- No amount of optimism can change it—summer festivals are a different beast in the rain. Grass becomes muck, summer skin is covered in Gore-Tex, face paint runs black and ridiculous pleasantries like miniature bowling and kiddy pools take on an air of a decrepit trash dump. But the music stays the same, right? Depends. Do you dance with your eyes closed or do you prefer peering through a sea of umbrellas for a glimpse at the amps?
At this year's Field Day festival it rained. And it's a pity—not just for the masses of music-hungry youth who descended on London's Victoria Park over-hipstered, but underdressed—but also for the organizers, Eat Your Own Ears. The air after last year's inaugural festival was one of general disappointment. The sound was muddled, the beer and toilet queues unbearably long. This can be the death knell of any fest on its first outing, but EYOE simply apologized and promised improvements the second time around, and for the most part, these improvements were made. Aside from a few cancellations (Dan Deacon, Dirty Projectors), and the scheduling snafus that followed, things seemed to go off without a hitch.
With a quick glance at this year's lineup, one could get a pretty good idea of what the London kids are into these days—a bit of twee folk (Jeffrey Lewis, Laura Marling), a bit of a "show" (Les Savy Fav, Of Montreal), and a lot of bass (Crookers, Hannah Holland, Modeselektor). Spread over two outdoor stages and three tents, the people with guitars definitely got the short end of the stick. Most of the oomph-oomph came from the sheltered domes, while the proper bands were stuck outdoors playing for either the soaked and dedicated or the salty and poncho'd. For any dance enthusiast, it was straight to the tents.
After a quick DJ set of sultry mid-tempo grooves from Crispin Dior, things started to get underway with a rare, live band performance from Straffordshire's the Emperor Machine. Often lumped in with the cosmic-disco revival scene, in reality the Machine (aka Andrew Meecham from Chicken Lips) strive for something a lot more sinister and mutant, owing much more to someone like John Carpenter and Can than Larry Levan. Accompanied by guitar and drums, Meecham remained inconspicuous behind his array of synths, even while the rest of the trio seemed intent on building a prog-rock performance out of a sound that lent itself more to droney head-bobbing. Foreshadowing the Field's full-band attempt at solo-dance production later in the day, the Emperor Machine proved that while staring at someone on a laptop may be no fun, adding an overzealous guitarist to the mix doesn't necessarily do the trick either.
Emperor Machine…we think.
Going from Emperor Machine over to the Bugged Out! Stage to catch the last half of Modeselektor only led to more disappointment. The sound booming from the stage seemed heavy enough, but it was also bit too electro-house for the Berlin duo. Wait a minute, is one of them wearing a Mad Decent shirt? This was no Modeselektor, but Milan's uber-hyped distortion-house duo, Crookers. It seems that there had been such bad sound problems for Modeselektor—particularly with inadequate bass—that the duo muttered a quick apology and promptly walked off the stage, ending their set a good twenty minutes early. With another set early the next morning at Berlin's Berghain (on a Funktion One Soundsystem), it's no wonder they didn't stick around long.
Wandering around to catch a glimpse of Of Montreal covering New Order's "Temptation" and Copenhagen's Efterklang mesmerizing a small crowd with their leftfield pop, I couldn't help but notice that people were truly making the best of it. The festival-goer is a resilient breed and in general, for those who weren't dressed as if it was 32 and sunny, smiles abounded under damp hoods, beers were consumed and dancing was performed—especially when James Holden was in command. Back at the Bugged Out! Stage, the UK native was spinning perhaps the best set of the day, his ethereal, warm techno a perfect antidote to the cold drizzle. With impeccable pacing, Holden took it from tech-house to progressive to even glitchy, minimal fare. Squeezed inside a dark tent with 4/4 rumbling in your belly and lasers prancing over your head (where was this bass when Modeselektor played?), the sense of dislocation was truly bizarre. Am I in a park in London or a club in Berlin? Oh wait, a passed-out kid with mud on his face is getting dragged out by his friends—I'm definitely not in Berlin.
As Holden's time came to a close and anticipation mounted for minimal stalwart Richie Hawtin's two-hour closing set, more and more people came squeezing into a tent that had less and less room. Accompanied by sparse, digital visuals from friend and collaborator Ali Demirel, Richie Hawtin's set sounded exactly like, well, a Richie Hawtin set. In other words, it was restrained, subtle and occasionally brilliant, but a bit too squeaky clean. Furthermore, for minimal to really work, you have to give yourself to it, you have to commit to the whole journey. By an hour into Hawtin's set, the tent was so packed, that my feet were practically being picked off the ground as the crowd swayed in and out. This is no way to commit to minimal.
Luckily, about 10 meters away, in the much smaller and less populated Bloggers Delight tent, Benga was laying down the heaviest of dubstep—a perfect antidote. With plenty of rewinds and even a faulty turntable, Benga's set embraced the human-element of DJ'ing that Hawtin's lacked. There was a person up there on stage and they were occasionally making mistakes, but they were also having just as much fun as you. Dropping tracks like Chase & Status' "Eastern Jam" and the Caspa remix of TC's "Where's My Money," Benga had the dubstep faithful going completely bonkers. A burly fan with a New Era hat adorned with stitched faders turned to me and yelled "this is what it's all about!" I couldn't even fit in a "yeah" before he cocked his chin down to his chest, hunched his back, and began hopping up and down, shaking his head so hard I thought his neck would snap. Maybe it's not what it's all about, but after a day in the rain, it was pretty damn close.