Stag & Dagger- Shoreditch, London, 21.05.09

Will: To welcome in the summer, we attended Stag & Dagger, an independent music festival held in Shoreditch, a place some call the hub of the indie community in London. I would probably agree- the pure quantity of checked lumberjack shirts, aviators and perilously skinny jeans suggests that Shoreditch is a living, breathing fashion statement. I’ll leave it at that, to avoid offending anyone!

Stag & Dagger is held across 20 venues in East London, with admission to each venue covered by a single wristband. The overall ticket costs £15, with around 120 bands playing across the venues, including Michachu & The Shapes, Cold War Kids, Lovefoxxx, Wild Beasts and White Denim. We took some photos as well, be sure to click through to see them at full size…

We started with Maps at The Legion. The queues were fairly small for most venues, but once inside, the band had already started and a sizeable crowd had built up. There were a number of pissed-off punters loitering outside after being told, no wristband, no entry, as Stag & Dagger had essentially taken over the whole area (making it easy to quickly move between venues)…

I’ve seen Maps before, and it seems as if things haven’t moved too far from the original formula of two guys, a girl and some mixing boards. The real star is, of course, James Chapman, who writes all the music and only brought in back-up for his live shows. His debut album ‘We Can Create’ was released in 2007 and consequently Mercury Award nominated. The density of the live sound calls out Animal Collective and friends, except all the noises are generated on mixing boards. The new direction is a departure- have a listen to ‘Here We Go (Dub)’, which was released on 11th May, and is the first offering from his follow up ‘Turning The Mind’, out this summer.

Maps- Let Go Of The Fear (Dub) (Link 2) (Link 3)

We moved over to Bar Music Hall for arguably the biggest draw of the night (barring White Denim and Cold War Kids). The Temper Trap were, simply, incredible! They’re still at the stage where they carry all their equipment themselves and set up the stage, which was interesting. Lead singer Dougy even sat around drinking pints before and after the gig… we couldn’t pluck up the guts to interview him, but who knows what the future may hold!

Michael: This is the second time that I’ve seen Aussie imports The Temper Trap. The first time, the venue they played in was so small that you could hardly move without bumping into a PR company cameraman, and their sound felt like it was being boxed in.

The Temper Trap- Love Lost (BBC Introducing Session) (Link 2) (Link 3)

This time is different – Stag & Dagger festival is in full swing, Shoreditch has its party hat on, and the spacious rafters of Bar Music Hall suggest that they, and their music, might be given room to breath. The band shuffle on stage awkwardly, and what strikes is how little they seem like a band at all: visually they are disparate, with little of the “Last Gang in Town” look about them. This is Shoreditch, after all, and so it’s perhaps inevitable that the crowd look marginally more colourful than the band.

Once they start playing, the visual comparisons cease to matter. TTT open with a clattering slab of noise rock, and as their set flexes it becomes rapidly obvious that this is a very special, unusually polished band: they absolutely reek of The Big Time, and Sweet Disposition, with its shimmering sheet of U2 guitar and falsetto vocals, suggests that they have prepared carefully for their big audition. Lead singer Dougy pours genuine helpings of soul into every song that he touches, and mid-set belter Down River is nothing short of thunderous, aided and abetted by all the band members clubbing in on vocals.

If this all sounds a little stadium-by-numbers, there’s enough sharp edges under the anthems to suggest that these boys can offer more surprises along with the exhilarating variety of their songs: their closer, the pulsing electro-rock of Science of Fear, screams to a halt with a minute of feedback that suggests they have a little more about them than your average band whose only ambition is to shift units.

Catch them whilst they’re still playing venues with roofs.

Will: Stag & Dagger was well worth attending- the line-up was great, although we could have hoped for some more established acts, and also for less clashes (The Temper Trap and Cold War Kids, extremely difficult to choose between!). What 2010 will bring, who knows, but we will be lining up once again, for this is one of the best bar/pub festival passes money can buy. Roll on the festival season..

One Response to “Stag & Dagger- Shoreditch, London, 21.05.09”

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   May 31, 2009 at 1:04 pm

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