The Grafham Water Sailing Club (Live at Lunar Festival, 8/6/14)

The Lunar Festival  was my first ever visit to any festival. Situated in the heart of Tamworth in Arden, and surrounded by beautiful countryside in tribute to the late, great Nick Drake who lived there, me and my dads visit to the Lunar festival was a day I'll never forget. I initially wanted to go because it was local and because I wanted to see British Sea Power, as well as other new bands such as Temples, Toy and Money. Unfortunately all the up coming acts I'd wanted to see were on other days, except for The Grafham Water Sailing Club. All I really knew about them were that they were experimental and that having met one of them last year, they are lovely guys, as the mid day sun was shining brightly, the site opened and Grafham started the days events. I was right up at the front, standing on mud still sticky front the night before. What initially struck me about the 4 lads dressed in black is that they are not very experimental at all. Experimental is a term I might sometimes use to describe a band with little structure but there was no sense of this with GWSC.  Their music is not too far off from The XX. There's a similar sense of minimalism and dark atmosphere, but the pounding drums, weird little keyboard melodies, careful use of sampling and guitar set them apart from sounding too similar. In fact The Grafham Water Sailing Club' are pretty much in a class of their own. Its a very unique sound they have, and watching them live you can really see the effort they put into making it. 4 guys playing different instruments, and sort of combining the sounds. 'The Butcher of Barcelona' marked the point where it really got exciting for me, as this constant minimalist groove that ran through the songs went on and on an on, while the rest of the band played around it.  It might be that the vibes were a little dark for such a hippie friendly field.  but this didn't stop those who saw the set from saying it was awesome, everyone I spoke to after the set loved it. while the hippies dancing away at the front seemed  to enjoy it too.
Despite being the first band on the Grafham Water Sailing club were my favourite band of the festival, at least until Arthur Brown came on.

 

A whole round up of the festival and separate blogs on some of the artists are  to follow.