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REVIEW: OFF FESTIVAL 2012

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With UK festivals now stretching the purse (or wallet) strings to the tune of near on £200, you’d think our peers in Europe would be cashing in on the sheer number of music fans being priced out of the British festival market – but we’re still finding hidden gems across the continent, which are yet to be overrun with the likes of us and are unspoken contenders for the title of best festival in the world. Introducing Off Festival in Poland.

If the glorious sunshine and 32 degree heat, endless array of extraordinarily hot women, £1.50 beer and solid line-up (with a definite ATP Festival vibe – Stephen Malkmus, Thurston Moore, Kim Gordon etc) wasn’t enough for you – then how about the £39 ticket price? (£20 for earlybirds). Combine this with a £60 return flight with the godawful Ryanair (needs must) and an £8 taxi to and from the airport in Katowice as well as about a fiver a day for food and you’ve got yourself a holiday and a festival for less than the cost of most UK festival tickets. Boom.

Saying that, it’s not all plain sailing – one sticking point for me and my fellow booze hounds was that they seem to have taken a leaf out of US festivals, such as Coachella, in banning people from drinking as they watch the bands – instead, providing fenced off areas with bars in, which you must remain in while your necking a pint or 10. Not ideal, but copable. And don’t even think about trying top smuggle booze in – or you may land yourself a 2000 zloty fine or, perhaps more chillingly, ‘deprivation of your liberty’.

Booze restriction aside, it was hard to fault this small, friendly festival. The layout is such that you can dart between stages and bump into your pals on the way (though British folk were very think on the ground indeed – in fact, I only met one Scottish guy and that was King Creosote, who was playing!) The live stuff goes on until about 3 or 4am and then there’s 24 hour bars in the very spacious and well-equipped campsite. What more do you need? Just watch out for young Dutch folk enticing you into Jackass style games. Still can’t feel my hands (don’t ask!).

Playing an early evening set on the Friday was Kurt Vile and the Violators – with a laid back, grungey vibe which was perfect to mark the calm before the storm (literally, the heavens opened for a couple of hours). Savages, fresh from a gig at Bristol Thekla, benefited from this as they played in one of the tents. Their dark, brooding set of Gary Numan flavoured belters went down well with the home crowd and us Brit stragglers alike. Polish group Nosowska took to the main stage – their frontwoman looking like a cross between Adele and Florence Welch, but sounding like her from Evanescence was complimented perfectly by an intense, soaring band.

Death In Vegas took advantage of the clear night skies and brought the dance party to proceedings, before Mazzy Star took over with thier dreamy, swoonsome indie of yesteryear, which seemed refreshingly relevant to 2012. But they clashed with the enigmatic Josh T Pearson, whose spine-tinglingly intense set of honest stark ballads invoked many tears. As did King Creosote and Jon Hopkins beautiful Scottish folk music, in one of their last gigs together before they go back to their separate projects. A pleasure to witness. Devon’s Metronomy nailed the headline slot on Friday, with an energetic and smooth set of electro indie – with drummer Anna Prior impressing with her tight as drumming. One last dash to the tent for Shabazz Palaces, a spellbinding US duo – whose funky hip-hop proved Sub Pop through and through.

Saturday saw a cringeworthy set from Daughan Gibson, some dude who looks like a cross between Darius and Danny Zucko, but who’s Elvis impersonations and cheesy lyrics are much better suited to his bathroom mirror. Other Lives pulled in quite a crowd with their Radiohead impression, before The Wedding Present played Seamonsters and showed us why they deserve their place in the indie hall of fame, ending with a rousing rendition of ‘Kennedy’. House of Love took over that baton later on, with an inspired set which ended in ‘Shine On’. The Antlers brought a more mellow vibe to proceedings, with a set of somewhat samey, but pretty mesmerising folk-inspired soundscapes – with a touch of the Midlakes about them.

Thurston Moore, looking like the last turkey in Tescos (sorry) rattled off his solo offerings, as did former partner Kim Gordon, but each set was lacking a certain something and you couldn’t help weeping for Sonic Youth. Peer and Pavement frontman Stephen Malkmus took to the stage with his band, The Jicks, and led us through a pretty set of catchy, cool indie – including the brilliant ‘Tigers’, where me muses: ‘I caught you streaking in your Birkenstocks…’ Then all hell broke lose at the main stage as Iggy Pop and the Stooges did their predictable but totally enjoyable thang. Looking like Donatella Versace with rickets, he sauntered around the stage, spitting his New York glam punk all over the joint and encouraging a mental moshpit. Highlights of which, unsurprisingly, were ‘I Wanna Be Your Dog’ and ‘Passenger’.

The masked Doom brought his catchy hip hop to one of the smaller stages, the same place the awesome Chrome Hoof took over on the final night (Sunday), with theinfused almost tribal sounding, theatrical electro indie. With a magnetising busty frontwoman, not dissimilar in vocal ability to Beth Ditto from the Gossip and the kind of showmanship you would expect from Bo Ningen, those last few punters who had stuck it out until the very end were most rewarded. And that’s not to mention the atmospheric, slow building sets of Battles and Swans earlier that evening.

However, the undisputed highlight of the festival had to be Ty Segall. The US garage rock group injected a much needed dose of raucous guitars to the event (unfortunately, it came in a sweltering marquee during the blazing 30 degree afternoon heat); with crowd surfers taking to the air for most of the set, the energy was electric and the music totally warranted it. With a better drummer (say Grohl) these guys could be massive, as itstands their an exciting, solid example of Nirvana’s contemporaries, with some Weezer charm thrown in to boot.

Words: Laura Williams
Photo: Mat Motte