all-star-band that has been milling around for two years already, but today was their first show ever. There was Sim (former Tiger Fernandez) on guitar and vocals, Dirk (former dEFDUMp) on drums, Yves (a Never Ever veteran who played the festival during the last three years with Spyglass, Mighty Pussylickers and Mr Steele) on bass and Brit (TCATEOTR) on guitar. Their music was the logical consequence of Tiger Fernandez (who never sounded like an Emergenza band, but at least won it once), with a more modern approach towards songwriting, leaving the post-grunge influences aside and concentrating more on hard-edged indie rock, carried by Sim's well known melodic voice. For a first show, it was very good, and the audience finally assembled in front of the stage, but now we have to wait what will come of this.

Gem from the Netherlands were put on the billing at last notice because The Ocean cancelled their gig due to personal reasons, leaving many people unhappy. Maybe that's why nearly no one went to the stage when Gem started, although they were the last to blame. According to Lex, Gem also once participated at a Dutch Emergenza competition (without winning it). Their dirty garage rock sound, with respectful nods to early mod bands, didn't sound it though, and their irreverent take on rock'n'roll music made them in my opinion the second band of the evening. Even if they acted like posers on stage (who is wearing a leather jacket in this heat?), they played their roles very fitfully. The two guitars played some really dirty chords, and the vocalist was top notch with his nasal deliverance. This was garage rock at its best.

Maserati were another band a lot of people were waiting for. Their instrumental post rock, more dynamic than for instance the epic variant of GYBE!, focused mostly on intense rhythm structures, which is why their drummer was sitting upfront on stage, so that we all could admire his fashionable moustache. Looked like a policeman stranded in a post rock band, and gave the whole thing an unwanted hilarious note.

I never saw Katzenstreik because I was getting too tired and my legs didn't feel like doing any more standing around.

This year's Never Ever festival was mostly a very positive experience. Of course the security was way out of hand on the first day, and the bands should have played in a different order on Saturday, but apart from that, the Club des Jeunes from Steinsel proved once again why Luxembourg can't do without their festival.