The first day of The Square Festival here in Borth went off very well. The security people were a little on the zealous side and there wasn’t too much entertainment provided specifically for children, but apart from that it was all you could want from a small festival. Great music, friendly people, fine atmosphere, good weather and lashings of good quality food and drink.
Three bands stood out on the first day. The Anomalies were brilliant (picture below). They had a very strong 80s hip hop sound, rather like early to middle period Beastie Boys, with a great deal of energy, and mixed rock sounds and some dance music in with it too. In addition to their own excellent material they also covered Daft Punk, The Prodigy and ended up with an amazing cover of Fatboy Slim’s Rockafeller Skank, complete with turntable effects duplicated live with instruments, voices and the best beat-boxer I’ve ever seen.
Fuod (pic below) are a local band from Aberystwyth and they are apparently well known in the area, although I’d never heard of them before. I thought at first that “fuod” was a Welsh word I didn’t know, but it turns out to stand for “F****d Up On Drugs”. They are a great festival band, with a huge mix of sounds all linked by very heavy bass. Music to jump up and down to.
Circus of Invention were really quite unusual. There was a very low-fi feel about them and I thought they had a bit of a punk ethic, which was confirmed by the keyboard player who I chatted to afterwards. The music was guitar, bass, drums and keyboards all played in a loose post-punk sort of way and completely without histrionics. Great fun.
Let’s hope day 2 works just as well.
Cheers, Tom.
NotBob
Pro 
Looks like a good weekend!