Los Campesinos!, Foundry, University of Sheffield

Supported By Me Rex

Tonight I am at the Foundry, otherwise known as the Students Union of Sheffield University. The support band Me Rex are very very loud unless its purely because I’m stood right next to a speaker stack. They are definitely raucous and very good with a touch of Forward Russia about them. 

Their enthusiasm is hugely infectious and they quickly won over the crowd with a performance of what I'm told was indie punk bubblegrunge (or something like that). However getting deafened by the support band probably isn’t a great tactic.

In between bands I head off to find a beer as Sheffield Uni is usually awash with Thornbridge but not tonight and I come back empty handed.

Los Campesinos take the stage and immediately up the stakes out-racousing Me Rex. Opening with 'A Psychic Wound' from the new album which slides us in gently until the popular threesome of 'I Broke Up in Amarante', 'Romance Is Boring' and 'Avocado, Baby' up the craziness as they add in first crowd surfing and then a circle pit. It's clear already that it's not just the support band who were loud and I'm now very deaf. 

Los Campesinos were formed in 2006 and looking around a lot of the audience would barely be born then. Lead singer Gareth clearly has the same thought and asks how many were here the first time they played Sheffield, in this very room, 17 years ago in 2007. Four hands go up. How many seeing them for the first time… about half the room. All barely older than the lifetime of the bad. Yet when 'Knee Deep at ATP', from the first album, comes round they all go wild. It's very interesting how people get into bands these days. 

The band had a brief moment in the sun in the late 2000s with the likes of 'You! Me! Dancing!', saved as always for the encore, but they were then largely written off but not forgotten. The seven-piece, who cram on to a stage bedecked with banners for just causes, have become cult stars who sadly come around far too infrequently. Their new album 'All Hell' is their seventh but their first for seven years and it is self-produced, self-released and self-marketed on a budget of allegedly just £190. Yet tonight and the whole tour are sold out.

Tracks from the new album slot in neatly within a career spanning set list covering their usual subjects - doomed romances, doomed football, doomed capitalism etc. On of their new tracks 'To Hell in a Handjob' is apparently about 'punching fascists with your mates'. Musically, they don’t miss a beat.

Gareth gives up the mic briefly for keyboardist Kim takes the lead on the wonderful 'kms' before taking it back and insisting that the rest of the set will all be 'bangers', if anyone has any energy left. I could have done with that beer. 

Summer Sundae Weekender (Sunday)

Day three. It’s sunny. The mud has baked nicely dry and its firm enough to sit on, as many folk do as Jose Gonzales's band Junip take the main stage for a spot of Spanish guitar laden electro from Sweden.



Indoors it’s instrumental band Errors, a pounding mix of synths, guitar and drums. We’ve seen a few like this recently. They are excellent but instrumental just doesn’t do it for me... they need a vocalist. Wonder if Mark E Smith is still in the building.



We’re back at the main stage just as Low Anthem go totally acoustic and shun all modern forms of amplification. This is fine at your typical spit and sawdust intimate venue but a main stage outdoors... The consequence is that most of quite a large assembled crowd have no idea what’s going on as they perform to solely the first five rows.



Once they plug back in, they have their moments but we want to get front row for Los Campesinos!, so we hurry back indoors, where we hear Gareth sound-checking with a few Mumford swear words, who headline the main stage later.

Sunday was on paper the best day at the festival. Drowned in Sound have sponsored today’s indoor line-up and it’s a pretty good one with LC! followed by Frightened Rabbit and then The Futureheads.

As Los Campesinos! take the stage a quick head count confirms that they are eight strong today. Thankfully there’s lots of room for them on stage this time, plenty of room for Gareth to show off his lack of dancing skills, unlike last time we saw them at the Musician. They turn in a typically perky set, perfect festival music which is perhaps why they pull the biggest indoor crowd of the day.

Their only other previous trip to Leicester, that show at the Musician, is where Gareth tells us they had their merchandise stolen. Now he has another reason to remember Leicester... During the closing ‘Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks’ Gareth gestures to the crowd to clear a space for him to jump into. Then as he leaps he seems to catch a foot on the barrier and goes down head first. If only they’d been someone there to catch him... The band, such professionals, play on regardless and Kim picks up the vocals, meanwhile the crowd peel Gareth off the floor boards and the splinters out of his face. Thankfully he doesn’t seem to be in too bad a shape.



Local Natives are now on the main stage and are livelier than I expected. The big news is though that the real ale has run out, so it falls to Frightened Rabbit to lift my rapidly sobering mood. They are another band we've only seen on tiny stages, so also must be revelling in the extra space. They also come now with added polish, a feature of playing so many gigs I suppose.



Scott tells us the rabbits were indeed frightened by a scary flight into Birmingham this morning. They play an oddly short fifty minute set, shorter than LC!

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Mumford and Sons’ sound probably suits the outdoor arena. Though I’m not sure how they’ll stretch their limited output to fill a headline slot but there’s plenty of people willing to find out. We linger a while and they sound good, their album transferring to an outdoor arena much better than I thought it would. We have divided loyalties though and nip back indoors to catch the onslaught that is the Futureheads.



Their simple rock sound is a punchy and fitting finale to the weekend.

