After the big day on Saturday, the Best Kept Secret Festival 2015 came to an end with a third day where highlighted the comeback as a great headliner of the English Alt-J after their performance in 2013, the rock of Royal Blood or the intimate electronics of SOHN.
The first contact of the day would be with one of the great promises of Hip Hop, the British Kate Tempest, which featured one of the great concerts of the Festival in front of a packed tent. Under that angelic looks from south London, a lioness able to strike a chord with her direct rhymes focus on social issues hides. Small philosophy pills, which seem to enchant a tent that comes down every time the English sincerely thanks all the support received. When out of her mouth come out “Nothing you can buy can make you more whole“, we can only imagine what would have happened if this girl had lived in the days of Thatcher.. The first concert on the main stage was one of the hypes of the year, the Americans Future Islands, who after their famous dance on Letterman’s show have seen grow and grow their fame. Dances and gestures apart from their leader Samuel Herring, their concert highlights to return to the sounds of ’80s new wave, coming closer to the most successful New Order. Their start,in which they mainly focused on their previous album In Evening Air, was the best of a show that had many ups and downs and you just left a good taste thanks to a end rush in which sounded the lofty “Seasons (Waiting on You)” and “Spirit“. Other lines deserves the incredible output of the stage of mentioned Herring, who jumped to the public for at least 30 seconds, walk through the front lines and find a wooden plank that later used as a ramp to return backstage by the side of the stage (about 3 meters high)..
A stroke of fate, as the cancellation just three days before of BADBADNOTGOOD’s show, allowed Swim Deep to be back into the Dutch festival. Almost three months before to present their long-awaited new album, the band offered a chaotic and something meaningless show where the sound was pretty bad and in which only the pop songs “Honey” and “King City” excelled form their flat proposal. As we have seen them live in the past and we know that this apathy is not usual, we hope that this concert is just a bump in his short career. Back to the big stage expected to us one of our fetish bands, those Englishmen that we discovered in early 2014 at the London Calling and who later conquered the world with their high-carat rock. Royal Blood has grown, not only in popularity but also in poise and presence on stage, with much more mobility and interaction with the audience, facts that more than a year ago were unthinkable. Still continues to impress us how from the bass guitar of Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher‘s drums can came out that strength that simulate a band with a greater number of members. It is true that many of their songs sound similar and that at times the show declines due to excessive effects on bass guitar, but we must also recognise that as soon as “Ten Tonne Skeleton” or “Little Monster” sounded, public fall head over heels for they. We can only wait to know what they will provide us for their second LP, to see which way they take and see if their shows can overcome these potholes..
In a u-turn , in the tent of the second stage expect to us also British SOHN, revelation of last year with his great record Tremors, that was the whole basis of his show. Under the shadow of an excess of neon lights that illuminate only the ground and make it difficult to maintain focus on the stage, the proposal of Taylor gets boring by excessive perfectionism that takes away all emotion to some songs that are perfect for the physical format but that need special details for the live show. If we must highlight something from the setlist, we safe “Artifice” and the beautiful ballad “Veto“, although perhaps this last one is not the most upbeat song for a festival.. The last bullet of the festival was for Alt-J, a band that we had recently seen in the Primavera Sound 2015 and that had left us a good taste with a more than notable concert, despite the passivity of their members. With a similar setlist, in which highlights a glorious start thanks to their new single “Hunger of the Pine“, “Fitzpleasure“, “Left Hand Free” or “Matilda“, the band succeeded in creating an atmosphere like the one they made on the Catalan festival. However, on a detail that we usually aren’t focus, the fact that the concert was still with a slight solar illumination took off spectacularly to a scenario with a few games of stunning lights, which together with the immobility of their members , removed greatness to the show. After the bump in the middle of the setlist, where some of the less known songs of their’ latest album were interpreted, the band retook the level with some high level encores in which highlighted a great version of “Lovely Day” by Bill Withers and their great hit “Breezeblocks“, song used to closed a show that this time do not catch the crowd as much as in Barcelona a few weeks ago.
So, awesome edition of Best Kept Secret Festival 2015, with a lineup full of quality and big names, wherein the headliners rendered at a good level and that provided us pleasant surprises such as Kate Tempest or St. Paul & the Broken Bones, helped us to enjoy mythical returns such as the Jesus and Mary Chain and Ride, or to verify the low level of the live proposal of some of the new stars of American r&b as A$AP Rocky and Earl Sweatshirt.
