DEADLETTER take no prisoners by launching straight into ‘Love Thy Neighbour’ as a means of kicking the MainStage into gear with the very first bars of their opening set on the Sunday night of Rockaway Beach.
It’s a fast, furious, and rousing song that will hopefully be a significant part of their pensions…
But that time is a distant way in the future, because this is properly young band with a long career ahead of them.
“I’ve got shoes, but not soul…” is just one example of their lyrical approach to songwriting… as spikey and angular as both their guitar hooks and their youthful cheekbones.
DEADLETTER are another of the artists who we’ve been following with interest for the past three or four years… but who we hadn’t been able to pin to a genre… not, that is, until we found that a lazy NME hack had casually dubbed them all as ‘Crank Wave’… and now Spotify has adopted that label – and it’s truly horrid.
But we still love the artists.
Squid, Bodega, Baxter Dury… and many more. artists who are perhaps defined by a loquacious tendency to fill their songs with wryly erudite commentary on the minutiae of everyday life.
“It’s a wonderful way to start the year for us, thank you…’ says singer Zac Lawrence.
Actually Zac, thank you… because you are a great way for us to launch ourselves into 2024… good luck to her and all who sail in her!
There is a little crowd participation in ‘Fit for Work’ … although as most of the audience are probably past retirement age the sentiment might be a little lost here at Butlins… But there’s a serious point here in that this little festival really deserves to have a larger young contingent present.
The ‘Bognor Butlins’ location might not have the cool value of other venues, but look:
– it’s January? What else is happening for the next few months?
– the lineups consistently bring some of the best new artists to the stage.
– the programme is perfect to ensure you don’t miss anything and every band has a big crowd.
– come with a bunch of mates and the price is right!
– this might be Butlins, but their sound and light production is some of the best we’ve encountered.
