Boardie Takeover - FULL REVIEW - Part 2

Read part 2 of our in-depth review of the Boardie Takeover at Download 2010...

After the serious atmosphere of the last few sets, Liam (Parties Break Hearts) gave a light hearted but genuine and eager singing set, and to top it all, he’s a lovely bloke too! If you see him next year and want to congratulate him on his performance, give him a bin bag or a jammie dodger – either will be gladly accepted it seems.

Sound difficulties are an initial trouble, but soon overcome by his on-stage confidence and large helpings of vocal talent.

The performance is both impressive and a good novelty, nicely breaking up the show. Catching up with Liam after his set, he talked about his second year in a row performing at the Takeover...

“It felt absolutely amazing, it’s such a rush performing to all the people in there. Last year I was stupid enough to think I could sing a song just turned up a bit on the track, and it went horribly wrong, so this time I picked songs that were a lot more challenging and just went for it.”

Liam is followed by DJ Soundwave – or Chris as some of us call him – who opens his DJ set with Holy Diver. Amazingly, this is the first tribute to the fallen legend all weekend.

It’s a good start to a set which sprinkles interesting effects throughout a blend of those songs that everyone always says they’d like to hear in clubs but just never seem to. There are nods to every generation of music here with no stone left untouched, even if Chris is clearly feeling stage jitters – he’s clearly a professional who knows how to please a crowd.

Fallen Fate emerge to provide what is perhaps the sole death metal experience at Download Festival 2010. It’s a bit different to the happier nature of most of the music on tonight but at least it offers something different to the crowd – few of whom leave and are clearly satisfied with the performance.

Things are perhaps a little too loud and the volume overshadows the band, but they put in a stellar performance all the same. Death metal can get repetitive over time to the ears of some listeners, but one set like this can really do the trick and this one ends just before time, having brought their brutal sound to an audience who might not normally seek it out.

No doubt their engaging performance will have enlarged their fanbase, and the band themselves agree with this, commenting that “for a lot of people who hadn’t seen us before, they were brilliant. We had a pit without even saying anything about it!” – Download fans figure out the rules of any kind of gig pretty quickly it seems.

They’re also eager to thank the boardies, and would love to be back next year (perhaps a hint there?!). The band are at the festival for Lamb of God, whose fans would do worse than to check Fallen Fate out.

Cherri De Lish’s burlesque show, which she states is inspired by classic performers such as Dita Von Teese, is met with anticipation. The stewards seem a little confused, telling punters that “there isn’t any burlesque in here, I think the strip show is somewhere else, not here...” leading to rumours we’ve all missed the performance.

Cherri and an un-named man appear on stage on time however, with a show far more focussed on rock ‘n’ roll music than many of us expected. It makes a refreshing change, adds significantly to the show and seems to make the whole affair more acceptable to the females of the audience, who seem as excited as the men.

This is the biggest crowd Cherri has ever performed to but any eager girls who want to replicate the show shouldn’t have to stray far from home to get started apparently – “My outfit’s from a fancy dress shop – well, what’s on top of it at least!” she quips.

The audience leave a little unsatisfied with the lack of full frontal nudity, but it’s true what they say - the best performers always leave the audience wanting something more!  

Mark’s second DJ set doesn’t quite get the crowd as energetic as the former one, despite being just as happily accepted. Everyone’s enjoying the music, but they’ve had a long day and have seen a lot of interesting things.

Yelled snippets of conversation struggle to rise above the music but Mark keeps up the pace enough that the audience is keen and ready to go for the last band of the night, Silent Descent.

Silent Descent’s set is a blinder. The band have come a long way from “playing in a shed with pots of paint for drums” in 2004, and their music is like Slipknot on an acid trip, but just as angry and powerful.

Seeing so many musicians on such a small stage is a spectacle in itself, watching them dodge and weave around each other as they take a turn at every section of the crowd.

The tangled mass of angry rave- cum-death-metal is amazingly cohesive and you would guess the band have done this a few times before. It is later revealed the bass player is new for the gig, stepping in to help out the band for the last minute – making their tight performance even more impressive.

An awful lot of people in the audience seem to know who the band are, and it’s easy to tell they’re just on the edge of making big waves. The band played the previous Takeover, and also Bloodstock Open Air, seeming comfortable with a crowd which contains as many fans as it does newcomers – the band were ecstatic with the amount of loyal fans in the crowd, and stated that “looking out and seeing people sing along to your songs in such mass is an unreal feeling”.

For such a brutal, aggressive set, audience and band alike seem tireless. It’s a sound refined to a fine art, as precise and deliberate as it is chaotic, with layers of densely packed rhythm and rage.

Credit must be given to whoever is managing the sound too, with each piece playing through clearly, when this sort of performance can all too easily descend into a muddy mess. Asking the band themselves how they felt about the show...

“After coming off stage in '09 we all felt that it would be a long time before we ever got to experience something like that again, but this year was bigger and better - it really felt like headlining one of the stages at Download.”

(The full exclusive interview with the band can be found here)

Finally, DJ Soundwave is back. At last truly finding his feet, Chris is a mad-man on the stage, a jester dancing in the hearts of his audience. Where normally a DJ is quiet and focussed, Chris gives drinks to the crowd, throws glowsticks around like he gets paid to do it and as he rifles through his CD collection at speed, leaves the stage littered in used discs.

Now and then he would disappear behind the decks before leaping up triumphantly with a new song to throw to his eager audience. The show goes on far later than planned, but the classics just keep on coming.

He does throw in a few repeats from the earlier set, despite most people being the same crowd who were there earlier, but people are too manic to care.

“Download, you’re the best night of my life! Come on, scream for me!” the man shouts, connecting with the audience far more directly than a modern DJ tends to.

You get DJs like this in American hip-hop clubs and Jamaican dancehall venues, but not British rock clubs and it’s refreshing and invigorating. With the audience behind him, the Soundwave beat can even get people dancing to unfamiliar songs.

Normally, a DJ is often slagged off as just playing someone else's music, but Chris makes it completely clear he's not just an MP3 player set to shuffle, he is a key part of the affair.

Energy spent, bodies exhausted, few of us manage to stick around for the whole set. That’s how it should be. No one was left wanting more: the Boardie Takeover has brought us right to the limit of what we find enjoyable and stopped at the perfect moment.

Returning to the campsite, it was impossible not to be glad of the late opening of the arena on Friday – after all the action today, performers and attendees alike will need to do some serious recovery before getting ready to rock again tomorrow.
 
A huge thankyou goes to the organisers and teams involved with the Boardie Football Tournament. Further thank you to all of the forum community - both bands, posters and especially Phil and Carrie.

Not forgetting John Probyn and Andy Copping and everyone at Live Nation for letting us ‘take over’ their festival and allowing all of this madness to happen under their watch!

And of course, no performance is complete without an audience... the Boardie events would not work as well as they do if the only participants were the Boardies themselves, the polite, respectful and enthusiastic manner with which the masses behaved made being involved even more of a joy.

We'll see you in 2011.

WORDS: RICHARD WARRELL (The Elfoid_TFS) and MILLY YOUNGMAN (Armageddonbride)
PICTURES: DAVE PARSONS (DrChino)