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Los Campesinos!, The Musician, Leicester

First on stage were a band called Islet but band is perhaps the wrong word. They’re a three piece which included Emma from Victorian English Gentleman's Club, who were always a bit weird but not this weird. Islet are more of an experience than a band. They leap around the stage, swapping instruments and spewing forth (there is perhaps no better way to describe it) their unique sound. It’s chaotic, it’s noisy, it’s different, it’s drama. Their instruments are not so much played, as chucked in to a blender to see what comes out the other end. They utilise them in ways you just wouldn’t think of. There are drums, guitars, keyboards but there’s also stuff like maracas and tambourines, sometimes played, sometimes flung into the crowd. In fact most of the band disappear off into the crowd on a regular basis and for all we know they’re buying a pint at the bar as they emit their vocal screams, yelps, etc.



They use two drum kits at one point, one borrowed it seems from the next band up, Swanton Bombs. When one of them decides to stand on one of the drum kits before hurling himself off the top of it, it’s good to see that it's their own and not the one they’ve borrowed.

If like I, you think all this sounds intriguing then you might want to look them up on the internet. Good luck. They’re not into websites ‘n’ stuff or so it seems, for that matter, releasing records. Even the info they hand out at the gig tells you nothing. Unique indeed. You may not find them anywhere other than live, so go see for yourself.

Much more conventional are Swanton Bombs. So conventional in fact that the stage seems bare once all Islet’s stuff has been removed and we are left with just a drum kit and a guitar. So it’s the White Stripes approach then but although they try hard and come smartly dressed in their prom suits, it simply doesn’t do anything for me.

They seem confused about how to follow Islet and also not sure whether they should make fun of them or compliment them. Sandwiched between two bands from Cardiff and two fairly unique ones at that, they are sunk really before they start but to be honest they don’t rise to the task much either.



Their simple manifesto is... Guitar, play it loud. Drums, play them loud. Vocals... well loud but perhaps the vocals are the problem. The drummer is good and the guitar riffs have their moments but vocalist Dominic just can’t hit the notes. He’s so out of tune, that sometimes it’s painful. He might have got away with this if the tunes had been more memorable but mostly they're not. I’m sure there’s something there, well there’s energy and commitment, but as for satisfaction, tonight I’m not getting any.

So to our headliners. The first question is how the hell they are going to fit all seven of them onto the tiny stage. It is seven at the moment isn't it? No tonight it’s eight. This venue is far too small for them. Both for the band and for the crowd who need much more room to seeth around. As is demonstrated when long standing favourite ‘Death To Los Campesinos!’ kicks in early, after two new tracks open the set. The so brief, you’ll almost miss it, ‘Heart Swells/100-1’ and the delightful ‘I Sighed. I Just Sighed. Just So You know’. Yes we like long titles here, get used to it, they get longer.



Once it gets hectic, and after the minor riot caused by 'Death', lead singer Gareth pleads for the safety of the little people at the front. We’re quite thankful for the amplifier that Islet dumped in the middle of the floor because it acts as a buffer from the mosh. There appears to be no back stage area at the Musician, only a side stage area and it isn’t anywhere near big enough for three bands, certainly not when your headliners have enough members to almost fill a football team. Several times pieces of Islet’s gear got stacked on my foot. I’m even asked to assist them packing up at one stage. Well... I hold a box open for them. Yep, I too could be a roadie.

Each of Los Campesinos! songs are as exhausting to listen to as they are for the crowd to dance to but I expected a lively performance and we certainly got one. Each song of theirs is packed full of contrasting musical ideas, conventional Swanton Bombs stuff like drums and guitar but with added glockenspiel, flute and the lovely Harriet stood right in front of me playing violin. Then of course it’s all topped off with Gareth's wonderful way with words. Sometimes it all seems to descend into chaos and it’s actually exhausting simply watching it all happening.



‘Miserabilia’ is an unreasonably short title for a Los Campesinos! song. It’s also strange that the band with the longest song names in history are working from the most abbreviated set list in history. Perhaps they can’t remember what they’re songs are called either.

Next up, Gareth tells us, is ‘Letters To Charlotte’. Well no it isn’t mate, it’s called ‘A Heat Rash in the Shape of the Show Me State; or, Letters from Me to Charlotte’ and it’s not ‘Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #2’, it’s ‘We've Got Your Back (Documented Minor Emotional Breakdown #2)’ and don’t forget the brackets but I’m being pedantic.

An energetic rendition of last year’s single ‘There are Listed Buildings’ is followed by the new single and title track of the new album, ‘Romance Is Boring’. Another corker of an album, although perhaps slower paced than their previous efforts. Tonight there is a very high ratio of material from that new album which is to be expected and perfectly understandable but for someone like me, seeing them for the first time after years of failing to get to one of their gigs is disappointing, as there are many notable omissions.

The perfect pop of ‘My Year In Lists’ doesn’t need any introduction, and the audience bounce off the walls of the Musician and scream along with every word. Whilst the rest of the band try to make their own voices heard over the crowds as they too attempt to sing Gareth’s lyrics back at him.

‘Can we please all just calm the f*** down’ shout the entire band. Ok ok. Oh hang on that’s just the opening line to ‘This Is A Flag. There Is No Wind.’

The biggest riot is saved for ‘You! Me! Dancing!’ which announces itself with the teasing foreplay of its long intro before all hell breaks loose, as the guitar riff finally gets going, leaps from the speakers and slaps you in the face.

It’s a hyperactive performance from start to finish, by both band and crowd, right up to when they close with another well received old favourite ‘Sweet Dreams, Sweet Cheeks’, delivered with just the right amount of indie tweeness.



Their approach to encores is remiss to say the least and when they play one it tends to include some of the missing classics I alluded to earlier. No encore tonight though. Damn.

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