tUnE-yArDs, the brainchild of the clearly unhinged but super-talented Merrill Garbus, opened my Glastonbury 2010 (Rolf Harris doing ‘Stairway To Heaven’ doesn’t count) on the West Holt Stage early on Friday afternoon, with a set of songs from debut album ‘Bird-Brains’. In contrast to the lo-fi sound of the album, recorded solely by Garbus using a sound recorder, a full band complete with 3 drummers, including Garbus herself, meant that the tribal energy of the songs broke through. Driven by a kind of afro-beat rhythm that builds and builds on top of Garbus’ distinctive chanting and yodelling, this all came together to form a sound that’s brilliantly smart and stupidly brilliant, exemplified in ‘Sunlight’.

Rivaling Liam Gallagher in terms of misplaced arrogance, Continue reading →