Guilfest

STOKE PARK, GUILDFORD

FRIDAY, JULY 4 TO SUNDAY, JULY 6, 2003

Guilfest’s reputation for bills seemingly selected by an unhip blind man with a pin, plus a sedate family atmosphere, is partially dented this year by an Uncut stage heavy on abrasive, thoughtful singer-songwriters. But the charm of music offered in ignorance of niche marketing or snobbery, on a sunny weekend on the edge of a leafy small town, where under-fives and over-50s dance with equal abandon, is anyway hard not to applaud.

Thea Gilmore is on Uncut’s stage as I arrive, striving to shift a crowd stretched on the grass, beers in hand, with an amped-up, bluesy set. It’s when the heavy strum of “Juliet” makes four disparate strangers?a sexy young nu-metal couple, teenage hippie boy and middle-aged professional man?form a ragged line, skipping and swirling to their own private beats, that I start to like it here. Wandering towards the Main Stage, I stumble on Love’s whip-lean, inscrutably amused Arthur Lee, dragging bouncing fans into Forever Changes’ dark lyrical maze and soaring sound. Back with Uncut, Cosmic Rough Riders’ sweet Scottish harmonies make more sense as the sun gently sinks than on record, before darkness fittingly falls for Alice Cooper’s Detroit-rocking Main Stage finale.

Hip Slinky’s vacantly amiable Britpop pleases Saturday’s early Uncut crowd, but for US troubadour Peter Case, an undeserved hell awaits. Defiantly out of place in green jacket, old-fashioned glasses and hat, the lazing audience’s indifference makes him worry at his lonely quietness and his street-singer stories and jokes fall flat into the field’s silence. Perhaps six people are listening, but he’s thrilling anyway, punching volume from his acoustic guitar, screaming harmonica and half-hillbilly voice, which sings whirling epics of disenfranchised America. Marc Carroll follows the fleeing Case to a still emptier field but, saying nothing at first, instead letting his songs picture storm-lashed apocalypse and drug-drained romance, the Irishman’s attacking presence ignores the crowd’s somnolence, burning through it.

By the time Jackie Leven arrives, the field is filling and wide awake. Sitting in faded shorts, legs splayed under his big belly, the veteran Scottish maverick is over-relaxed today. But on songs like “Classic Northern Diversions”, as imagined landscapes of slush and rain blur through his head, shame and his dead mother haunting him, his guitar clattering and his voice a force of nature, he casts a spell.

“Hey you, don’t watch that, watch this!” Madness advise, climaxing Saturday’s Main Stage bill, but Richard Thompson still fills the Uncut field with fans of his own brand of Englishness. If he’s a little too practised, and the crowd too indulgent, “Bright Lights Tonight” remains a good-time anthem/autopsy without equal, and “Tear-Stained Letter” is an Anglo-American hoedown that sends us grinning into the dark.

There’s a morning-after feel as Wales’ Songdog start Sunday, seemingly risking Peter Case Syndrome. But as Lyndon Morgans twists on the mic like his mouth’s fish-hooked, and his keening voice obsesses over oral sex and slashing violence while innocent toddlers gambol in the grass, the absurd modern detail of his voyeuristic reveries, like his band’s sonic swells, are too oddly specific to ignore. By new song “The Republic Of Howlin’ Wolf” (another panoramic snapshot of careering, doomed love), the crowd is theirs.

The crowd are Jesse Malin’s from the start, and he’s likeable enough, but his broken-hearted early Springsteen borrowings seem pointless to me. Ex-Dream Syndicater Steve Wynn is something else. Sharp-suited but bashful between songs, when he’s in the middle of a prismatic, disgusted American requiem like “Carry A Torch”, or other songs of useless hard-gained wisdom, you can get lost in them. When he’s interrupted by an inexplicable befezzed marching band, leading women and children to an unknown fate, you know you’ve found the spirit of Guilfest, and it’s time to leave.

R.E.M.

BRIXTON ACADEMY, LONDON

TUESDAY, JUNE 24, 2003

Michael Stipe bounds on stage with big smile, outsize cowboy hat and see-through black chemise. His gauche, larger-than-life presence is a suitable intro to R.E.M.’s new face-the-future-or-prepare-to-die incarnation.

The stage set spells out L.U.V in gaudy red neon and the faces of your friendly CEOs Stipe, Buck and Mills look down from the backdrop. Acknowledging the audience demographic, the merchandise stall sells baby grows and, when the group hit a communal connection, those in the crowd not busy texting photos of Michael’s flamboyant performance hold their mobiles aloft.

In such a setting, Stipe’s impenetrable old Enigma Of A Generation pose simply will not wash. Thankfully, tonight he’s ready to fly his freak flag and take on all comers. This could be the start of a tour where R.E.M. restate their credentials following disappointing sales and Buck’s court appearance. Or else it’s where the last great American band of the ’80s squeeze all the juice out of their back catalogue before heading off into the sunset and the retirement home.

They certainly come out fighting. “Get Up” and “The Wake Up Bomb” deliver a devastating intro. Buck throws shapes with gleeful abandon, a Keith Richards impersonation here, a Pete Townshend power chord there. Vying with the drummer’s testosterone beat, second guitarist, careering keyboards and Mills’ rolling thunder, the group summon a gargantuan sound, a curdled parody of American excess. The theme reaches a clarion call climax with “Imitation Of Life”.

The churning fury is mere scene setting for “Animal”, a new song due for inclusion on this autumn’s In Time collection. Stipe wails and Mills cuts across his “racing at the speed of light” hook line. With Buck firing off salvoes that would melt his Rickenbacker licks of yesteryear, the music is intense and exacting, levelling all in its path.

“Drive”, with its ominous atmosphere and surly rebuke to the modern day automaton lifestyle, cools the pace and allows Stipe to assert a humanity which risked being steamrollered out of existence in the opening onslaught. Then it’s a masterful body swerve into a three-in-a-row selection from Fables Of The Reconstruction (recorded in north London in winter ’85). Around 80 songs have been rehearsed for the tour, and the clattering punk sneer of “Driver 8” provides a joyous detour into the past, where the cult R.E.M. could ignore, rather than embrace the zeitgeist.

As the end looms, the onus increasingly falls on Stipe to deliver the show’s emotional thrust. He recounts previous Academy visits?as film producer for Velvet Goldmine, as a Smiths fan copping moves off Morrissey. He delivers his mission statement “to work to the full extent of my ability” with the earnestness of a boy scout.

But he seems happiest when he camps it up, leering as he flashes his nipples, or wryly responding to a heckler, “You take yours out and I’ll think about it.” Spreading love and happiness is his goal, and he hits the back of the net with the euphoric “Man On The Moon”. Of course, the shadow of the war and what it means to be an American post-Iraq cannot be avoided. So Stipe does an oath-of-allegiance pisstake and Buck delivers a Hendrix-alike guitar burn on the national anthem. They take a half-baked lunge at Patti Smith’s “People Have The Power”, but it’s delaying the inevitable?”It’s The End Of The World As We Know It” is a song tailor-made for these perilous times and it offers a joyful deliverance. Stipe throws the mic to the crowd and, before Buck carries him off stage, he stands miming while the fans sing the chorus. All that acclaim and a little art joke on the side? No wonder he’s smiling?on this showing, the retirement home is still a long way off.