secret fireworks

"What are you doing here? We're an instrumental punk rock band from the North Coast!". Tony Wright may be a little caught up in the moment on stage but he asks a valid question: how the hell can such a band become so darn big on the local scene in such a short space of time? The band admitted that the Glasgowbury show would be the biggest to date, but most observers were pretty confident that they would deliver.

And how they delivered.

The National's "Start A War" may be an unusual introduction for a band, but it gets the audience excited to say the least. There's rapturous applause as Tony, Rory, Chris and Johnny take to the stage and begin with "The Voiceless", a melody that soars into the night sky and provides calm before the storm that is Chris Wee, hammering the drums like there's no tomorrow. The strobe lights are flashing on and on as the crowd dance in the mud while I'm covered in dirt after I jump up and down at the finale of the track.

"S is for Salamander" is starting to become a staple part of an ASIWYFA set and although it's fairly rough around the ages the crowd seem to warm to it. The track was played for the first time as part of a session for Radio 1 and it certainly is a grower. With a few inevitable tweaks we could have another brilliant track on our hands. ATL seem to love it, for sure. "D is for Django" is another new track and while it's even rougher around the edges it's super. I love the jazzy drum part from Chris and the crazy bassline provided by Johnny: nobody could ever really accuse the band of just setting their amp volume to 11 and chugging away but this track is something special and something very different from material we've heard before. A ballsy track, it's very adventurous but it goes down very well.

"A Little Solidarity" wasn't as good as we've come to expect from the band: there's just something missing from it. Perhaps the band are growing a little tired of playing it or perhaps it is just me but the energy that we had previously seen in the set wasn't there. However, the show stopping track of the night had to be "Don't Waste Time Doing Things You Hate". It sounds immense on the main stage: the question and answer guitars at the start, leading the audience into a false sense of security before all hell breaks loose and the band kick things up a notch. Tony seems to be loving the fact that there's two thousand or so people enraptured by every note the band play and manages to get the crowd to fill in for the choir in the middle of the song.

There's a beckoning hand and a few dozen musicians come onto the stage, standing in front of the microphones and getting ready to give the audience a hand. We've got A Plastic Rose naked on stage, more than a few bottles of Buckfast knocking about and a few musical instruments to boot. In fairness, the attempted singalong doesn't come off, but it's a damn nice effort. Those distant guitars and the bouncing bassline return to bid farewell to the audience... but we're having none of it.

The curfew was broken and we were treated to an extended version of Eat This City, Eat It Whole. It's a little symphony made up of various movements: the slow, contemplative beginning with the echoing guitars and the lovely bassline resembling some sort of post rock/punk James Bond theme tune. (If only.) Then, the lead guitar kicks it into overdrive and we get this dirty, dirty melody. It relaxes for a little bit, then we have the breakdown. The guitars and the bass chug in perfect synchronisation, building and building and building until it all goes a little haywire and it's Johnny's time to shine. The echoing guitars return, followed by a final push for the finish line and then a return to the reflective beginning before one final growl. This is sheer unadulterated bliss.

This isn't ASIWYFA's best performance to date (that honour is reserved for the mindblowing Mandela Hall show) but it's top notch. The willingness to take risks, the sheer energy and talent of the band make ASIWYFA true festival kings. They're a band born to play festivals. This is their machine, and nothing can stop it.

High point: The failed singalong. Yes, it didn't work out, but it encapsulates this band and this festival: the happy go lucky nature of most of the bands on the local scene and the general solidarity that exists here.

Low point: Surprisingly, "A Little Solidarity Goes A Long Way". It just felt a little muted compared to the rest of the set.

Final point: One of the revelations of recent years and one of the best albums of 2009, And So I Watch You From Afar are going to be huge. They're releasing a new EP in the next few months which will be hotly anticipated.