Simple Things festival, Bristol, review: The festival highlight was Charlotte Church and her pop dungeon
Charlotte Church, Warpaint, Death Grips, Suuns and Ben UFO played Simple Things festival in various venues around Bristol
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Your support makes all the difference.Simple Things festival scored a UK first for its sixth edition by inviting composer-director John Carpenter over from the US to play some of his biggest scores live. His 'closing party' took the Sunday evening slot, the day after the main festival, and attracted throngs of sci-fi nerds. They cheered movie scenes projected on the back of the stage, taken from Halloween, They Live, The Thing and Christine, while the laconic Carpenter, now in his sixties, vigorously chewed gum and raised a fist between songs.
Hundreds turned out from dusk until dawn on Saturday to see Warpaint, Death Grips and Ben UFO rattle the dust from some of Bristol’s best venues. Punters strained at the barriers for the Suicide-inspired chaos of a Powell live set in a disused firestation at 7pm, or turned the belly of concert venue Colston Hall into a giant circle pit for the Sacramento noise-rap band Death Grips. It was a punishing night for delicate ears.
But there was sweeter music to be found. Anna Meredith charmed the crowd with a set of storming techno and pop, accompanied by a tuba, a cello and some electronic trickery on the keyboard. Canadian indie outfit Suuns bought out the giant inflatables spelling out their name to squeeze one of their last sets out of a busy festival season.
But the festival highlight came from Charlotte Church and her pop dungeon. Church has been stealing the show at festivals with a karaoke set of nostalgic nineties pop wonders. Her 1am slot in the foyer of Colston Hall had people hanging off the staircase dancing to covers of Sugababes, En Vogue, Nine Inch Nails and more.
The good cheer carried over into the witching hour at Lakota, a superb nightclub in an abandoned brewery in Stokes Croft. Tim Sweeney, a New York DJ and blogger, brought a set of Chicago house to a packed crowd pressed up against sweaty concrete walls.
Judging from the queue to get in, the Lakota crowd proved that Simple Things might be able to attract big US names, but the success of the festival rests on its relationships with the some of the most exciting, extreme and experiential acts around, no matter what their mainstream credentials.
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