The best thing to happen to Wakefield. Apart from The Cribs…
Wakefield’s premier musical event Long Division has been quietly bubbling away for 10 years now, and despite being 15 minutes away from me on the train, I’ve never managed to make it there before. Until now. Indeed, this is my first visit to Wakefield generally. Exciting times in the Merrie City.
Things kick off in the WX, a huge council operated warehouse type building primarily used for events and art installations. Leeds survivors Cud take to the main stage and warble a few decent sounding songs and this inauspicious start will be a continuing theme for the rest of the day. In short, the sound in the WX is absolutely dogshit. Too echoey. Caked in reverb. Truly one of the worst sounding main stages at any venue I’ve ever been to. And I’ve been to the Doncaster Dome many, many times. Things pick up with Too Many T’s over at the Establishment, a venue much more suited to live music, and the London rap duo make the most of the space, spitting bars and shooting a money gun into the crowd (albeit fake money with their faces printed on). At this point, the first of many disappointments happen as the guy behind the bar claims they aren’t doing food despite the fact that there is a table full of women tucking into homemade pizza right next to us. This leads to a farcical chain of events that involves me losing my bank card, ordering the wrong pizza by mistake in a different place and failing to get into Wakefield Cathedral to see Beans on Toast. While I had briefly spoken to Beans whilst watching Too Many T’s, it was a real shame not to see him actually play any music.
And so, having taken that series of unfortunate events in my stride, we reluctantly head back to WX for Glasvegas. A band that I love dearly and who deliver a spirited and crowd pleasing set… that is totally ruined by the aforementioned awful sound quality. Songs such as Geraldine, Go Square Go and It’s My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry are too strong to be totally ruined by a bad venue however, and their cover of Be My Baby is on brand for a band who stick faithfully to a Phil Spector approved wall of sound style.
One of our party persuades us to go see Treeboy & Arc at rock club Vortex as he knows the drummer. Words that fill me with dread. Happily, they turn out to be genuinely awesome and play an incredibly well received set in a packed out, tiny room, barking out frantic punk rock bangers that recall McClusky and the Young Knives at their most volatile. Lovely stuff.
Super Furry Animals frontman Gruff Rhys closes out the main stage and whilst Loan Your Loneliness is an absolute tune in any setting, he too succumbs to sound issues and so we head to Wakefield Town Hall to catch The Lovely Eggs. And then we queue outside for 25 minutes until a bouncer comes out and tell us we won’t be getting in. Dejected and a little worse for wear, we head back to a secret cocktail bar disguised as a video rental store only to find that it is closed despite the fact that the guy working the door had told us but half an hour earlier that it would definitely be open when we returned. Wakefield is a city of lies.
A frustrating evening then at a festival that seems to be largely ignored by the people and the town of Wakefield. I’m sure those behind the scenes are passionate, and it’s a great thing for a relatively small city to have access to, but walking around the city centre, you would never know there was a festival taking place, let alone one that is celebrating it’s tenth anniversary. Maybe we just didn’t prepare properly.
On reflection, I think we got a little unlucky on our first jaunt to Long Division. Here’s hoping for a better experience if and when we return.