Welcome to Waitsville. A place where bad jokes are good, Vaudeville never died, and the talk is of smoking monkeys, weasels and the mating habits of the preying mantis.
It’s the moment half way through the set when she arrives, with a swish of the curtain, on stage astride a giant silver skull, wearing a flowing red trouser suit and cap, that we realise we just aren’t in Kansas any more, Toto.
Let’s start at the end. Julian Cope is standing onstage in the Uncut Arena. The power has just been pulled on him for over-running. He has started half an hour late after a doomed attempt at soundchecking, played two newish songs and a bizarre medley of some old songs, sacrificed a guitar to the goddess, challenged God, Jehovah and Allah to a fight, and ended by announcing, “Children, tell your grandchildren that people like me once walked the earth.” No wonder, I suppose, that he hasn’t played a festival in years.
Excuse us while we go a bit "duuude," on your asses. "This is awesome, the sheep are painted fucking pink. It's so psychedelic, and I haven't even taken a thing," says Reggie Youngblood, singer of Florida's Black Kids, who take the stage in the UNCUT Arena as a spear of late afternoon sunshine pierces the cloud.
John’s written on his Wild Mercury Sound site about last night’s extraordinary performance by White Denim at the latest Club Uncut at the Borderline. It was, as he says, truly mind-blowing – especially coming almost straight after we’d just seen The Hold Steady at HMV in somewhat comical circumstances – and in the circumstances inevitably headline-grabbing. It’d be a pity, though, to completely overlook the earlier appearance at the Borderline of White Denim’s Full Time Hobby label-mate, Abilene’s Micah P Hinson.
