Hard Working Class Heroes 2014 - Thursday | Review

Hard Working Class Heroes, Thursday 2nd October 2014

Always well placed at the very end of the festival season, Hard Working Class Heroes is a pleasant buffer between the field-hopping of the summer months and the rain-free venues of the city we get to enjoy the rest of the year long. Indeed, it hardly feels like a festival at all if you’re not shivering in some godforsaken field somewhere getting dry-humped by a semi-conscious pill-head. Yet here is HWCH, offering a different experience.

Featuring all Irish acts, it’s one of the best events in the Irish music calender for finding out what’s new and exciting in the music world, without having to pull a muscle hauling sacks of beer and rain-gear. Now in it’s 12th year, HWCH features 100 artists performing in seven venues across Dublin city, and while we can’t catch them all, we can give you our impression of a handful.

Paddy Hanna

Let us not philosophise too much on the first slot of a festival at this stage. We all know not to get too excited by whatever act is unfortunate enough to claim this position. Think of it from their perspective, massive lead up and hype followed by heading straight to the stage before all that hype has even begun to transform itself into an atmosphere. Paddy Hanna falls on his sword at the Button Factory, and he puts in a valiant effort.

“Sincerity isn’t my go-to emotion,” he informs the room after thanking us all for showing up, “so sorry if I sound sarcastic, but I really do mean it.” His endearing ’60s-influenced guitar pop is a fine opening to the festival, seeming to mix the upbeat rhythms and pronounced twanging guitar-lines of early Beach Boys with a Lou Reed grumble when he sings.

It’s all too short and sweet for Mr. Hanna. His groovy music and funky bass-lines induce you to movement which is the best an opening act can hope for. Alas, it seems like we’ve only begun moving to the music before the iPod is plugged back in at the Button Factory and we’re moving out the door to the next venue.

The Statics

At HWCH, the acts get a mere thirty minutes to show what they can do, and that’s if they miraculously manage to start on-time. It’s more a taster than a full delectable set and for The Statics this certainly seems to be the case. If you don’t already know, their music is composed in tight, pulsating structures that requires tight playing to really pull off.

They don’t always keep this required tightness, but when they do, hoo boy. The Statics are both warming up and performing a set here in the Mercantile, and while they kind of ease into the songs and through the early verses, they repeatedly nail the choruses and the instrumental breaks in the latter halves of each of their songs.

It’s a miracle in itself considering they simply set up their instruments, made sure everything could be heard above everything else and then started playing. Their music is upbeat and charming, and Had it Too is a particular highlight, featuring Jacqueline Campion’s round airy drum-beats and Liam Gardner and Daragh O’Connell’s Everley Brothers harmonies on the chorus.

Leanne Harte

From the second Leanne Harte starts singing you start to pay attention. The clarity of her voice and the ease with which she manoeuvres it through the subtle changes required of her in a given song are quite unbelievable. She takes to the stage at Bad Bob’s, seemingly lit only by the red neon of a sign spelling out “cocktails”, with a male backup singer and a violinist, and though her songs are soft and relaxed, she effectively drowns out the chatter from the bar downstairs.

The easy tone of the performance is most welcome at this early stage. Harte’s songs go for soft straightforward rhythms, but the strength in the performance lies in the way she blends her voice with that of her backup singer and her guitar with the accompanying violin.

The aforementioned show-stopping nature of her voice is particularly impressive when she informs us she has just gotten over a disruptive cough, and indeed as the set goes on her voice does seem to get a bit huskier. The show is relaxed and with few enough attendees that everyone has a place to sit. There’s surely more raucous things going on elsewhere but this was a pleasant stop-over.

God Knows + mynameisjohn

At some point you have to ask yourself, “what are we all doing at a bloody music festival on a Thursday night?” At the Button Factory the general mood in the crowd is one of quiet appreciation for what’s happening onstage, but God Knows, mynameisjohn and hype-man Murli are performing as if a crowd of thousands are screaming their names.

That’s what you have to love about hip-hop artists, the best live performers have this unquenchable energy, and God Knows and Murli have such a great chemistry onstage, with their wild dances and massively impressive energetic raps. Even calls by the rappers to the crowd of mostly white men to “jump” is heeded in some sections (granted, some leave shamefacedly when they come to their senses, but it’s an impressive victory for the musicians).

This is Irish hip-hop at its best, as in hip-hop that could compete at the highest international – if underground – levels. It’s nice to have an act willing to speak out for the plight of refugees while doing the running man and have both things feel genuine and engaging. The beats introduced by mynameisjohn have a hint of grime to them, but they hark back to the best New York hip-hop of the early ’90s, the DJ Premier/Q-Tip/RZA stuff that really was hip-hop at its pinnacle. These guys are the real deal.

Carriages

It often feels like a problem with electronic music that it’s so much clearer and more together on a studio recording than it is in the live setting. There’s always some piece of equipment doing something it’s not supposed to do, or a sample seemingly disappearing into the complex circuitry of this or that soundboard that needs an IT man in to sort it out.

