Float Along – festival review

Float Along Festival
Sheffield
24th September 2022

The first edition of the Sheffield multi-venue event was a storming success that places it as a jewel in the North’s cultural crown

Last weekend saw the premiere of Float Along Festival, a multi-venue showcase of outsider genre-innovators, acclaimed acts, and more; including a packed in-conversation with legendary DJ Steve Lamacq. Hosted by several of the City’s venues, from the iconic Leadmill to the cosier environs of Sidney and Matilda, the event ensured its acts were paired with striking settings which also embodied the City’s thriving culture; newly reopened club and live music space Network played an integral part too, as the Festival’s hub.

While the venue’s stage showed off the likes of Los Bitchos and Dog Unit, the rear of the building held three equally tempting street food stalls (Korean and taco stands among them), as well as DJs throughout the day. Whether it was the food or the relatively well-chosen tunes, this area of the festival continually had a thriving atmosphere in the gaps between sets. Float Along’s lineup, at the same time as being spectacularly varied, also had a through-line in terms of the acts consistently being exciting envelope-pushers. This, especially in consideration of the insipid nature many of the region’s more mainstream music festivals, makes Float Along a jewel in the North’s cultural crown.

Cowboyy wrought a properly awesome, tenebrous miasma on Network’s stage. As much as their jumble of metallic noise resembled that of black midi, the trio were clearly very individual; the spontaneity within their branch of noise far more evident. The band, with riffs like discordant Noughties ringtones, were one of the few to reach anywhere close to the satisfying dissonance of the Butthole Surfers. A liberal amount of instrument twirling and dizzying spinning of bodies mirrored this wanton stylistic, structural destruction superbly.

Although many previous acts had wrenched me into a foot-stomping fervour, Los Bitchos were the first to plant a smile on my and many others’ faces, with the evident fun they have on stage. Scheduled at an optimum time for their cumbia-flavoured, exquisite melodies, the international group shared laughs while an exultant crowd moved with a carefree joy like no other. This really fulfilled the band’s motto of ‘let’s just have a lovely time’, decreed at the start of the show by multi-instrumentalist and primary songwriter Serra Petale. Petale, also to thank for a thunderously executed and received bongo solo, as well as some of the best and most unique fretwork around, arguably has the greatest guitar faces.

Warmduscher’s off-kilter, weirdo pop wasn’t the only thing to distinguish them from their peers. The visual class of their coordinated white boiler suits, emblazoned with the Warmduscher logo, was a fitting vehicle for their ravishingly danceable grooves. The Warmduscher frontman, Mutado Pintado, jogged maniacally to the band’s kaleidoscopic soundscape and hurled a mic into the audience like a musical, maverick fisherman. Pintado’s enigmatic cool also brought out the boisterous adoration in the attendees, throngs surging towards the vocalist in response to his bravado.

If there was an act fit to close the Network venue on a day of such tremendous sounds, Pigs x7 would certainly float to the top. The band’s set was a truly heavy spectacle, damaging multiple parts of myself: my ears from the divine noise; my nose from the wildly uproarious passion Pigs excited within the rest of the attendees. There was a distinct similarity between the crowd’s energy here and that of Matt Baty, Pigs x7’s formidable frontman, who put so much tenacious vigour into the performance that several splashes of water were required before and during. A startling contrast to his pre-performance demeanour, Baty’s tenebrous, commanding patrols of the stage, alongside the nigh-on anguish his face and body take on for the mighty vocals, have semblances to the theatrics of a wrestler – an equal mix of intimidation and captivation. The banter too was of an incredibly high pedigree, particularly a whimsical ‘Would You Rather?’ put to the audience.

Float Along Festival was carried out impressively well and, with plenty to set it apart from others, holds a tonne of promise for the future.

Follow Float Along on Instagram.

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All words by James Kilkenny. See his Louder than War archive here.

Photos thanks to Lucy McLachlan

Source: louderthanwar.com