WARMDUSCHER + BC CAMPLIGHT + AIRCOOLED + HEARTWORMS + PALE BLUE EYES + SNAYX + WINTER GARDENS + OFFICE FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT – DE LA WARR PAVILION, BEXHILL-ON-SEA 8.7.23
The inaugural alternative music ‘Seaview Festival’ took place this Saturday on the South Lawns beach-side plaza of the iconic grade I listed Modernist gem known as the De La Warr Pavilion, which is located on the seafront at Bexhill-on-Sea.
This new festival was organised by label in the know austerity records (who adopt a lower case font) and venue doors swung open at 1pm. As part of the event, there were established DJ’s, including JAMES ENDEACOTT, decent quality food vendors, boutique bars, local beers and ales, as well as other stalls including Brighton based label Bella Union and Bexhill’s Music’s Not Dead record store. The day was full of live performances from eight varied alternative music artists, all of which were lapped up by the ever-increasing crowd.
Obviously we are not talking about the masses of crowds that are found at each Glastonbury, but I’m quite sure that the promoters and venue were pleasantly pleased with the decent turnout, despite the changeable British weather. The punters were an eclectic mix of folk, which is exactly what you want for a new festival, with people from all walks of life, ages and sexes. The atmosphere throughout the whole event was one big party. The close proximity of the sea relaxed the vibe and I only wished that the specially erected single stage was positioned with its back to the water as opposed to facing it. Having said that, I would have been tempted to keep gazing out at the calm waters whilst the music acts were on as opposed to concentrating on what the artists had to offer us. Our day of music began after only half an hour (at 1:30pm) and so we have listed the artists proposed set times. Here we go….
OFFICE FOR PERSONAL DEVELOPMENT (1:30pm – 2:00pm)
The stage was set up for the first band of the day with a pop-up banner for Office For Personal Development, which made it look like OPD were a corporate sponsor rather than a band. Trevor Deeble, lead singer, (correction Director), came on stage with two keyboard players Del Querns (Head of IT) and Jenna Love (Goals Liaison Officer). Having read the memo, all three were dressed in matching corporate colours of pale grey suits and green ties. Trevor started as if he was giving a motivation speech at a staff conference. When the songs started Trevor’s singing was similar to Neil Tennant of the Pet Shop Boys, as was the band’s music.
For the fourth song, there was a corporate restructure with Jenna moving to the centre of the stage with her clipboard to take over vocals for a song. During this song the office juniors (two children in matching suits) threw OPD beach balls into the crowd. As with corporate days, OPD were keen on audience participation encouraging hand waving.
There was a dress-down-Friday feel toward the end of the set, when Trever removed his tie and jacket and unbuttoned his shirt. He then removed his shirt and made his way into the crowd. Trevor, as any company director would, finished the session with a summary getting the audience repeating “I can. I will.” and reminding us “The difference between a goal and a dream is having a plan.” For all the corporate gimmickry, with business soundbites and even a watercooler on stage, it was a good and unique musical performance to start the Seaview Festival from Office For Personal Development.
(Peter Greenfield)
WINTER GARDENS (2:15pm – 2:45pm)
There was a delay to the start of Winter Gardens’ set as a few technical issues had to be sorted out with plugging in and taking out various cables and leads. Winter Gardens came on stage all dressed in black. There was an imbalance in the sound for the first few songs of the set, with the vocals lost to the volume of the bass. The balance did improve as the set progressed.
Technical issues resolved, the vocal harmonies of Ananda Howard and Jasmine Ardley were a key feature of Winter Gardens performance. Compared to previous times I’ve seen Winter Gardens, the vocals were more shared between the two singers rather than Jasmine as backing vocalist. A positive change. Another noticeable development was a punchier sound, especially from Jamie Windless on guitar and Will Cuchford on bass guitar. Winter Gardens’ shoegaze dreamscape sound, reminiscent of Slowdive, was still there, but delivered with more of an edge. They delivered a varied set incorporating some dreamy sounds, and other numbers with rock or funky guitars (such as on the latest single ‘Moonjockey’).
Winter Gardens closed an entertaining performance with ‘Hyacinth’, their smoothest song of the set with the ethereal vocal harmonies of Ananda and Jasmine again taking the spotlight. The expansion in their live sound worked well at the Seaview Festival, setting a good tone for the rest of the day’s music.
