Something Special That You Just Don’t Want to Put Down

Neil Jones on Indietracks, 2010

23, 24, 25 July, 2010

Midland Railway, Butterley, Derbyshire, UK

Indietracks is a festival in the Derbyshire countryside that has gained cult status amongst indiepop fans since its conception in 2007. For one weekend a year the picturesque 1950s Butterley steam railway station comes to life with music and DIY fashion, leaving families and day-visitors who’ve come to browse through the trains scratching their eyes at the scenes.

With Saturday and Sunday scheduled to be the main days, Friday night sees a small line-up usher in the weekend. Though ushering in is far too passive a line to describe the Everybody Was in the French Resistance…NOW show. French Resistance are the side-project of Art Brut man Eddie Argos, and he rocks the grass embankment in front of the outside stage with a show of typically passionate, typically brilliant lyricism, his band coating his lyrical flexing in swirling guitars and keyboards.

The Saturday of the festival begins with a set of Morrisey-esque moods from The Felt Tips, finding themselves right at home here at Indietracks with their awkward yet impassioned shuffling. Then The Just Joans treat us to a set that warms the cockles of the heart with sadness and romance. The Just Joans have songs that make wonderful Pop moments, little masterpieces of literary and emotional quality that stick in the head like lovers’ poems. They even have the ingenuity to add the chorus from Sleeper’s Britpop staple “What Do I Do Now” into one of their songs and make it sound like it was meant to be there.

After the specialness of The Just Joans, only something like bona fide indiepop heroes and John Peel favourites Ballboy can grab us in and give us a new high. On second from last on the outside stage, Gordon McIntyre’s songs wrap round us like a warm blanket, melodica and keyboards rising with a cuttingly emotional musical grace. Ballboy create moments where you can cut the tension with a knife, but the tension is of poetry and everyday emotion, love and loss perfectly encapsulated. It’s something special that you just don’t want to put down.

Following Ballboy, Saturday headliners (and 80s indie heroes) The Primitives shimmer through a set of songs still impassioned enough to encourage the young Indietracks element to join the oldies down the front, their huge hit "Crash" coming on like a burst of Pop magic from your dreams, before indiepop discos call from afar, and the legends join everyone else to make a blaze of Saturday night shapes in the locomotive shed and marquee discos.

Along with the Bobby McGee’s, MJ Hibbett is the perennial jester of the indiepop scene. His Sunday set with his band the Validators on the outside stage sees synchronised dancing, an hilariously clever call and response routine and songs that have a wonderful punch and guile waking everyone from the revelry of the night before, and encouraging it all to happen again.

Brooklyn's The Specific Heats follow in the locomotive shed. Draped in capes they play a set of finely-honed songs that reach for the stars with a bubblegum super-hero wonder, rarely coming down for air. It’s then the turn of Cardiff/London band The Loves to get everyone going on the outside stage. Another of the indiepop jester elite, Simon Love has cultivated a vintage moustache for the event. He also dons an immaculate black cape, which rather stylishly drapes over his guitar so that only the fret board sticks out, and as the beatific keyboards and guitar lines buzz over his 60s Pop dreamer lyrics, burlesque dancers and Jesus himself bound on stage to take us to surreal places. The Loves and their profound guests leave smiles etched on faces and melodies in the heart.

Up next on the main stage, Shrag’s singer Steph writhes barefoot to the beats in the manner of a riot grrl dervish, the songs blazing out into the night with a sultriness and devilishness to match her moves. Then it’s belated first visit of the weekend to the old railwaymen’s church, which makes for the third Indietracks stage. In the church Gordon McIntrye, filling in for the scheduled church headliners Pale Sunday, plays an acoustic set of old and new Ballboy songs that for the second time this weekend have us holding onto our heartstrings, trying not to punch the air in joy.

Outside stage headliners The Pains of Being Pure at Heart round the festival off with a set of sky-scraping guitars, sounding good and looking the part without having to say that much in particular, the crowd in raptures at the front while the cast on the hill admire the scenes from the subtly lit station at night. To our left the sleepy bus depo sends out its last double-decker of the night, while to our right an old street lamp shines over a long steam engine on the platform. Indietracks really is a pleasure of sight and sound. Who would have thought indiepop and steam train heritage are the perfect match?

© 2010 Neil Jones

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