Festival Season 2013: The Flock of the New

The music festival has become such an integral part of the summer season in Scotland that it can be hard to recall what made these events so damn popular in the first place. Complaints about dodgy food, bad weather and indifferent headline acts have been so regularly aired over the years that they have almost lost all meaning. Those of us with memories not so badly damaged by annual treks to Kinross-shire fields may recall that it was only two decades ago that Scotland offered little in the way of organised festivals.

Down south, Reading and Glastonbury were long established live meccas, but those Scots without the inclination to travel had to make do with occasional events that were invariably badly run and lacking in basic facilities. The Fife Aid festivals of the late 1980s – to name but one of the various esoteric summer gatherings in those dark, pre-internet days – might have been raising money for some worthy causes, but its line-up would be laughed at by today’s relatively spoiled music fans.

T in the Park – celebrating its 20th year – might be colossal in size, but its dedication to offering a platform, and in turn some much needed national exposure, to rising bands and unsigned artists cannot be doubted. This year’s BBC Introducing and T Break stage line-ups once again feature several acts who promise to offer unmissable shows, and at the very least these tents provide weary festival punters a valuable shelter – whether it is from the rain, or Mumford & Sons.

Meanwhile, down in rural Kirkcudbrightshire, the Wickerman festival’s reputation for bringing together the very best cutting-edge acts of the year continues to grow. The Solus and goNorth tents might not be the grandest of stages in terms of physical size, but the talent contained within is immeasurable. Pitched in two opposite ends of the country, these four marquees are a very real reminder that Scottish festivals ain’t so bad; in fact they can be genuinely marvellous. The only question remains is; who should you go to see? Let The Skinny be your guide.

Machines in Heaven
Playing The T Break Stage at T in the Park and The Solus Tent at Wickerman
Be prepared to scale a wall of bass when Glasgow’s formidable synthpop masters Machines in Heaven hit their stride. Declaring their intention to “put the humanity back into machines with our music,” the four-piece band are back with a new line-up and their seemingly boundless energy. “It's a great line-up at Wickerman, and we can’t wait to see our pals Vasa,” says guitarist Graham Crossan. “We'll certainly give the crowd something to dance to, anyway – and a wall of bass. Remember, even if the weatherman says it's to be blazing all weekend, pack wellies anyway!” Wise words.

Fat Goth
Playing the BBC Introducing Stage at T in the Park and The Solus Tent at Wickerman
No strangers to this magazine, Dundee power trio Fat Goth have enjoyed a turbo-charged 2013; they’ve gained rave reviews for their second album Stud and found themselves immortalised in Pandora Peroxide, Kerrang’s long-running cartoon strip. The group will be making their first appearance at T in the Park, and will return to Wickerman for a second time later in the month. If you’re lucky enough to be attending both festivals, you can look forward to two different Fat Goth sets. “I'm not a big fan of playing the same songs in the same order all the time so we tend to mix it up,” explains frontman Fraser Stewart, who also plans to keep an eye on Rihanna when she hits up Balado. “I've only heard her music in passing and first impressions are not good. That said, if I get the chance, I'll try some of my chat and see what happens.”

Plastic Animals
Playing The goNorth Tent at Wickerman
Many bands would settle for having their music played on the radio as well as releasing the odd record. Plastic Animals have already done both of those things in 2013 - and created their very own ale as part of the Beer vs. Records initiative. Sadly, licensing restrictions may prevent them bringing any kegs on site at Wickerman, but the Edinburgh group can be relied upon to serve up a refreshing round of their own-brand sludge rock, with an added dash of pop sensibility. “This will be our first time at Wickerman and our first proper festival show,” explains the band's Dave Wark. “We played goNorth [in Inverness] at the start of June, which was great fun, but it's not quite the same as playing in a muddy field. We’re not too nervous about playing, more just apprehensive whether anyone will come to see us.” With tunes as good as Ghost, they should have little to worry about.

Honeyblood
Playing The T Break Tent at T in the Park and The Solus Tent at Wickerman
Garage rock duo Honeyblood create a primal sound that’s impossible to ignore - it led to them playing a well-received show at this year’s Great Escape festival in Brighton and securing a support slot with The Twilight Sad, despite not having released any records. That’s a situation they plan to rectify with the release of their debut single in August, but before all that there’s the small matter of debuting at two of Scotland’s leading festivals to contend with. “Nerves?” asks singer and guitarist Stina Tweeddale. “It's always good to get a little nervous before shows. It's exciting more than anything!” She also has simple but sage advice to all you punters who plan to attend an outdoor gig this summer: “Don’t piss in your own tent!”

Vasa
Playing The T Break Tent at T in the Park
Vasa will add a welcome dash of experimental post-rock to the usual cocktail served up at Balado. The four-piece from Glasgow have already shared stages with the likes of Maybeshewill, Brontide and Mutiny on the Bounty, and will adopt a straight forward approach when it comes to competing with other bands on bigger stages at T. “To be honest, we'll just play very loud and hope to drown out the main stage,” states bassist John Niblock, confidently. “We'll just do what we always do onstage and hope people appreciate us. We're very different from most of the other bands, so hopefully the folk there will take notice.”

