Summer Sundae 2006

United Kingdom | by Chris McCormick | 13 August 2006

Friday 12 August

Inner-city festivals can be hit and miss, most trying too hard to create a festival atmosphere and failing to disguise what usually amounts to little more than a gig in the park. However, with five tents, real ale bars and cabaret, Summer Sundae, despite being in the middle Leicester, feels like you could be in a field in Devon or on the Isle of Skye.

Whilst the line-up provides you with many headaches and difficult decisions, there’s never any point over the whole weekend where there isn’t at least two quality acts on. Friday kicks off with Local Heroes (VF's recent unsigned bands contest) winning band Merla on the indoor stage, and due to the inclusion of chart topper James Morrison on the Main Stage, their set is moved forward by half an hour. They kick off the festival proper on the Indoor Stage playing to three people, but as the atmospheric vibe of first song 'Monkey' drifts outside, more than 400 people have filled the space in front of the stage by the time they launch into their second song. Band and audience grow as the set speeds on and by the end of last song 'Rise', Merla have arrived and opened the festival in true style winning the hearts of now nearly full De Montfort Hall. Check the band's Summer Sundae blog here.

James Morrison gets main stage proceedings off to a fantastic start, winning over a reluctant crowd with tracks from his debut album 'Undiscovered'. With the skies promising rain we head to the Indoor Stage for the poster boy of folk, Seth Lakeman, who wows a packed crowd with his ambidextrous talents of guitar, fiddle and vocals with tracks from 'Kitty Jay' and 'Freedom Fields'.

The Blockheads are next up on the Musicians Stage, fronted by none other than lifelong fan Phil Jupitus, whose joy is etched across his face while bouncing around to 'Sex and Drugs and Rock ‘n’ Roll'. While not quite carrying off the enigma which was Ian Dury, he does, to be fair, know all the words and keeps the party spirit alive.

By now the crowd in front of the Main Stage is full for the coming of Elbow. It’s their first festival headline slot and they take to it as if it’s their god-given right. Guy Garvey owns the stage and his soaring vocals, combined with his genial stage presence, help whip the crowd into a frenzy. Fans are treated to the previously unheard song 'Brambles', which played alongside crowd pleasers 'Forget Myself' and 'Leaders Of the Free World' demonstrates how Elbow have always been destined for headline slots as Garvey throws himself into the crowd to be swamped by 1000’s of women wishing he were their’s.

Instead of shouts for an encore, Garvey instructs the crowd to shout “lasting peace in the middle east”, which they promptly do when the band exit and return for the closing of the first day of Summer Sundae. The only down side to the festival is that the onsite bars close at midnight, but being a stones throw from Leicester city centre the parties continue across the city as festival goers descend upon pubs and clubs until the early hours.