Review: Hit The Deck Festival 2014

Headliners: Brand New, Saves The Day, Kvertelak
When: 19th and 20th April 2014
Where: Bristol and Nottingham
Reviewed By: Ben Chapman

Hit the Deck Festival, with it's vaguely skater-pirate-nautical theme, presented a fleet of bands punk, pop-punk, rock, alternative all sorts, and metal to the city of Bristol, making a fine midpoint over the April bank holiday weekend.

The music was loud, sky mostly sunny, good times in abundance. Distance between venues meant that it took a while, and therefore lots of planning, to get around the stages in order to catch bands. Hit the Deck's other day in Nottingham had it's stages closer together, but it'd be a shame not to have the unique feel of Bristol and it's venues: whether you were enjoying views from the tiered O2 arena’s several levels, the thrash-conducive and dank sub-deck Thekla atmosphere, or the sunny cobbled alleyways shrouding a moat of light round The Fleece: in many ways, Hit the Deck took a natural hold of the city.

Eager to start off the days’ music we entered the former cargo ship Thekla, a pretty interesting place to explore, and stumbled into The Hit the Deck Cinema. On the top deck of Thekla a cosy cinema's dinge was in mutiny from the room's small portholes, a comfortable setting to watch rock related cinema such as Wayne's World and the classic This is Spinal Tap. It was a nice idea, but realistically can you imagine anyone wanting to stay for more than a few minutes with so many bands playing throughout the city? Either way, the cinema did indicate the diverse range of events available at Hit the Deck, but having only just arrived and we were keen to hear a band. Midday was slipping by.

A distant drone from Bats About Bats soon lured us downstairs, deep into the hull of the ship, where amps stacked port and starboard rang through with feedback heavy sound and the dredge of powerchords that sounded out Bats About Bat's brave start to the festival. With many popular acts to follow later that day, not to mention the relative earliness for a more heavy-end act, or the energetic audience such acts demand and feed upon, nevertheless the band opened with some fearless riffs amongst a slow and crashing rhythm section, some tasty guitar harmonies sweetened the deal at points. A strong start, but to no fault of their own the crowd wasn't ready to muster much more than polite sways and nod-alongs.

At the smaller of the O2 arena’s stages, crowd reception seemed somewhat improved, though no less bemused, at seeing The St Pierre Snake Invasion. The lead singer had cleared a circle in the crowd, where he wailed away with a conviction that maintained a radius of empty space all about him. Missing the very beginning of the set, it was hard to understand why the singer demanded so much room, or the crowd’s reluctance to invade that space (which still seemed an almost awestruck reluctance) as they listened to an energetic chord thwacking that favours interruption from damning moments of half-time heaviness during tracks such as If the Only Way is Essex You Can Kill Me Now. Their style utilised a brilliantly orchestrated sped-up punk style complete with classically obnoxious yet socially relevant lyrics.

Next up was Ghouls. Their offbeat-friendly party-punk soon filled up the room. The ska influences sound out in the form of a minimal but very effective horn section, honking out nicely developing call and response passages with gypsy flavours on London’s Burning, filling out the band's choruses, aiding the driving basslines and skanking guitar. It was dance-inducing stuff, suitable for skankers and headbangers both, with a pace and liveliness that didn't let up throughout their set. Even the breaks between their songs were good, not protracted but enough to involve the audience, the singer cheekily flogging band T-shirts (tongue-in-cheek yet thoroughly convincing of the fact that, yes, of course, your shirt will be too sweaty if you’re dancing properly, so why not let the limbs go then buy a fresh one off Ghouls?) before springing off the pogoing crowd into the next tune. Excellently received, it's safe to say Ghouls introduced themselves to more than a few new Bristol fans that day.

A short break after, and Scottish four-piece Vukovi were on. The guitarist fiddled around with several pedals for a few minutes whilst the drummer, singer, and bassist launched into an aggressive but poppy tune that would have been comfortable topping the alternative charts. Their opening song differed from the remainder of their set, which became a bit less conventional and heavier towards the end. Once the guitarist finally finished messing with his array of effects, we were treated to a Battles-esque range of melodies, looping and influencing each other over a backdrop of arresting shouts, with helpful counterpoint basslines developing a musical clarity to the punky mess. It was around the second song that they seemed to win the crowd over, dragging a spectator on stage and casually telling him he could play the drums. In an excellent way to end any set, the lead singer proceeded to fall upon these same drums in rock mockery of the classically reckless ‘destroy all instruments’ stage exit.

Ears ringing, it was time to get over to The Fleece to catch Nai Harvest, an impressive duo that work pretty damn hard towards their surprisingly thick and fledged music. For only two people, they compensate for anything lacking with their sound, delivering some very bass heavy surf-rock; the chords were full of resonant shoegazer distortion and a searing Dinosaur Jr style sustain during the more melodic passages, all busied up by some fidgety drumming. A nice grungy mixture of fuzzy punk and low-fi indie methods made Nai Harvest an interesting presence at Hit the Deck.