(Peter Greenfield)
www.instagram.com/wintergardensband
SNAYX (3:00pm – 3:30pm)
The crowd in front of the stage at the De La Warr for the Seaview Festival had grown in anticipation of local favourites SNAYX. There was even a fan in a snake mask. For the start of the set only drummer Lainey Nix-Watson was on stage as the intro track played, then Charlie Herridge (vocals) and Ollie Horner (guitar) came bounding on stage full of energy and real intent. With Charlie saying “How are we f*cking doing Seaview?” their full throttle set kicked off. From the first few bars, singer Charlie was on monitors at the front of the stage.
SNAYX are a band with a message on the current state of the country. ‘H.A.N.G.’ dealt with the cost-of-living crisis and ‘Boys In Blue’ the issues in the police force. SNAYX successfully combined their strong social message with the need to party. Charlie’s rallying call of “Are you gonna party or what? No excuse.” and a few forays into the crowd to get a mosh pit started, along with the energy on stage whipped up the Seaview crowd.
Some excellent drumming by Lainey and aggressive bass work from Ollie was the perfect sound for Charlie’s often angry, always honest vocals. After she was introduced to the crowd, Lainey played an exceptional drum solo. SNAYX said they wanted to get the party started. True to their word they certainly did that at the Seaview Festival.
(Peter Greenfield)
PALE BLUE EYES (3:45pm – 4:25pm)
Pale Blue Eyes have kindly travelled to play their 38 minute set for us today from their home base in Totnes, Devon, where they have built their own analog studio. Strictly speaking, for their 2022 debut album, ‘Souvenirs’, (which will soon be followed by ‘This House’ in September), they are a trio, consisting of Matthew Board on lead vocals and guitar, Aubrey Simpson on bass and Lucy Board on drums, but for live work their are thankfully bolstered by John Gooding who successfully pours a wash of synth and shakers over proceedings.
The sun is now thankfully out and they employ a likeable D.I.Y. approach which is witnessed by the standing punters at the front and others watching from the grass to the rear. After Matthew’s initial amp trouble, they are away with their top drawer blend of jangly psych guitar, tickled bass, motorik drums and synth key perfection.
They tread the fine line between Krautrock and melodic synth pop and my neurotransmitters (endorphins) are firing like crazy! An understatement would be “this is a great band, and the audience seem to be loving the performance”. They were my choice act of the whole festival and I’m very much looking forward to catching them play live in Brighton at Resident instore on 6th September and then at Patterns on 19th November.
(Nick Linazasoro)
HEARTWORMS (4:45pm – 5:30pm)
We knew we were in for something different from Heartworms even from their soundcheck. Singer and poet Jojo Orme did part of the soundcheck with a poem and also soundchecked her theremin. Heartworms arrived on stage all sharply dressed in black. Singer Jojo wore a sharp black suit and tie, rather than the beret and military look which were her trademark. Jojo was joined by three very good musicians, a guitarist, bassist and drummer, all of whom were key in the slightly sinister, intoxicating soundscapes of Heartworms’s performance.
Heartworms’s Jojo switched vocal styles during the Heartworms set, within songs and even sentences. Some lyrics were delivered like poetry, other in a staccato style. In one song, Jojo sang quite quietly crouched at the front of the stage, while later in the same song knelt screaming at the sky. The intensity of the vocals was perfectly match with the post-punk gothic wall of sound. While there were suggestions of Joy Division and Bauhaus to The Cure and Elastica, Heartworms’s sound was exciting and vibrant. Influenced by, but not living in the past.
Not one for chitchat, when Heartworms finished their set, Jojo simply gave a military style salute and the band left the stage to the audience’s cheers. Heartworms gave a really intense, varied and breathtaking performance, which was one of the many Seaview highlights.
(Peter Greenfield)
AIRCOOLED (5:45pm – 6:30pm)
Next up before the break for the DJ set was local favourites Aircooled with their own brand of guitar tainted machine rock. Aircooled consists of Oliver Cherer (of Music’s Not Dead record shop), Justin Welch (The Jesus and Mary Chain, Elastica, Piroshka), Katharine Wallinger (The Wedding Present), keyboardist (artist and former member of Elastica) ‘Mew’ on keyboards plus positive dancing, and finally from Magyigon, Myanmar is Riz Maslen on vocals and keyboards.
