Desertfest
London Camden
Desertfest has been blessed by the weather gods this year, baking its largely bearded and denim-clad punters over the three-day festival that covers all bases of sludge, stoner and doom, from the bone-shakingly heavy to the trippiest psych.
Rousing things up to a rollicking start on Friday evening are US psych-rockers Radio Moscow, who look and sound like they were beamed to the stage via a time machine from 1967, with frontman Parker Griggs rocking the double denim. Playing to a rammed Underworld, their drawn-out jams and bluesy grooves are perfect Friday-night party music.
Graveyard re-formed last year after splitting in 2016, and what better way for them to celebrate as they prepare to release their fifth album than by headlining Friday night at KOKO. Their fuzzy, bluesy hard rock reeks of the 70s, but it also has a unique edge – there’s a dark, dishevelled feel to their music that gives it a spellbinding quality. Tonight they deliver an impressive career-encapsulating set-list, although the songs from 2011’s hit Hisingen Blues get the biggest cheers. Joakim Nilsson has never been the most animated of frontmen, and in past live
With sludge, stoner and doom being pumped out in various North London venues, Desterfest is an annual “Turn it up!” salute to the heavy.
shows he’s been a bit stilted, but tonight he’s got more of a spring in his step, no doubt revved up by the reception they receive.
Napalm Death may seem like an odd fit on the Desertfest bill, but with the passage of time the godfathers of grindcore have reached a ‘classic’ status level where they can fit in at just about any festival – they even played Glastonbury last year. Tonight they throw in covers of Anti-Cimex and Dead Kennedys songs alongside the likes of their own Scum and You Suffer, all performed with raucous energy and a feeling of authenticity that allows for everyone present to fully lose themselves, grindcore fans or not.
It always generates a special feeling when a veteran act plays a festival alongside a slew of bands that you just know were influenced by them. This weekend, that band is definitely Hawkwind, who play the Roundhouse on Sunday, led as always by the dapperlooking Dave Brock, who’s decked out in a straw hat and colourful threads. It’s a fairly vintage set-list for Hawkwind tonight, with the likes of the spacey spokenword Black Corridor and the jaunty Damnation Alley, though disappointingly Silver Machine is absent.
Hawkwind encapsulate perfectly the age of experimentation. Their mind-expanding sonics that feature a smorgasbord of spacey sounds are wildly inventive but also demonstrate the power of repetition – their long, drawn-out jams, especially when paired with the mind-expanding backdrop that constantly swirls with everything from multi-coloured kaleidoscopes to all matter of shapes, are genuinely hypnotising. A dancer sparkling in sequins and twirling fabrics across the stage is another mesmerising addition to their multicoloured extravaganza of sight and sound.
The space-rock spectacular continues with a band that’s lighter on the trippiness and heavier on the party vibes: Monster Magnet. Frontman Dave Wyndorf is in mega-rock-star mode – he’s a powerhouse of pizzazz, bolting across the stage, fizzing with energy and inciting moshpit mayhem. While his vocals sound a bit echoey at times, with everyone belting back the likes of sprawling anthem Dopes To Infinity and the whirling, upbeat grooves of Negasonic Teenage Warhead, it’s only a minor irritant. Although they’re making new music, a Monster Magnet show is all about the classics, and hearing them in succession is a reminder of just how many hits they actually have. But of course, it’s all about Space Lord, which Wyndorf dedicates to Hawkwind, and the entire Roundhouse audience chanting “Space lord motherfucker!” in unison is a truly spine-tingling moment.