Summer Sundae 2003

United Kingdom | by John Bownas | 09 August 2003

It's Last Tango in Leicester time, as The Gotan Project take the headline stage. Earlier in the day the Alabama 3 preside over a marriage proposal, and Pink Grease show the world what they are made of.

Summer Sundae - Saturday...

The Gotan Projet's late start was as enigmatic as the band itself. Projected looping visuals on a full size video screen showed mobbing crowds and spanish horseriders consigned to a perpetual half stride, repeated seemingly forever. This was precursor to a conservatively avante garde, mainly middle aged line-up, that presented the De Montfort crowd with a spectacle that blended Soulwax's Too Many DJs with a 50's Parisian tango band.

But the Gotans were today's main event. Before they took the stage we had already been treated to a full day of top-class entertainment.

Confusingly perhaps, today is Saturday, and it is now day two of Leicester's Summer Sundae. Given the perfect festival weather that continues to ensure that 2003 will go down as one of the hottest seasons in the memory of a generation, the brilliant position of De Montfort Hall on the edge of the city centre and the good looking - if eclectic - list of acts, it could be that the organisers might want to rethink the name of the event if they want a bigger crowd for the Friday and Saturday of next year's festival!

Summer Sundae is held in historic De Montfort Hall, and in its beautiful surrounding grounds. There are four stages in total - two small affairs that provide an opportunity for less well known acts to give their music an outing in public, the indoor auditorium within the hall itself, and the main outdoor stage that sits at the foot of a small natural bowl. Around the top of the bowl are the market stalls and the beer tent, and two more bars are to be found just inside the hall.

Despite missing the first couple of bands, we arrive just in time to catch Manchester's Longview...current darlings of several top radio playlists. Longview are reminiscent if Idlewild in places, although they aspire to the malancholia of Radiohead. Seven tracks from their Mercury Album include the latest single 'Further', as well as Electricity, Can't Explain, Still, When You Sleep, Nowhere, and I would.