And yes, this seems to be a problem throughout all mellow electronic music, and Carriages do start off with these issues. It’s perhaps amplified by the fact that they don’t look massively comfortable on the Workman’s stage as the opening night of the festival comes to a close. The acoustic guitar is too low and for the opening two songs the show is pleasant but nothing of note.

But this changes slowly, and once the guitar disappears the rhythms become more defined, the performers become more involved and Aaron Page adopts a vocal tone in the deep tight-throated likeness of The Blue Nile’s Paul Buchanan. By the time the set comes to a close the swaying is becoming violent. Yet more victims of the lack of opportunity to warm up, Carriages pulled it off in the end, although their recorded output still exceeds their live performance.

SOAK

As the effective main stage for the festival, Meeting House Square was where many attendees decided to converge for the 11 to 11.30 slot. What this inevitably ended up meaning was that the Thursday night drunkeness – drunkeness in one of it’s most shameful mainstream forms – threatened to overpower the soft solo performance of SOAK.

Perhaps “threatened” is the wrong word, as it was fairly difficult to pay attention to the performer who seemed way off in the distance, not the main attraction at all compared to the round-table discussions that were taking place all over the square. This is a problem SOAK faces time and again. Her music is very much suited to small intimate venues, yet her popularity has transcended that.

Two years later Sea Creatures is still the highlight of her set, but even it is starting to lose its sheen. She needs to make a decision to either perform the types of songs she plays is small to medium size venues (her performance in the Sugar Club opening for Ethan Johns last years was fantastic) or write bigger songs that fit stages like the Olympia (where she suffered a similar issue as tonight when opening for CHVRCHES).

Florence Olivier

The electro-pop trio packed a variety of synth sounds into their set from high and squeaky 8-bit sounds to more bass heavy noises. The problem is that the synth sounds themselves are not highly original, and the bands songs tend to blur into one another. Aside from this the group’s tunes are raggedly put together and lack a coherency to make them truly remarkable.

A conversational singing style, and an active stage presence goes some way to redeeming the band’s performance, and there is definitely an element of fun to the band’s performance that holds the attention. Portals is an impressive little track, and the presence of the bass guitar offers a pleasing contrast to the electronics.

There’s a naivity to Florence Olivier’s performance that is in some ways quite charming, but also contributes to a haphazard performance. There’s certainly potential here; it just wasn’t realised on the night.

Sisters

Hotly-tipped noise-rock trio Sisters filled the Button Factory with their fuzzy tones Thursday night, and showed flashes of brilliance in between extended moments of mediocrity.

Clearhead was an absolutely gorgeous track with high, wistful riffs and dreamy vocals that managed to make the song sound even sadder and more poignant than the recorded version. It’s refreshing to see a band change the character of a song through their live performance, and Sisters really provided something extra on this tune.

However, much of the rest of the band’s set passed by in a fuzzy blur, with an over-riding sense that the band are hiding behind the fuzz and distortion. The band also went from one song to the next without a break, not the best idea when most of their tunes sound remarkably similar.

Hush Hush, the band’s current single, sees a return to form with a powerful drumming display driving an explosive rendition. Catchy hooks spill from every orifice and quality riffs emerge from the wild distortion. Sisters are undeniably brilliant when on form, but they need to maintain that standard for a whole show to move to the next level.

The Academic

It’s relatively easy to be a tight band when you play pumped-up, fast-paced indie rock, but it’s much harder to be actually good at it. The Academic performed at the peculiar stage at Bad Bob’s hoping to fall into the latter category.

Hyper-fast, exciting and catchy, the band fill their set with simply-constructed, yet infectiously catchy indie pop tunes. Songs such as Why Can’t We Be Friends have you singing along without even realising, and Fitzgerald’s broad vocals are delivered with an assuring confidence.

Bear Claws stands out as the set highlight, with yet another triumphant sing-a-long chorus and another collection of appealing riffs. Fun, bouncy and upbeat, The Academic put on a performance that heaved with enthusiasm and energy, and most importantly of all, had the tunes to match their youthful exuberance.

Hugh Hick

Prior to playing, Hugh Hick came across as a decidedly awkward character, slightly unsure of himself, and more than a little nervous. Once the group’s set began though, he burst into life and proved himself to be quite the showman.

Phyllis was a powerful rock ‘n’ roll number, with Hick’s vocals poised between meaty guitar distortion at one end, and a rich sax at the other. A broken guitar string saw Hick jettisoning the instrument, but that didn’t stop him from becoming even livelier and bubblier than he had been. Jumping off the stage in order to face the crowd (the setup in Bad Bob’s is a bit odd to say the least) Hick dances around and and conducts the music with wild flourishes – all wonderfully entertaining.

Hick plonks himself behind the piano for a few tracks, with the quaint Budapest adding a great versatility to the show. The band re-emerge for the End Of The Deception, an epic behemoth of a tune that closes the show in style. It’s a strong performance, with Hick’s weak falsetto being the only fault worthy of mention.

Words: Stephen Murphy & Jonathan Klein