Bellowhead - Wychwood Festival 2009

Monday 1st June 2009

Crackerjack rating: 10 / 10.

With no less than 11 band members, many more instruments on stage, and an even bigger range of sound styles, Bellowhead have a growing reputation for opening up a musical box of tricks at every high energy performance.

The Sunday twilight slot at Wychwood was no exception, with everything from traditional folk to the rump & pump of a Northern brass band, gypsy genre and Roman folk songs in the mix. There was even a hint of the Turkish souk in there somewhere. This band simply won’t be contained on the page – or on stage.

The high jinx and energy of band members moved into the audience, which swiftly livened up that sleepy, Sunday afternoon feeling. The band’s collective humour was apparent in self-penned songs like “Unclothed nocturnal manuscript crisis” (apparently written while naked!) and which appeared at times to descend into a type of musical apocalypse, and then re-emerge into a tightly controlled mastery of weird and wonderful instruments (a kazoo and bird warbler among them), to the delight of an awakened, hopping and happy audience. One tiny tot was even moved to shed her clothes and carry on bopping !
Mad, completely inexplicable……and a joy to behold

Mandy Robotham/Harry Pizzey