Discopolis
Playing The BBC Introducing Stage at T in the Park
There’s four of them, they hail from Edinburgh and they’ve come a hell of a long way since making their T in the Park debut as relative live novices in 2011. “Those were such early days for our show and for us personally, so we’re really keen to get back in the ring and show people what Discopolis (all grown up) has to offer,” says the band’s Fergus Cook. Riding on the success of their current EP Committed to Sparkle Motion, you can expect a euphoric set. “I think the best chemistry we’ve had with an audience is when we haven’t held back. If [fellow band member] Dave wants to profess his love for the crowd while fighting back the tears, then so be it.”

DARC
Playing The T Break Tent at T in the Park
Interest in Edinburgh electro outfit DARC has been rising for some time, so it’s no surprise that they’ve impressed this year's T Break panel to make the Balado line-up. “We can’t wait to jump on a big stage with a big system and let rip,” producer David Thomas offers, with obvious excitement. Seemingly, playing to a typically boisterous T in the Park crowd is unlikely to phase these lads. "We'll give them something to be boisterous about. We honestly can't wait to have a bouncing festival crowd. The energy will be insane so we're planning on giving everything we've got for the audience to have an amazing time. We just want to make people go mad and dance and jump about or whatever, so we're happy for them to go as crazy as they like."

RUNGS
Playing The Solus Tent at Wickerman
Unlike most of the other artists profiled here, 2013 has thus far been a relatively quiet year for RUNGS, fine purveyors of fucked-up hardcore. But you can expect to hear much more from this Glasgow group, which includes former members of the much-missed Take A Worm For A Walk Week and Project:Venhell. “We all play in so many other bands we don't have much time (to dedicate to RUNGS),” explains guitarist Johnny Docherty. “Saying that, we have self-released an EP entitled I Don't Wanna Hug! I Just Wanna Cum! and we have recorded our first album with our good friend Italian Gal. We plan to get our first album out later in the year and play as much we can.” A suitably banging set in the Solus tent should be more than enough to kick-start RUNGS’ reign.

Vukovi
Playing The Solus Tent at Wickerman
Headlining Wickerman’s Solus tent on the Friday will be Vukovi, who are perhaps the finest thing to emerge from the Ayrshire town of Kilwinning since the 1999 Junior Cup winning side. No strangers to Kirkcudbrightshire, the new wave rockers played a storming set at Wickerman two years ago and reckon they have more fans in southern Scotland than in their home town. “We're proud and honoured that we've been asked back to headline Solus this year,” says singer Janine Shilstone. “It's a great tent with a great line up. I think we're more excited than nervous at the moment.” The band have been busy recording a mini-album, but remain tight-lipped about their other future plans. “It’s been exciting having new people coming on board that are wanting to work with us,” Janine adds, somewhat cryptically. “That's all we can really say at the moment. We're calling it the calm before the storm.”

Roman Nose
Playing The BBC Introducing Stage at T in the Park and The Solus Tent at Wickerman
Roman Nose are likely to leave a lasting impression on the festival crowd before they even play a note of music. The band’s on-stage get-up includes the kind of mask that would frighten even the toughest ICP fan. The trio headline the Solus tent on Saturday night and will also bring their unique brand of black electro to the BBC stage at Balado. “We've been lead to believe that the Wickerman crowd, in general, are an open-minded group of individuals, so we are confident they will enjoy our set,” states Craig. “But if not… then there will be trouble! All of the bands playing on these various stages this year have worked incredibly hard to get there. We hope to be able to catch most of them - but to be honest; we’re quite excited about catching Kraftwerk at T. Kinda obvious, eh?”

Casual Sex
Playing The goNorth Tent at Wickerman
Casual Sex are so over people making giggling jokes about their name. Instead, they’re slightly fretting about certain London broadsheet newspapers branding them as ‘the new Franz Ferdinand.’ “We did resign ourselves to the fact the Franz tag, along with the Orange Juice/Joseph K tag, was going to be tagged on to us,” sighs Sam Smith. “The 'best bit' is nice in a subjective sense, and indeed I like FF and OJ and JK - though thankfully a few folk have started to pick up on the fact musically we may spring from similar influences (large wide ocean) but we are a very different barrel of salty men.” You'll have the chance to make your own mind up at Wickerman’s goNorth stage.

Book Group
Playing The goNorth Tent at Wickerman
This Edinburgh group’s debut EP Homeward Sound has attracted sincere praise, and they delivered a stirring set at the Fence Records Gnomegame bash in April, but Michael Morrison isn’t about to start taking things for granted. “Obviously now someone will slate it, but in general people seem to have got exactly what we were aiming for. I'd go as far as to say the Solus and goNorth stages have the strongest line-ups of the whole festival, and we can't wait to be part of it all.” As well as promising to deliver the goods on stage, the band have another important task to carry out on the night. “I want to be as close to Nile Rodgers as possible. We plan to get the pints in and dance like total fannies to Good Times.” Don't we all.