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THE good people of the Summer Sundae really like cheese. Your Crud reporter
discovered this after sending trusty ‘moles’ into the wilderness to report back
on the full festival experience, music and otherwise, thus buying more drinking
time and solving the usual festival conundrum of not being able to be in more
than one place at once. Said Moles returned with a complete survey of the
fest-goers’ favourite cheeses. Which did little to help with Crud’s coverage of
the Summer Sundae Weekender, but did inspire some lovely conversations on the
metaphoric co-relation between bands and le fromage.  Starting
with Kasabian, who would surely be the crumbly mature cheddar of the cheese
world – a stonking great powerhouse of flavoursome cheesiness oozing maturity
and demanding to be washed down with a good drop of claret or similar. Because
once you’ve heard them once, you’ll want to hear them again just to check whether
that ravaging, politicising full-bodied stench was music or something much, much
tastier and satisfying. The Crud moles were in full agreement – Kasabian demand
respect. Much like the Cathedral City of the cheddar world, they’re here to take
something really good – in our case, rock music – and make it even better so you
can slap it on toast and eat it for your lunch. Wholly satisfying.
 Which
is more than can be said for the Red Leicester of the line up, Dogs Die In
Hot Cars. So dubbed after it was concluded, Red Leicester is by far the most
disappointing of dairy delights. It promises so much – the reassuring texture
and shape of good old-fashioned cheddar tinted an exciting shade of red. But really,
once you eat it, you wonder what all the fuss was about. Quite frankly, DDIHC
don’t deserve the column inches necessary merely to accommodate their ridiculous
name, let alone any effusing about their disturbingly Chumbawumba-like brand of
Glaswegian guitar pop.
In the ‘up and coming’ tent, a cosy marquee erected
in front of the De Montfort Hall and emblazoned with the BBC6 Music logo to remind
us these are people who play music that matters, Ghinzu stole the show
back from Kasabian to be crowned the Roulee of the day. Slightly dubious looking,
with a strange outer coating– is it herbs or parsley? No one seemed to know –
made all the more appealing by creamy swirls of whitest cheese packed with the
punch of a thousand cloves of garlic – in other words, after ten minutes of Ghinzu’s
mad riff-driven sleaze rock you wouldn’t want to kiss a soul. They looked weird
like your dad in the seventies, sounded great like The Datsuns if they weren’t
such pompous gits, and could liven up the dullest of crackers. Write to Sweden
and ask for them to close all borders, we want Ghuinzu on tour in the UK by the
end of the year. Now as the BabyBel of summer festivals (smaller, cuter
but just as tasty as the likes of Reading and Leeds), the Summer Sundae has a
good reputation for being the most laid-back of music events. People come, they
listen, they smile and sometimes let their kids go to sleep perilously close to
the hoards queuing up at the signing tent, but everyone goes home happy. Easyworld
went a long way to upholding that tradition this year, and turned out to become
this reviewer’s Brie. Twelve months ago, Brie was all that is bad and evil and
suspicious about the Waitrose dairy counter. But its bland, colourless appearance
hid a creamy taste sensation now a staple part of many a bacon sandwich. And so
where previously the mere mention of the name Easyworld left a bad taste in the
mouth of a sincere Britpop lover, their set in the glorious sunlight of a lazy
Summer Sundae afternoon confirmed them as the tasty accompaniment to the modern
music scene they truly are. A Britpop band doing long piano pop ballads? Not an
appealing prospect, but ‘Til The Day’ turned out to be one of the best songs of
the festival. Understated, beautifully written and genuinely enjoyable to listen
to. Bring out the bacon.  The
evening was supposed to be the true test of the Crud mole strategy – two stages,
two brilliant bands and severe timetable clashes. As it happened, the cheese took
up too much time which leaves only the Beta Band and Super Furry Animals
left to talk about. The former will bow out later this year after a bizarre career
as simultaneously the most praised yet underrated British alternative bands to
grace the scene. Hence one of their last festival performances bore a hint of
sadness, but established them as the triumphant Roquefort of the cheeseboard.
Luxurious, expensive and ludicrously good, Roquefort is a cheese not to be wasted
on the untrained palette. The Beta Band would never have conquered the
masses with their precise arrangement of multiple instruments to create, ironically,
songs of shambolic greatness, but it doesn’t matter. Because they still get the
best wrapping – you wouldn’t catch a piece of cheddar in a coat-of-arms-stamped
foil cloak, now, would you? And that’s what’s great about them – it’s not just
the uplifting anthems like Dry the Rain that make them so good, it’s the whole
package. There will never be any band quite like the Beta Band.
Equally
special are the Super Furry Animals, probably the Welsh goat’s cheese of
the Weekender. And no, the metaphor has not been tinged by lazy racist insults
– Welsh goat’s cheese happens to be the funkiest tasting cheese imaginable. Like
Brie but with bite. So good you don’t even need butter on the bread to enjoy a
chunk of smoky, soft, chewy goat’s cheese. Just like the way SFA didn’t need to
play any of their ‘hits’ to justify their headline slot. But they did, and we
loved them even more for it – Rings Around the World was a single-proper and bought
them much love from the Sundae crowd. The little details made the rest of the
set even better – Gruff dancing around in a giant cycle helmet which made him
look like an alien, for example. One stray Crud mole was able to report
that Lambchop were also excellent, but in the interests of hygiene we’re
keeping the meat separate from the dairy products, so we’ll have to leave it at
that for now. However we can report that the favourite cheese of the formidable
talent that is Mr Kurt Lambchop is….wait for it. Stilton. Informative fun or what?
(Thanks to Nicky D and Kievsy for the cheese inspiration and beer.) Relevant
sites:
http://www.efestivals.co.uk
Natasha House for Crud Magazine 2004©
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