Southside Festival 2009 – Day 1

Enjoy this years summary of Southside 2009, held in Southern Germany. There will be three parts, one for each day, with this being the first.

As Paolo Nutini opened with his most famous single “New Shoes”, with a motley crew of musicians, I was disappointed. All you could hear was the vocals and the drums, but as he pushed through his collection of songs, some familiar from his first album and the rest unknown to me, I started to notice I was actually becoming happy. The music was sounding nice. His feel good mood was rubbing off on everyone. To top it off, the sing along to “Jenny Don’t Be Hasty” seemed perfect and “These Streets” seemed especially beautiful because of the electrical guitar accompanying Paolo Nutini and his acoustic guitar.

Fleets Foxes were on next and they were breath taking. They just know how to bend and warp sound to make beautiful music. For example, the guitarist started using a bow to play his electric guitar and it added so much atmosphere to the song. And instead of being obnoxious, the crowd was silently standing in awe. That was until they started “White Winter Hymnal“, which the crowd started singing along to and slowly dancing as Fleet Foxes picked up the pace. I came in expecting them to be nice, but they simply blew my mind. They played and sung to perfection and the crowd seemed to do their duties also to perfection.

The next band are one of my friend’s favourite bands, and she has quite obsession with the singer. I can see why. She came on in her strange clothes, a ‘petite’ build and grandma glasses, but her voice was incredibly powerful and fit their anthem pop sound very well. The whole of The Asteroid Galaxy Tour was suitably dressed, the saxophonist was sporting a pink blazer, the ‘trumpeter had zebra trousers and the second part of the actual duo looked like a chav with a serious amount of style through pearl chains, with an added bonus of playing bass really well. The crowd loved them, and I have to say I did too, and I enjoyed their opener the best, “Push The Envelope“.

My knowledge of The Whip was limited to their single “Trash“, but I still really enjoyed their set. My theory of it just being house music with guitars, was very much true of their live show, compared to their records. It was just a giant rave in the tent, and though I enjoy house music, I found their synth lines seemed to be twice too long and slowly the songs all blurred into one. They were quite good, but just didn’t quite hit me like most of the other bands did.

Friendly Fires started just after midnight, a perfect time for their disco rock music. I really, really enjoyed it. They played everything I wanted them to, with fantastic dance moves and lots of energy and enthusiasm. You could tell it made an impression on the people in the crowd, the lead singer came on stage to murmurs questioning his sexuality, but it quickly turned to hysteria as everyone danced as furiously as possible. Enjoy my favourite of the night “In The Hospital“, even though all their track were fantastic.

More pictures from the festival here.