Offset Day Two // Guided By The Gods
Emerging from our tent blinking into the morning sun, heads pounding with the sound of the frivolities and Mikki Most’s DJing skills on the Dance stage the night before, we were first struck by how our shambolic efforts at tent construction hadn’t ended in disaster. A heavily processed but stomach lining cheese burger soon sent us on our way, and once the camping gear had been packed ready for a speedy getaway (time is money people), we were back into the arena ready for all that day two had to offer. Having approached day one with a methodical, plan-of-action type approach, we decided to throw caution to the wind and take risks on everything, walking round the site and sticking around if anything caught our interest. Being Offset, it did.
From this lucky dip approach comes Monotonix, and surely one of the most bizarre sets of this, or indeed, any other festival anywhere on Planet Earth. As it came to our attention that no sound was coming from the main stage (which was full of stage officials looking very nervous) the crowd parted mysteriously revealing a hairy gentleman in his undergarments running riot, stealing drinks from the public and spraying them heavenward. This wass Ami Shalev warming the crowd before his band, whose equipment is smack bang in the middle of the crowd, kick in. And when they do, a packed group of people swarm the kit and lone guitarist, bouncing wildly but never in danger of toppling anything, and what followed was a riotous 45 minutes of fun and music.
These New Puritans were the next stop on the main stage. Is Jack the Mark E. Smith of our generation? Battling with sound techs to get his levels right and generally looking unhappy throughout the set, the pride in his music is glaringly apparent. And it should be. Latest album ‘Hidden’, a marvel of experimentalism on record, failed to translate quite as well to the live setting. True, the drums and synths sounded truly dictatorial (once Barnett had the reverb settings thoroughly adjusted), but compared to the angular, guitar driven snippets from debut album ‘Beat Pyramid’, it all fell down slightly flat.
Rounding off Sunday evening, and our festival, we caught Brighton’s Eighties Matchbox B-Line Disaster. We’d been anticipating it all day, almost fearful of the sort of raucous, psychobilly crowd we could be up against, although in the end, the response to the band was something of a disappointment. This was obviously felt onstage, what with singer Guy McKnight trying incessantly to whip the crowd into a frenzy. It worked somewhat, but only after he’d tried his hand at crowd surfing, and the music was good enough of itself, with the band raking at their guitars in a flurry of power chords and brooding bass lines. “Psychosis Safari” and “Celebrate Your Mother” stood out, with unhinged guitar lines and their trademark idiosyncratic lyrics.
As our weekend came to an end, and as we navigated a maze of highly inconvenient road closures on the route back to Noize HQ, we were left pondering on the wide range of musical styles encountered over the past two days. Be it full-on hardcore, French house, or the traditional straight-up indie pop, it’s been a mixed bag of the great, the good, and the downright bizarre, full of chaos, stories and, above all, good music. Roll on Offset 2011.
Words by Alex Nelson
Photos courtesy of Offset Festival
Monotix have the most fun it’s possible to have in your underwear.
Guy McKnight goes “hands on” to get a reaction.
Jack Barnett not heckling the sound engineers.
A chain mail vest? Barnett goes all Bennett (thankfully minus the gloves).
