What a start to the weekend.
Depending on the type of day you are having, the fact that festivals have bands on so early can be a blessing or a curse. If you're ready for action bright and early with time to kill, some of the best finds of the weekend can be found in the open space that is a festival band playing around lunchtime. If however, you happened to spend the previous evening in a cattle market in Inverness where a Flaming Dr. Pepper was the drink of choice, its not always possible to make the first band on. Given the drinks likelihood of kill someone it was quickly re-christened a Flaming Dr. Shipman by the collective and as 4am rolled around, the chances of making the festival start time looked slim.
With some amazement, it has to be said, the festival site was reached around 1pm, which wasn't early enough for some bands but it should have stood us in good stead for the first key act of the day. You can then picture the annoyance of standing at the brow of the hill which looked down to the main stage and realizing that The Whip were already on-stage and drummer Fiona Daniel was smashing her way through the early afternoon sunshine.
The annoyance of this was far greater than the pain caused by any number of stupid cocktails because in a few short months The Whip have proved to be a band worth making the effort for. A check of their myspace indicates the general level of excitement for them but here at RoomThirteen we don't care too much about that, not when we were absolutely bowled over by the act at the Camden Crawl, so much so that we checked them out on both days.
So what had we missed, well it transpired we missed 'Frustration', which would have been brilliant, if only to hear Danny Saville bellowing "its cold outside" when in fact, Inverness was probably experiencing the hottest day since records began. No doubt this is why Nessie remained under the cool waters as opposed to surfacing to check out the electronic delivery emanating from the main stage.
Not to worry though as 'Divebomb' got the party started with a cold electronic strut and its underlying sleazy swagger unleashed a wave of filthiness throughout the area and only left us kicking ourselves harder that we weren't there earlier. The information that was bandied about before the festival was that there would be at least another ninety minutes before The Whip were due on-stage so it was a harsh lesson to be learned.
Set-closer 'Trash' roared to a conclusion and the people who had gathered in front of the main stage were genuinely having a great time. It may have been impossible to have had a bad time in that time and place with the setting and the sun but lets just say that The Whip managed to up the pleasure stakes. There is a nauil-biting edge to the song that is propelled along by a building tension that is only topped off by the repeating "I wanna be trash" chorus. Heck, it's a festival, what else could you want to be? And with that, The Whip were waving their merry way off stage and the general consensus was that the set-list was far too early for a band of this promise and quality of songs.
We've told you before and we'll continue to do so until you listen or we die of drinking too many Flaming Dr. Peppers because you ignored us. If you see one new band this summer, make sure it's the Whip.