An all-day event may sound rather ambitious for even the most stamina endowed at what is the end of traditionally the longest partying week of any students’ career but that’s what we have on offer here. Twelve hours, ten bands and more DJ hours than I can count without that maths phd.
Of course I’m building up the impression of a long & tiring day to excuse the fact we arrived at just around ‘tea time’ – the technical term describing that time of day when the hangover is finally easing up somewhat and thoughts of food (or hair-of-the-dog) are beginning to survive without nausea. Some students will get to know it as ‘first thing’ and time for breakfast or maybe getting out of bed. But fear not as there’s already a few hundred people at the QMU this Saturday afternoon and some obviously having enjoyed the cheap bar prices and afternoon lack of queues more than once already…
You Already Know ease us into gig mode at Qudos with a fairly subdued alt rock set, the playings good here but the mellow, downbeat nature of the tunes leave a quieter atmosphere than the band would possibly like despite a favourable response to the tunes from most.
Organisational skills combined with Freshers’ compliant nature and as yet uncynical outlook come into play as the vast majority of the crowd move politely upstairs to the Food Factory stage where Futuro provide a fine set of generic indie brit-emo styled tunes. I’ve eaten here many times but this is the first time I’ve seen folks dancing…
Union of Knives and The Injuns provide some electro & pop indie styled musings on the world leaving me rather unfussed, there’s nothing wrong here there’s just nothing special. No band yet has impressed me as anything particularly special so things are blurring into one , always a danger of many bands in one day! There’s still a Futuro song going round my head that the other bands haven’t shaken though, damn their cathcy hook on the music that everyone’s singing about.
Any ‘meh’ mood I’m falling into is quickly blown away by The Hedrons though, 21st Century Scottish grrrl punk at it’s finest here and the crowd are loving it—the flying beer and sweat give that away. Broken guitars don’t seem to hinder them much either, Rosie plays the set laughing off a broken whammy bar and Chi simply sits out one song while waiting for a replacement bass. Quite an achievement from teh band to sustain the atmosphere on a high and signs of great punk performance band that such technical difficulties didn’t hamper the set at all from teh audience perspective, the crowd is jumping and the band seem to be loving it – by the end Tippi has jumped the barrier and sings her lead vocals from the middle of the capacity packed fans.
Any silly naive young types amongst the QMU Freshers audience have had a damned good lesson that girls rock harder than guys. I approve.
As the last band change-over happens the QMU shows off it’s tardis like nature as more and more people file into what seemed during the Hedrons to be an already full Qudos, where they’re coming from and where they’re finding to stand is anyone’s guess but they seem happy enough as the cheer goes up when the Fratellis hit the stage. It’s more of the same commercial, student-friendly indie that I’ve been overdosed on this week but I’ll grudgingly admit that the Fratellis deserve to close my freshers week escapades this year. Much more high-tempo and jangly than other current next-big-things I could well be won over to joining the cheering masses as they play… but well, d’you see that bar with student union prices? And notice how freshers haven’t learned the art of being pushy and will wait quietly as you get served before them no matter how long they’ve been waiting…? The Fratellis aren’t quite good enough to draw me away just yet…
