Singer / songwriter Nemo Jones provided a very chilled atmosphere on the Saturday afternoon, which was ideal for kicking off the day. His acoustic folk songs were very much in the vain of John Mayer but to the audience he mainly provided background music whilst they caught up with what they did the previous night, which was unfortunate.

Despite suffering to begin with due to the soundman not knowing they were playing, Lemanis were typically captivating. They played an acoustic set but were still accompanied by members of their Orchestra which helped make songs like ‘Colosseum’ and ‘A Witches Dog’ seem huge. A full Lemanis set at a festival is very much needed.

Plymouth Student Battle of the Bands winners Port Bandanas played to a fairly decent crowd (considering the early festival slot) but their brand of Rootjoose-esque funk rock was the perfect antidote to the Sunday hangover most of us were trying to fight off. Their infectious onstage presence kept the attention of the audience and despite a few techinical glitches, songs like ‘Highway’ kept people moving, albeit mostly in their seats.

Local favourites The Scribes did a fantastic job of working up the crowd and got most of the Main Stage jumping for much of their performance, getting them ready for headliners Stereo MCs. Despite being cautious about watching a bunch of men in their late 40’s playing songs as old as much of the audience, they were as energetic as the younger bands over the weekend, if not more, and they kept the crowd going right till the end although playing hit single ‘Connected’ at the end probably helped.

Dom Cruise

AC: Hey Adam. That was a lovely acoustic set there, but not without it’s problems?

AR: No there were a few sound issues but the poor sound guy didn’t know we were coming and a had a bit of a surprise..A 9 piece-band surprise! But after the problematic start, it started to gel quite nicely, especially at the end.

AC: The second album, ‘The Truth About Push Me Pull You’, has been out for a few months now, how has it been received?

AR: Amazingly well. All of the reviews have been positive and very complimentary, and we’ve been selling out of the CD’s at gigs too, so it obviously is striking a chord.

AC: Have you been writing any new material for a follow up yet, or just concentrating on promoting the album?

AR: Well we’ve all started writing new material already, and there seems to be a change in the approach. Whereas with the last record we wrote almost exclusively in the studio, this time everyone’s bringing their own contributions in to practice that they’ve already written. Don’t get me wrong, writing in the studio is a lot of fun, but it changes what you come up with, and can be quite expensive! So at the moment we’re just going through the ideas, and everyones got some which is nice.

AC: So will we see some appear in any of your forthcoming gigs?!

AR: At some point sure. We’ve been playing the songs from the album for a while now, almost 2 years for some of them, and it’s always nice to try something different out live.

AC: What gigs have you got coming up?

AR: The next one is back at the Hippo on the 12th June, and then we’re going to be in Wales in July at the Toucan club in Cardiff and the Bloom Festival in August which we’re really excited about.

AC: Excellent. Finally, are you doing anything with your side project Building Estoban?

AR: Well I’m always writing and have been working on my third LP for a while now. At some point I hope to do a show but only if I can get enough people to faithfully reproduce the vision that’s captured on the recordings. If I can do that then you can expect to see the Estoban show at some point later in the year.

Interview by Anthony Clifford

For more information on Lemanis and Building Estoban, visit:

www.myspace.com/lemanisband

www.myspace.com/buildingestoban

Lemanis

“Individualistic as hell and just about as original as it gets!”

“Lemanis are a  remarkably good, if slightly eccentric bunch of folks…”

www.lemanis.net