Exclusive South of England performances by Mogwai and Lankum headlined a stellar day on the 7th of August.

Reading Indie Life had not been to South Facing Festival before. This music event series was established in Crystal Palace Park in 2021, though music has occurred in different forms at this location going back 150 years. This day was an indie spectacular with a range of distinctive and interesting bands on offer. It is a great venue. The gentle slope in front of the stage allows anyone to get a decent view. There was a great range of food and drink. It is a short walk from Crystal Palace overground station on the Windrush Line. There was a lovely, relaxed atmosphere all day, with strong 6 Music Dad vibes thanks to the wonderfully chin-strokable line-up.

The Yummy Fur

The Yummy Fur were active between 1992 and 1999, releasing a series of singles, the best of which you can find assembled on the compilation Piggy Wings. They recently reformed and have a scattering of live appearances booked in. The band revolves around John McKeown but also featured several later members of Franz Ferdinand. Paul Thompson is back on drumming duties, though this is where he originally met Alex Kapranos who had a brief stint in the band in 1998.

The band are slightly screwed over by a large gap between the end of their set and the start of caroline’s. Still, whilst it is a quiet start to the day, everyone who is present early is given a real treat.

What they offer is a neat line in Scottish art-rock, hints of punk and post-punk emerging at different points. They open with the old-school rock charm of ‘Cogs’ before breaking out more angular guitar on ‘Kirsty Cooper.’

They also play a couple of new tracks, suggesting they are in the studio, or looking to get in there soon. ‘Blue Sunshine’ and ‘Wanda’ both sit well alongside old favourites like ‘Department’ and ‘Plastic Cowboy.’ Well worth checking out if they play near you.

caroline

caroline should have felt honoured today as the only English band on Mogwai’s curated Gaelic line-up. They are a fascinating band brim-full of experimentation. The eight-piece ensemble perform today in a semi-circular setup, with no one member given greater prominence than the others.

This is a decent live run-out, though much like their recent album, there are a few moments of frustration mixed in with magical moments of sheer brilliance. On opening track ‘Dark Blue’ the vocal is almost impossible to hear. Luckily, this is rectified for ‘U R UR ONLY ACHING’

There is then a brief issue where some feedback creeps into one the instruments and it takes a few moments to sort out. They describe it as so local a gig for them that several members of the band walked to Crystal Palace Park for it.

They only have time for 6 tracks as their work tends to veer longer than standard pop and rock. At times they sound majestic. Swirling fragments of chaos and dissonance that suddenly coalesce into moments of immense beauty.

caroline are a band to follow closely. When they stop trying too hard to be radically different they are likely to find their genuine selves as purveyors of immensely beautiful tunes.

The Twilight Sad

A Scottish indie-rock band who released their first album back in 2007. Their 5th album came out in 2019. Whilst they haven’t been completely absent since then, doing a few live shows each year and putting out a live album amongst other things, they feel overdue new music.

They unveil several new tracks, suggesting a new album is in the pipeline. There is a ferocity and intensity in this live performance that is quite exhilarating. James Graham gives it everything, a singer who leans into his Scottish accent rather than trying to hide it.

They sound great and a longer set would have gone down nicely. There is no distinct keyboard player today and this is perhaps one of the reasons there seems to be an extra snap about them.

Lankum

Lankum were our main reason for being here today. One of our favourite bands on the planet and a fantastic live experience. The biggest disappointment was only one hour of time, I had hoped we would get at least another ten minutes, if not thirty. The Crystal Palace Bowl was looking much fuller now. Clearly some Lankum and Mogwai fans had done a day’s work before coming along.

Ian Lynch is the first person today to comment on the moat. The stage has a small pond in front of it creating a bit of a gap to where we are in the photography pit. He jokes about Ireland having a bit of a moat, but it doesn’t do a great job of keeping the English out.

Lankum thrillingly reinvent old Irish folk-music in intriguing ways, powered by some fantastic talent such as the voice of the utterly incredible Radie Peat. We don’t get many tracks tonight, but they find time to include ‘The Rocks of Palestine’ which has been a fixture of their live set for the last couple of years. As with many other Irish bands recently Lankum use their platform to eloquently say that the genocide must stop. There is the most support all day for the cause of Palestine and the strongest condemnation of the actions of the British Government.

We did get ‘Bear Creak’, ‘Wild Rover’, ‘New York Trader’ and ‘Go Dig My Grave’. Having seen them at the Hackney Empire last year we were spoiled by concertina player Cormac Begley joining them so they could play the brilliant ‘Master Crowley’ – something that they might never play live again. It is one of many tracks we would have loved to have added to the set list tonight.

There is an acknowledgment that they have been playing the core of the same set for two years now, alongside the exciting news that they have been playing live very little recently because they are working on a new album!!

There are clearly a number of people present for Lankum specifically, however many of the larger group of Mogwai fans are making appreciative noises by the end of the set, the magic of ‘Go Dig My Grave’ sucking people in. Job done.

Mogwai

A lot of people are here for Mogwai tonight and they absolutely love what they are given. As a neutral, it is possible to admire the skill on show without ever feeling completely blown away.

Many of their tracks feel like an aeroplane on a runway. You get five minutes of taxi-ing for thirty seconds of very exciting take-off. It is all technically strong but tracks bleed into one another at times. The vocals are also an odd situation. Mogwai originally eschewed vocals of any kind, they have gradually bought more in over recent years. Yet they tend to do them by burying their voices in a sea of fx-pedals which can leave you feeling like a robot is trying to sing for you.

Mogwai have a strong work ethic. They have put out two albums this year. The Bad Fire features strongly tonight with four tracks from it. The other album was a soundtrack for a Netflix drama, The Bombing of Pan Am 103. They have been increasingly drawn to soundtrack work, and it makes a huge amount of sense for them given their stylings.

They finish with ‘Richie Sacramento’ and ‘We’re No Here.’ ‘My Father My King’ was due to be played at the end but was presumably scrubbed due to lack of time.

It has been a fantastic day, and we would happily go back to South Facing again. Every band put in a good showing and it was a wonderfully eclectic mix of styles and ideas.