White Air Festival // Madeira Drive // 18-20/09/09

Photos and words by Paul Clare

To be perfectly honest the prospect of White Air Festival didn’t exactly have me brimming with anticipation and excitement. Yeah, I did want to see Biffy Clyro in their new role as rocks next big thing (last time I saw them was a decidedly small affair in a church in Norwich) and then there were two of Brighton’s finest live acts, British Sea Power and the up-and-coming Doll and the Kicks. Oh, and Doves were playing too. But not being big into my extreme sports unless you count badminton meant White Air approached without a great deal of fanfare for me. Oh, and Doves were playing too.

White Air was coming to Brighton for the first time after spending the last 12 years down on the Isle of Wight where it had built itself in to ‘Europe’s Biggest Extreme Sports and Music Festival’. Over the three days it had lined up 30+ sports and activities that festival goers could watch or if they were feeling more energetic and daring they could have a go. Being the outdoorsy and active types, the Royal Air Force and Royal Navy were both heavily involved in the festival and to open the weekend the Red Arrows were out in force at 11am in a super loud flyover which must have caused a few residents of the city to fear an air strike. The various activities included water-based sports like windsurfing; wakeboarding; kite-surfing; jet skis; high-diving and the epically named Thundercats. For those who don’t like to get wet there was BMX; inline-skating; mountain bikes; mountain boards; skateboarding; parkour (those guys who run and leap over building and urban areas) and… Yoyo-ing!

Sadly I was combining my visit to the festival with having also to go to work each day. With most displays finishing around 6pm this meant I did miss almost everything worth seeing by the time I was able to get down to Madeira Drive. The festival was set up in a long strip from near the Volks as far as Concorde2 at the far end. This layout encouraged the punters to check out the different stalls and activities and they made their way to the live stage and/or bar. One thing I saw which looked like fun was something called ‘brush-boarding’ which is a kind of dry slope surfing on huge spinning electric toothbrushes. The main area of activity was definitely the Freesports Park. Here there were guys, some on two wheels, some on four tearing down ramps and practicing airborne tricks for the entertainment of onlookers. After taking this in for some time and listening to the PA explain some of the tricks to the uneducated I decided I’d better head down to the live arena to see The Lemonheads. I was looking forward to hearing some good American slack rock, and hell, maybe Kate Moss or Liv Tyler would make a surprise appearance (they provide guest vocals on the bands new covers album ‘Varshons’). Lemonheads sounded great and while small in the number the crowd were enjoying themselves in the late afternoon sunshine.

From here on it was the music that took centre stage but I did get the chance to see close up some impressive tricks performed during a streetboard (similar to a skateboard but longer and with larger wheels) competition back in the Freesports Park. But back to the live arena I soon went as the always superb British Sea Power were next on. Happily the crowd had grown in size somewhat as the day headed into dusk. BSP are nature boys at heart liking nothing more than a good hike in the country or a spot of bird watching, not your typical extra-curricular interests for rock musicians. The stage was garlanded with branches and foliage and the band took to the stage. BSP announced their arrival at White Air by sounding air raid sirens (I looked around for returning Red Arrows) and then went headlong into one of their searing rock anthems. Lead singer Yan told the crowd that he was pleased but surprised to be on after The Lemonheads. Too modest by half I thought as BSP gave a far more exciting and engaging performance that was as varied as it was purposeful. But then BSP do seem like such thoroughly nice chaps. From my point of view, I thought it was awesome that the band explicitly made sure us photographers could stay in the pit all set long and not just the usual three songs. Lots of highlights to the set but if I had to pick one song it would have to be ‘Remember Me’ just before the end. Seeing guitarist get into the spirit of the festival and attempt a bit of on-stage skateboarding when he clearly hadn’t set foot on one before was quite endearing.

White Lies were the next band on and seemed to have rather a lot of fans in the crowd. This lent to a pretty moody and disgruntled atmosphere building when the band were kept off stage for an hour longer than scheduled. Even the comperes were encouraging the crowd to boo. And sure enough when White Lies came out they have to take some jeering. But admirably, the band sucked it up, and told the crowd they’d make up for being so late (not their fault they did protest). White Lies played a quick-fire 6 song that started with the radio bothering ‘Farewell to the Fairground’. It was all a bit landfill-indie to my ears but the crowd seemed to be having a good time and so did the band.

Biffy Clyro were undoubtedly what everyone was there to see and the arena was the fullest it would be all weekend. I must admit the Biff have mainly passed me by a bit since that night in the Norwich church. I enjoyed ‘Vertigo of Bliss’ a lot but musically this just hasn’t been where my head has been for a while. Biffy are a band that don’t mess around on stage, its just lots of punchy riffing, soaring Scottish harmonies and some rousing choruses. It was big, it wasn’t too clever, but it was a lot of fun. And they finished with ‘Mountains’.

Day two and I decided I’d only head down to the fest late on as I’d missed most of the sports anyway. So we got there and went straight to the arena to watch The Cribs. The only reason being to see the one time Smith Johnny Marr playing live. The Cribs’ appeal beats me however, even with Mr Marr and we were pretty thankful when they’d finished so we could go get another beer and await Doves. Now I’ve always had a soft spot for Doves and to get to see them live for the first time is long overdue. The band have been playing together for such a long time now and coming off the back of the festival season and the tour for ‘Kingdom of Rust’ they knew exactly what to do and how to go about it. It wasn’t the most exciting show I’ve ever seen but a very solid set with songs from across their four albums. The visuals were also a bit of a treat with their idiosyncratic videos being projected behind them. Jimi Goodwin got in a few Quadrophenia references and commented on how beautiful the pier looked in the night time view. Yeah, we see it all the time mate! They finished with their most joyous number ‘There Goes the Fear’ which sent most people home pretty happy.

All in all a decently run festival, with all kinds of things to try out. Even if you don’t want to go particularly extreme there were small workshops for having a go. It’s a particularly good event to go to with kids due to the active element and not a big emphasis on Brighton usual strength, drinking. I’d say if you were going to White Air simply for the bands and hanging out then you’d struggle to justify the ticket price but it’s not really aimed at that kind of audience. Only on an anecdotal level, it seems that a hell of a lot of people got in for free so not sure how successful it was for the organisers but the festival definitely offers something different in Brighton and it would be a shame to see another locally held festival go down the tube eh?

Photos and words by Paul Clare