A trio of lads get a viewing spot for Romy
As ever, Forwards Festival brings a heady dose of late summer frolics – the final throws of festival season tinged with a hint of melancholia as those involved celebrate the end of another sunlit cycle. Traders make their final sales before packing up their wares for winter storage. Musicians run through their summer setlist one last time before going on hiatus to plan for a new album and a new tour. The revellers soak up as much sun, music and expensive tinned booze as they can before the autumnal nights draw in.
Forwards, now in its third year and a well-established part of Bristol’s musical calendar, has once again offered up a diverse line-up to draw in huge crowds from across the cultural spectrum. From danceable pop to jangling indie and reverberating reggae, there is something for everyone. The addition of hugely popular New York indie dance outfit LCD Soundsystem for the Sunday headline slot means that the festival has enough heavyweight hitters to bring in the numbers throughout the weekend.
We arrive on the Saturday to the sight of the Johnnie Walker bar offering up a silent disco on a rooftop balcony overlooking the main stage. It seems slightly strange to pay a hefty whack for a ticket, only to listen to a silent disco rather than the actual bands playing onstage mere metres away, but there is a long queue to join in the individualistic fun. Eschewing this party, we head instead to xx singer Romy on the East stage, where her brand of life-affirming pop-house is being lapped up by thousands, despite the sound being blown around somewhat by the high winds. The euphoric She’s on My Mind, from last year’s debut album Mid Air, gets a particularly rapturous reception.
Over on the larger West Stage, London’s Greentea Peng has arrived on stage drinking from a giant green mug and wearing a bowler hat, a suit jacket bearing anti-war slogans and enough huge metal rings to knock out Mike Tyson in his pomp. Her laid-back, dubby jazz has been described as “music to heal a weary soul”, and fits perfectly into the early-evening slot. From Hu Man to Sane’s plea to “don’t make me feel sane, baby” Peng’s lyrics sum up a life lived her own way, and the backing from her band – including a Tom Morello-alike in the guitarist – is funky enough to stir dancing hips in the crowd. Peng finishes by calling for peace in Palestine, the Congo and Sudan, although how many of the warlords will be paying attention to her remains unknown.
There is time for a bit of celeb-spotting – Ruth Wilson from His Dark Materials denies her stardom to a beguiled punter – before we head to the Aperol Spritz bar and a baffling encounter. Just as we approach the dancefloor, a record flies through the air and lands at my feet. It’s a brand new sealed copy of Fela Kuti and Ginger Baker’s re-released Why Black Man Dey Suffer. I hold it aloft but it goes unclaimed, it’s dirigible origins unknown. A stranger approaches me and tells me that Ginger Baker was a racist and a fascist. In no mood to label musicians with such connotation-heavy tags, I explain to the stranger that Baker was a horrible man, but that’s not the same as being a racist and/or fascist, and the stranger left in a huff. An unusual event, but one which left me one vinyl richer.
The Johnnie Walker balcony provides a great place to watch Joy
While Floating Points was entering his evening slot on the East Stage with his uncompromising techno, Joy (Anonymous) were thrilling the West Stage crowd. Having previously mocked the Johnnie Walker balcony, we now found it the perfect spot to watch the London duo from. Their poppy garage house, reminiscent of Bobobo and Jungle, hit the perfect bullseye, and tracks such as Joy (Up the Street) and Joy (God Only Knows) had thousands of hands up in the air.
A little later, Four Tet (aka electro musician Kieran Hebden) begins his set on the East Stage. Four Tet albums can be characterised by their chilled, ambient and highly original sound. However, playing to a larger festival audience, the sound grows to get crowd bouncing. When quieter moments appear, they are just as rapturously received.
We then head down the hill to see Loyle Carner launch into his headline performance with some blistering moments from his latest album (“Hate” and “Plastic”). He continues to enrapture the audience with a set that spans his three albums. Loyle brings important messages through his songs, poetry and between song attacks on toxic masculinity (he hearteningly talks of his pride at hearing his three year old son apologising and identifying his emotions). And while he owns the stage he’s is backed by a great live band; particularly noticeable on a day when the turntable has dominated. When it’s run it’s course, the spirited crowd’s reluctance to move on bring him out for a final poem, before we finally head into the night.
The popularity of the festival remained clear as we left the site, with those on the outside of the gates desperate to secure our wristbands and tickets. Once again, Forwards Festival has served up a huge dollop of late-summer revelry.