ICEBREAKER FESTIVAL – SOUTHSEA, 31st JANUARY 2015

It may have been a cold day in January but that didn’t stop Icebreaker becoming an early addition to the festival calendar with seventy acts playing across six different venues, in order to showcase the South’s ever growing music scene.

With the Honest Politician starting slightly earlier than the rest of the day’s festivities I took the opportunity to check out Matt Blake, who despite only playing to a small gathering consisting of myself and one or two others put in a soulful performance with some well written acoustic numbers.

After the chilled out start it was then on to the Fat Fax and the pop punk sounds of Caught in a Crossfire, now the term pop punk always gets me – not enough attitude and anarchy to be classed as punk and not mainstream enough to be considered pop, but despite being a contradiction in terms Caught in a Crossfire are exactly this and do it pretty damn well.

Upon arriving at the Wedgewood Rooms for Oh Captain I discovered they had unfortunately pulled out, but the great thing about festivals is there’s always something else on offer and as such I got to see two new bands – the first of which were Basis in the Wedgewood Rooms before checking out Wisefool in the smaller Edge of the Wedge.

It wasn’t anything against Basis that I moved next door as they were a tight outfit and going down well amongst the younger member of the audience, but I wanted to see something a little less contrived which meant Wisefool and their three piece stoner rock.

Andover based Wisefool sound as though they could easily come from the deep south of America rather than a short drive from the south coast of the UK, there may not have been much talking in between songs but the riffs and gravelly vocals of Stewart Saunders were more than enough and were my first real discovery of the day as Icebreaker had most definitely arrived.

With that it was back into the main venue for Portsmouth’s own Aeroplane Attack, pure instrumentals but with a massive sound, good old Rusty Sheriff pounded the drum kit with some crazy drum fills whilst guitarists Phil and Matt provided the quiet/loud traits of Mogwai.  They may have scared off some of those that dared to stay at the barrier in front of the stage, but when you’re an aural assault like Aeroplane Attack then that becomes something to be proud of.

Randomly in and amongst all the local talent on offer today were Flippin’ Hot from France, I’m not sure how they managed to sneak into the line-up in the Edge but they seemed genuinely honoured to be a part of it and I was pleased to have caught the end of their 70’s inspired rock.

Next up was a little walk down the road to the Fat Fox to see Portsmouth based shoe-gazers Death of the Author.  There were times when the vocals were a little weak but Death of the Author were at their best when the music built up to an experimental layer of guitars fed through an array of effects pedals, before climaxing into a Sonic Youth inspired noise-fest.

With no time to spare it was a run upstairs to the Atrium bar for That Dani Bird, it’s a small venue you could easily miss but Dani had attracted a decent size crowd – even if it did come with my pet hate of people talking loudly over the solo performer, but this didn’t stop Dani putting in a set demonstrating her song writing ability along with clever covers of tracks by Purity Ring and the one hit wonder of Aqua’s “Barbie Girl”.

From the events smallest venue it was back to its largest for Jesse Wyldes and the Stallions at the Wedgewood Rooms, performing one of the strongest sets of the day Jesse Wild come across as the love child of Nick Cave and Tom Waits in a combination that ultimately proves as moody as it sounds on paper, so if you’re a fan of the Bad Seeds but haven’t experienced Jesse Wyldes and the Stallions then you should check these guys out for you won’t be disappointed.

Speaking of disappointment, it was back to the acoustic stage of the Atrium and much though I had been touting Skin For a Canvas having seen him perform a mesmerizing set at a punk all dayer, it couldn’t have gone much worse this time around… starting off by wasting half his allotted time talking to friends Skin For a Canvas was unfortunately suffering a bit from the cold and then managed to break a string, which in itself wouldn’t be so much of a problem had it not meant the set came to a half hearted end.

En route to the Deco stage for some metal it was a quick stop off to check out Red Seals downstairs at the Fat Fox with their fuzzy guitars and great bass playing, but at the Deco was possibly my favourite band of the day in Southampton based Hummune.

Now this was a band exactly how I remembered them, crunchy guitar riffs and a rather impressive beard, Hummune had the place rocking.  The three piece are reminiscent of Prong and Godflesh but without any of the electronic elements from the industrial rock movement, because quite frankly their sound is immense enough without it.

The Hummune set was going to be pretty difficult to follow, so having played safe I went to watch the tried and tested local boys of Tricorn in the Fat Fox as I knew they would be as tight as usual.

Providing some stoner rock at its best Tricorn have the genre all wrapped up with songs about women and drinking, great guitar solos and a stage presence that would certainly be at home on the bigger stage.

Another band with metal riffs and a good stage act were Belligerence, as lead singer Tim Brock stormed around the stage sounding like Phil Anselmo fronting Pantera or Superjoin Ritual, whilst lead guitarist David Harvey showed some impressive guitar work and you could soon tell why Belligerence had the honour of playing Download Festival at the legendry Donington Park a few years ago.

The early evening may have provided the heavier part of the festival but this wasn’t all about metal as Deluxe Flamingos showed the diversity on offer, as having seen rock and acoustic performances it was time for some electro dance music.

It may have taken Deluxe Flamingos a while to set up but by the time they started there wasn’t much room for manoeuvre in the Edge of the Wedge with the crowd being up for a boogie.  The synth led experimentalist had the audience dancing along with their combination of pre-programmed backing tracks, keyboard wizardry and live guitars, bass and drums being nicely rounded off by the vocals of Aviv Uziel.

With the festival coming to a close it was down to The Butterfly Culture to headline the Wedgewood Rooms and although they seemed to get better as their set went on it felt as though the two stages were round the wrong way as Deluxe Flamingos would have been more suited to the large room.

The Butterfly Culture did however provide the perfect end to a day out as their dreamy indie-rock slowed the mood down a little before it was time for the DJ’s to round off the festival and as the opening bars of the White Stripes “Seven Nation Army” rung out it was time to reflect on what had been an all rather successful Icebreaker.

So with the organizers already advertising to recruit bands for next year’s event who knows where the festival will lead… but for now Icebreaker 2015 was just the tip of the iceberg, with those January blues becoming something well worth remembering.