Seahaven played an excellently balanced take on rock. Making competent use of its three similar looking guitarists, fittingly, their entwining melodic style played a set combining sparse post-rock relaxation driven with a haunting punk edge, with also some occasional tambourine thrown in for its own sake. They took the crowd away with a triple metre ballad layered with top backing vocals and watery melodies as they built up a pleasant cacophony. Seahaven provided sensitive post rock with less pedal-effect tomfoolery and a bit more of an energetic focus to it on the feel-good though rueful Flesh. Many songs were laid back, subdued, yet still loud, a slow layering of incremental heaviness with enough melodic busyness that makes for a comfortable listen, exemplified fully during Wild West Selfishness.

Gnarwolves were next. They didn't waste any time. The packed venue nothing short of thronged. The first chord rang following a shouted introduction and like a couple of card decks, crowd surfers poured out either side of backstage. Those near the front caught, those at the back seemed to recoil, and a weirdly intense yet polite moshpit was born. The divide between those viewing and moshing seemed fairly clear despite its proximity. The stage diving didn't let up throughout the whole set. One guy hesitated before his jump, and with a slow obtuse lean, fell backwards broomstick-wise instead. Thankfully he was back up in seconds and diving as intended. The chords roared with motorbike-chain speed. Gnarwolves announced they were due to record their debut album next week, yet already seemed to have a devoted crowd of fans, and impressively embodied abrasive, accomplished, in-your-face punk. Their presence live is a distinct experience that commands attention.

We moved as quick as possible, crossing the river towards the O2, but only reached Pulled Apart By Horses towards the end of their set. Luckily we got there in time to watch their most enjoyable rendition of I Punched a Lion in the Throat, with its crisp distorted crunch and energised garage/metal riffs that strut up and down the scales. The hair-metal theatrics abounded, were amusing and certainly fitted the vigorous setlist, but it's still always a shame to watch a perfectly good guitar get destroyed.

Upstairs on the second stage, William Beckett, a singer-songwriter-with-acoustic sort of affair, sounded less enjoyable. Though to many his music will be quite meaningful, something about his act seemed a bit weak. To me it sounded like quite obvious, incredibly whiny pop-punk without half the fun energy that's usually the redeemer of similar acts. I'm ashamed to say I didn't give it much of a chance. Only able to stomach a couple of songs, I went downstairs to the other stage, where it was just a short wait for the people who know how to pull off pop-punk far more agreeably.

The festival would not have been complete without catching Saves the Day, early emo-melodic-hardcore masters held in many nostalgic hearts internationally. A solid mix of tracks from all over their back catalogue, the band knew how to please and played several off the brilliant Stay What You Are album, with Cars & Calories, At Your Funeral, Firefly, and the anthemic ballad Freakish. It’s dangerously infectious almost overly-cheesy pop-punk that is allowed to get away with it through sheer force of the rapid drive to its song structure, clean scratchy riffs, and most importantly, those deep melodic basslines with more catchy hooks than a pirate in velcro.

The walk between venues meant that at this point all bets were in on which headliner to see. It was quite a difficult choice, but I felt I should leave the O2, forego headliners Brand New and explore some of the other bands. I ended up back in the bowels of Thekla, where we caught the tail end of Hawthorne Heights playing their entire album, The Silence in Black and White. A good idea: it’s nice to see bands considering an album as a whole project rather than a collection of hits and singles: they embarked on the project wholeheartedly. Hawthorne Heights were one of those many bands that I’d often heard of but never properly sought out to listen to, the live performance confirmed their place in the pop-punk cannon; the indulgent song structure and wailing vocals reminded me of a slightly heavy Jimmy Eat World.

Outside the ship (damn well soundproofed) was the outdoor acoustic stage, a large raised gazebo with bright lights staring out at the neck craning audience. Ataris frontman Kristopher Roe strode in front of the invasive Jagermeister flag backdrop with his electro-acoustic. Together they belted out forty-five minutes of sentimental tunes with bright chordal strumming. The strings’ ringing harmony, Roe’s powerful lungs, the darkening evening sinking over the green-lit ship, made a nice setting for enjoying the music.  Roe’s straightforward style, pulled off with compelling sincerity, was a brilliant addition and stark contrast to the other acts on offer.

The music and the cold were starting to shiver my back. We hurried over to the cave-like Exchange, where scraps of band posters plaster every wall. Inside, the headbanging headlining musical head-butt Brutality Will Prevail turned out to be the shredding mess we heard way off on our approach to the venue. The heaviest act I saw all day. The guitar’s parts were doubled up into a crushing weight, the shouty singing and foreboding bass gave the effect of music created by hearts as cold, but never as bubbly, as the pint of lager my hand clutched tightly. An awesome sight to conclude the eleven hours of bands playing non-stop across Bristol; the crowd response could not have been better. Fans stretched and bobbed up to the lead’s microphone and tried to roar along. The band obliged and worked the crowd into a thrashing lottery of limbs, inspired a bounding circle pit, and commanded a crowd surfing lap of the venue.

Hit the Deck Festival is a highly recommended day of quick-fire music that must be praised for fitting so much for so many different people in just one day. A great early festival to kick off the summer party season.

We would like to thank Maz of Ghouls for this feature.