Playing their first festival, Oliver announced “This is a hometown show. It had better be good.” Draped in front of the two keyboards were motifs of a roaring leopard from their debut album ‘St. Leopards’. It was these keyboards that were at the heart of Aircooled’s dance sound. As well as Oliver on guitar moving across the stage, one of the synth players was dancing very enthusiastically.
This spread to the audience with a group dancing in front of the stage. There was a friends and family feel to the Aircooled set, with plenty of good-natured banter between core fans at the front of the stage and the band. Most of the tracks in Aircooled’s set were instrumentals, with the first lyrics on the penultimate song ‘Hyperproductiv!’. Aircooled saved an obvious fan’s favourite ‘Supamotodisco’ to close a very lively danceable set.
(Peter Greenfield)
BC CAMPLIGHT (7:30pm – 8:30pm)
New Jersey-born and now Manchester based singer/songwriter BC Camplight brought his sunny indie pop and his dark lyrical themes to the Bexhill seaside. While a few technical issues were being resolved before the set, one of the keyboard players was very relaxed sipping her cup of tea. BC Camplight (Brian Christinzio) was on piano and guitar and was joined on stage by a completely new band by drummer, guitarist, bassist and two multi-instrumentalists on keyboards.
They opened their set with a couple of rockier numbers, which saw Brian punch the air with his piano stool during ’You Should Have Gone To School’. The tempo slowed with ‘Back To Work’, which Brian said was released when the Covid pandemic broke. Unfortunate timing. Brian introduced ‘Kicking Up A Fuss’ with “You might know this one. It’s on 6 Music every 16 minutes, not that I’m complaining”.
From the reaction, there must have been several 6 Music listeners at the Seaview Festival. As the schedule was overrunning, Brian explained that he wasn’t going to talk much and just play. This actually helped with the flow of the set, compared to when I’ve seen him live BC before. There was some variety within BC Camplight’s country indie-rock sound, with a slower ballad among the up-tempo numbers. The decent sized crowd on the bank in front of the stage and several further back seemed to enjoy the performance from their polite appreciation.
(Peter Greenfield)
WARMDUSCHER (9:00pm – 10:30pm)
And so almost half an hour later than billed, we finally come to the festival’s headliners, London-based disco rock’n’rollers WARMDUSCHER, who it seems are currently one of the go to acts for festival bookers. They have recently been seen by crowds at Glasgow’s ‘TRNSMT’, Walton-On-Trent’s ‘Bearded Theory’, London’s ‘Wide Awake’ festival, as well as many dates at ‘South by Southwest’ (SXSW) in Austin, Texas.
This evening was my first encounter with the outfit fronted by Clams Baker Jr (Craig Louis Higgins Jr) whose American accent reminds me of Huey from The Fun Lovin’ Criminals. On stage their format was obviously ‘Clams’ on lead vocals and vocal effects unit, and his bandmates took care of drums, bass guitar and backing vocals, guitar and backing vocals, Roland keyboard plus another keyboard. Like several acts earlier on today, Warmduscher also chose to wear black clothing. For the first time today, the stage lighting was more noticeable on account of the fading light. Initially it was set to red for the opening number and then it switched to a combined purple and white.
As ‘Clams’ graced the stage at 9:21pm he uttered the greeting of “We izz the granddaddy”, which was followed by a drum roll and they were off with their first rocky number. The punters at the front were well up for it and lapped up everything that Warmduscher offered them and they certainly made some new friends because of this performance. But by their second number, I noticed the similarity to Red Hot Chili Peppers, a band who I never liked! By the third number I knew that Warmduscher wasn’t going to be for me. Yes I understand that this was going totally against the grain of almost everyone present, but I had already witnessed over a half dozen sets that were (for me) much better than this!
(Nick Linazasoro)
The problem with festivals is that you often get several acts that you seriously want to see, some you might fancy checking out on a whim, and others you have no intention of seeing. It should be stated that an impressive 75% of austerity records choices for this new festival would for me fall in that first category, so well done to them for that! Roll on next year then!
