RockNess 2011 @ Dores, 10-12 June
There's a lot that's been written about the spectacular backdrop to the main stage at Rockness, but if anything the location has been underplayed. The tree strewn peaks and watery expanse scream something a bit special before nigh a disc is spun, or plectrum plucked. That said, it's under the gloomy blue canvas of the goldenvoice tent that the Skinny's weekend really begins.
Sons and Daughters re-capture some of their style of old, playing a festival favourite set that is low on the sparse, goth of new record Mirror Mirror and high on the fraught, edgy guitars and dancing rhythms of old. It's hard to tell if it's the tea time slot, or if there's now simply too much distance between the band and the young audience, but the four piece give their all but still walk away without creating any kind of real connection.
Bombay Bicycle Club fare better, their indie-lite, dance-lite, post rock-lite mash up insulating the crowd against the first real rainstorm of the day. It's better than Annie Mac though, who's more drowning in the loch behind her than floating upon it, her choice of tunes unable to fill the cavernous stage behind her scrawny looking decks.
Broken Records are keen to impress, but come over a little too earnest for the wasted weekend dancing crowd. It's up to Frightened Rabbit to provide the first real festival moment of the day, combining field-friendly melodies with a heart so big and open that you can't help but pull it close to your own and sing along for all your worth. Then one peek outside reminds you what it's all about; I mean really all about.
The festival site has been quiet all day, but as the Chemical Brothers set time approaches the small hill packs with eager ravers who will not leave disappointed. Bionic horses scream over teasing beats, devil clown choirboys demand you get yourself high (not that there's many who need much encouragement...) and the two barely perceptible little wizards underneath it all ramp up the magic to epic proportions. With nary a pause for breath they're gone, and it seems like they've only been on stage for a couple of minutes, but by the breath of Nessie herself, what a couple of minutes.
The campsite is a quiet place on the Sunday morning, and the Skinny's not alone in scuttling to the comedy tent to drink away the night before (that was in the way of these three day jobs already the day after). Comedians come and go, but the familiar white robe of the Rev Obadiah Steppenwolf III moves quickly from comforting to discomforting as his rough race and cancer routines fall badly on love and peace addled ears.
So it's back to the Goldenvoice tent where Fake Blood is demonstrating how to kick the arse out of a Sunday teatime, with beats second only to the Chemicals the previous day. 'I wanna hear you scream!' shouts the Sub Focus' MC, before launching a barrage of the kind of cackhanded dub step and drum and bass that's better suited, like his banter, to the big wheel. Scream indeed. I'd like to see The Wombats scream, preferably in sheer, bloody agony. Then I'll watch them dance to Joy Division.
For a band that made its name transforming the grimier side of reality into something transcendent, even brilliant, Glasvegas are showing worrying signs of losing the plot. The band is ramshackle, and entirely unsuited to playing outdoors - never mind in the bloody daylight- but they just about pull it off. Though singer James should spent more time writing tunes as good as Geraldine, and less time working the guns in the weights room, and flexing them he-man style on the mike stand.
Young Paolo Nutini has bulked up and all, but this time in all the right musical places. With the mature sound, and horns, of Sunny Side Up to the fore he plays a perfectly pitched Sunday-night headliner, re-casting his old teeny bopper hits, like These Streets, in his new old man of Scottish soul persona. He even plays a belting cover of MGMT's Time To Pretend, which considering the mighty dose of hedonism the lad from Paisley has just put to bed, is a pretty fitting fitting coda.