Indietracks 2012

Watching The Birthday Kiss under the blue skies.

So I might have got home from Indietracks over a week ago, but seriously, I have only just recovered. Disco dancing til dawn (including a nice bit of skanking to The Beautiful South and generally going a bit mental to any and all Belle Seb) and camping in a rather damp Derbyshire (and therefore getting about 3 hours sleep), as well as working my socks off being a super helpful steward for hours on end, left me more than a little run down, so this last week has mostly been spent face down on the sofa watching old One Tree Hill episodes - I'm a bit obsessed with how perfect all their teeth are?

I've also been waiting until I got my pictures back - I eschewed my fancy digital in favour of a very sexy waterproof disposable camera, because of the apocalypse that was forecasted, but fortunately never materialised, and apparently they take a week to process?? Who knew. All I had was a couple of instagram shots and a pop up on DiS courtesy of one of the multitude of new bezzie mates I made (it's only a small stretch to say that that list now includes Gordon McIntyre & Stevie Jackson too, BFF's yo), but I guess they'll do for now, and I'll post my proper photos later in the week.

Gordon in the Church being a bit perfect.

If I'm being totally honest, musically, no one really knocked me flat on my face and did a little dance on my body, except for Gordon McIntyre and Allo Darlin', both of whom I got to see up close and personal thanks to my amazing 'oh you can go ANYWHERE' Steward badge, who were mega ultra brill, but equally, not one of the bands I saw were in any way unenjoyable either (I had to miss Stevie because I was working, although I'm sure he'd have been boss too). I'd basically not heard of anyone going in to it, so it was all a pleasant surprise. My other musical highlights were The School, The Smittens, Bart Cummings + Pam Berry, Rose Melberg's solo set and the tiny bit of Standard Fare that I caught, just enough to have a good old boogie to Philadelphia - an absolute corker of a song. 

But if you've ever been to Indietracks, you'll know that well, it's almost not even really about the music. It's about drinking real ale as you sit on the grass in the sunshine outside the tiny tin church listening to whoever and chatting with all the new friends you made, it's about riding the steam trains and getting a little bit cosy squashed in the guard van to take a chance on some band you've never heard of before, and hearing them do a Gina G cover, it's finding a mint copy of Parrell Lines on vinyl for a fiver and snapping that baby up, it's about the after hours disco at the campsite going on until the early hours of the morning, and drinking the bar in the engine shed dry of gin (yeah, that happened). 

So whilst it might have been good if I'd known a few more of the bands, like in 2009 when Camera Obscura, Au Revoir Simone and Teenage Fanclub headlined, and I had a freaking blast watching their sets, at the end of the day, it's the experience that counts, and we still had a damn fine experience.

(source, and more awesome Indietracks photos)

I would whole heatedly recommend stewarding Indietracks to anyone, a, because we could never have afforded to go otherwise, and b, because you instantly make a whole bunch of friends and people you recognise around the site, oh, and c, because it means you get the best seat in the house for any performance you like (as long as it fits around your shift of course, but even then, there is some flexibility). It was kind of a disorganised system at times, being such a tiny little homegrown festival mostly run by volunteers, but it all worked out and it definitely didn't put us off doing it again next year.

For now I'll leave you with Allo Darlin's set closer, the crowd-silencing, frankly a little bit magical, Tallulah. 

See you there next year!