Saturday 29th August, I’m sure, hosted many a raucous night out, but I doubt any of them quite like Art Is Hard’s 5th birthday party. As young, eager gig-enthusiasts from a part of the country that seldom sees exciting gigs (cough-Devon-cough), we snooped around The Exchange, Bristol, in search for wristband distribution two hours before the first band were due on, preparing for some rowdy post-lunch entertainment. Two hours later, however, we were granted just that.
Kicking off the bill at Stag & Hounds were Exeter-based Skeleton Frames, who, quite rightly, didn’t hold back with their heavily distorted and incredibly loud guitars at 2:30pm. There was an extreme juxtaposition between the four or five blokes rocking out on their instruments and the front-woman curled up on the floor swooning soft, mellifluous vocals. I was trapped between the punk side of me thinking “yeah, cool” and the sensitive side of me thinking “do you think she’s alright?”.
A lot of bands associated with Art Is Hard seem to share their band members, which became more and more evident during the day, but firstly when Caramel wandered on stage, of whom Max and Owen from Joanna Gruesome are a part of. I was, of course, band member spotting in the crowd while they set up and managed to pick out Roxy Brennan (Two White Cranes, Grubs, new singer in Joanna Gruesome) a couple of people away. Caramel’s set was probably the definition of an ‘informal set’, with bandmates singing riffs to each other in order to decide which song they wanted to play next. When they kicked off though, they really kicked off. Despite being stood directly next to the left speaker, I loved the raucousness of the shouty vocals of Owen layered with more shrill and sassy female vocals. Caramel were definitely one of the highlights of the day.
Clashes between bands were fairly rare during the course of the afternoon, but we did have to choose between missing the end of Fruit Bomb (featuring Ben from Nai Harvest) or missing the beginning of Grubs (feat. Roxy, Owen and Jake May), but It Must Be Grubs, if you’ll pardon the album pun. Their set was charmingly shambolic. An example of this would be front-woman Roxy saying “Can we play Good Times? It’s my favourite one. I can’t remember how it goes… what was the first line again?”. Nevertheless, it was wonderfully danceable set, especially during singles Gym Shame, Dec15 and, most recently, Windwaker. You could even buy their debut album (on yellow vinyl) at the merch stall a week before its release.
Not to sound like we were stalking Roxy the entire day, but next on the agenda was Two White Cranes. It had the most surreal crowd atmosphere. Friends and fans of the band cheered excessively after every song and pretty much anything Roxy said, even if it was just “We’re Two White Cranes”. It was brilliant. They’d set up upstairs in the Stag & Hounds in a charming little room with a banner behind the stage area saying “Hardly a party”, but it was the perfect spot for the somewhat mellow but uplifting sound of Two White Cranes.
Bruising, Birdskulls, Bloody Knees and Nai Harvest all seemed to blend into one giant moving band. The turbulence of guitar reverb and feedback rang in my ears as each band took to the stage, back to back, for two hours. There were moshes, beer spillages (purposeful or accidental, we’ll never know), screaming, air punches, loss of clothing and at one point a loss of a Bloody Knees drummer.
I think the favourite of the night had to be Trust Fund (who I interviewed back in January here). Their allotted time was from 22:15-22:45 and come 22:20, exhausted from our day of non-stop gigging, I just wanted to go up to Ellis, who was, at the time, chatting to his fellow band members in the crowd, and tell him to play already. Little did I know they were last minute planning the opening to their set. The DJ simmered down the background music to reveal thumping caused by the four band members stamping and jumping on the floor amongst the audience, who then starting shouting a song (I can’t quite remember which song), and I instantly regretted by previous thought outburst. Immediately after they jumped up on stage and started playing. Surrounded by many friends, amusingly, singing along to the lyrics of Forevre “Sick of my songs / more sick of my friends songs / all of my friends songs / so boring”. It was messy and loud but in a brilliant and together way. A lovely finish to our day.
’til the 10th birthday party.