Glam vixens, Beyonce covers and the birth of electro taggle...

Hot Press’ feet are sore! New journalistic power walking records were set yesterday as we tried to catch as many of the 100-plus acts who were playing the 30 Eurosonic stages dotted around Groningen’s medieval city centre. With there being a good two miles between the showcase festival’s De Oosterpoort headquarters and the most far flung of these rock ‘n’ roll emporia, the Paleis, it added up to one huge, big cardio-vascular workout.
Our night started at 8 o’clock sharp with Alice Gold, an English singer-songwriter with a penchant for vixen-ish glam rock anthemry. And if standout track ‘Orbiter’ sounds like Goldfrapp reworking Europe’s ‘The Final Countdown’, so be it!
Eurosonic’s first genuine star in the making turns out to be Ritzy Brown, lead guitarist and singer with Welsh trio The Joy Formidable whose debut album, The Big Roar, hits the racks next Friday. It’s an apt title given the in yer’ face pop-rock frothiness of songs like ‘Cradle’ and ‘Whirring’. I have “Courtney Love fronting Doves” scrawled in my notes, which is most definitely a compliment.
Unfortunately named German heartthrob Mads Langer - you don’t mean to laugh, but… – lived down to expectations by sounding like a Teutonic X-Factor version of Chris Martin. Fabulous laced-up leather trousers though.
There was a definite whiff of checking their emails about Mount Kimbie, two boffin-y Brits whose trippy dub techno has won them a lot of fans of late. Sadly I’m not one of them.
A duo of whom we do thoroughly approve are Ellie and Louise MacNamara who look a tad nervous as they take to the stage in The Grand Theatre.
Not only are Heathers having their set broadcast later tonight on 2fm, but this is one of the first times they’ve ventured out in public with their new percussionist, electric guitar player and cellist who shuffle on after the ladies have had their acoustic way with ‘Remember When’, ‘Fire Ants’ and ‘Moose’.
It’s all about subtle enhancement, with Ellie and Louise still very much the stars of a show that includes killer covers of Beyoncé’s ‘Halo’ – you could hear a pin drop - and The Mountain Goats’ ‘Heretic Pride’.
We also get treated to a new song, ‘Listen, Don’t Speak’, which benefits enormously from the added instrumentation they now have at their disposal. Heathers’ finest days would appear to be ahead of them.
Ditto Pulled Apart By Horses, the full-throttled Leeds rockers whose ‘Back To The Fuck Yeah’ prompts a mass outbreak of moshing in the Huize Maas, which is then thoroughly underwhelmed by the Shoreditch-by-numbers jangle of The Crookes who urgently need to rethink their Macabees tribute band shtick. They’re actually from Sheffield but, hey, let’s not split bog standard indie hairs.
Demonstrating that Eurosonic is nothing if not diverse in the bands it showcases, we also get an earful of Switzerland’s Filewile who sound like a Neneh Cherry-fronted version of The Slits and Graffiti 6 who despite the gritty urban name are desperate to be the new Scouting For Girls. To be fair, they may just get their wish.
As tempting as it was to check out Belgium’s Kiss The Anus Of A Black Cat, our final act of a stooopidly busy night is to jump around like loons to the big beat Basque stylings of Crystal Fighters. The missing link between The Prodigy and The Gipsy Kings, the Anglo-Spanish five-piece are immediately deemed to be purveyors of "electro taggle" by HP snapper Graham Keogh who then comes over all nostalgic for the likes of The Levellers and Hothouse Flowers. Well, it was 2am and lot of beer had been consumed.
Despite the faint whiff of crusty, songs like ‘Solar System’ and ‘I Love London’ with its “Harlesden, Willsden, Watford, Watford Junction!” clarion call are gonzo party tunes that will be soundtracking many a summer festival.
As tired as our tootsies are, we're looking forward to doing it all again tonight!

Main pic: Crystal Fighters. See elsewhere on hotpress.com for full Eurosonic Day One gallery.