Festival Coverage : Big Day In
- Written by Danielle Gibson & Kenneth McMurtrie
Being in at the start of something new is always a buzz so tripping along to Electric Circus in Edinburgh for the venue's first ever Big Day In was weighted with a fair degree of expectation, albeit just exactly of what wasn't necessarily clear.
Initial act Machines In Heaven were already a couple of songs into their set when we arrived and secured a seat. The Dennistoun-based quartet, with their brand of glitchy electronica being played at top volume, were a great choice for an opening act but maybe not on a bill that kicked off at 3pm. They were clearly up for it though and had a ball fitting their, at times, nursey rhyme-like tunes in amongst some thunderous chords before rounding it all off with a small amount of equipment abuse. Current release The 'Glasgow Jihad' EP is available on bandcamp (click on their name above for access).
Second on the pre-dinner part of the bill were electro-acoustic duo Made Of Glass, who's sound at times brought to mind a combination of Clannad combined with 17 Seconds era Cure. Singer Nicky has a fantastic voice but the entire set was basically hook-free and so passed by pleasantly enough but without really grabbing your attention.
Third up in the afternoon was Perthshire native now Glasgow-based electronic
experimentalist Jonnie Common (& his drummer). A drily witty performer, who got us thinking of Scroobius Pip on occasion, he'd kindly renamed all of his songs in honour of the event & was also spot on about the need for a better hand dryer in the gents. Given the renaming business we can only presume that some of the set contained tracks from his Photosynth ep. Again not really a performer to encourage you to jive but lyrically a rewarding listen.
Bringing up the rear before the dinner gong sounded were Dems, formed locally but now basing themselves in London. Scheduling-wise on the one hand the trio were a good act to ease you in to fuelling up for the evening session but on the other, despite some decently weighty beats, they were insipid enough to make you question whether you were in the mood for any more entertainment.
At this point an adjournment to eat Mexican was had.
Returning after, regrettably, both The Machine Room and River Of Slime & Lomond Campbell (two thirds of FOUND!) had played the next band witnessed were Discopolis. And boy do they have a loyal local following. The biggest and liveliest crowd of the day was clearly in the house for these guys & girl. Musically they put on a solidly feel-good show with some rock solid drumming before upping the ante on their penultimate Pendulumesque song and getting a bit mental about it. Fronted by an extremely personable lad the foursome revelled in playing to a home crowd and could clearly have gone on for far longer than their allocated 45 minutes.
Headlining the event were the one and only Dutch Uncles, playing their first Edinburgh show in four years in support of recent second album Out Of Touch, In The Wild. Kicking off with 'Flexxin' & following up with recent single 'Bellio' they went down well with the crowd who'd stayed on, including a few folk who'd clearly only turned up to witness their return to the city. Duncan Wallis was on top form with his Ian Curtis meets Howard Jones dance moves and a decent level of un-pretentious chat between the songs. A suitably auspicious ending to a well organised event that suffered only from a lack of things to do inbetween the well chosen acts.
Click here to view further photographs of the event.