Following the cancellation of OxfordOxford Festival, Tim Hughes and artist Matt Chapman reviews the music on offer at the event which sprung up in its place: TigFest

  • TigFest
  • Art Bar, Oxford
  • Saturday, Sept 27, 2014

The cancellation of the city’s much-vaunted celebration of all things oxford: OxfordOxford was greeted with disappointment – if no real surprise – by local music-lovers.

The event should have taken place last weekend in South Park, and what a beautiful day it would have been, with the sun shining down on Klaxons, Katy B and Supergrass star Gaz Coombes.

Alas, it was badly organised and promoted (even by its backer Oxford City Council), and consequently hardly anyone bought any tickets.

The event’s last minute cancellation (they pulled the plug with just a week to go) was crushing for the smaller bands, some of whom were looking forward to playing the biggest show of their lives.

Thankfully, Oxford’s musicians are better organised and have stronger nerves than the ill-fated festival’s organisers Eleven11 Events, and are more proactive than the city council, and within hours of the cancellation had organised their own event, indoors in the backroomof the Bully (strangely rebranded The Art Bar).

Called TigFest – in honour of the Tigmus (This is Good Music) crowd-sourcing site – it featured many bands let down by the festival’s demise.

The BG Records community opened proceedings with a showcase of their diverse line-up, including Mary James – a teenage songstress who seems to span generations of female pop icons with a powerfully focussed vocal style, not unlike Adele or Lana Del Rey. Her self-accompaniment on delicate clean electric guitar is nearer to a young PJ Harvey.

Then it was time for Chuckie, an up-and-coming rapper who fits perfectly in with the established UK hip-hop sound BG Records has become known for. He tells dark and intensely emotive tales of life in the Oxford you don’t see on the postcards, and the real issues facing young people. An a cappella song at the end of his set was even more powerful, for its stark honesty.

Things then took a deliciously exotic turn with Stornoway’s Zulu-flavoured spin-off Count Drachma, featuring Tigmus founder Oli Steadman, who staged the festival with Flights of Helios keys man Sebastian Reynolds.

Then it was the turn of honey-voiced Keel star Jordon O’Shea, before things took an epic dancy leap forward at the hands of After The Thought (aka co-reviewer Matt Chapman), whose instrumental laptop and synth-driven electronica veers from dreamy and ethereal to arms-in the-air anthemic. This is music made to be played on huge speakers, to a lightshow of laser beams at a festival. If that’s your thing, I urge you to search him out.

Next on were Robot Swans, themselves no strangers to loops and gizmos, though feeding their technology into a more conventional boy-boy-girl indie-pop three-piece, with engaging vocal harmonies backed by melodic guitars.

Sadly we miss Balloon Ascents, but are back for headliners Flights of Helios, who are growing more frenetic and ambitious with every gig.

Oxford Mail:

Epic electronica: After The Thought

Highlights included set opener Factory that evolves from sci-fi monk drones into intense upbeat post-punk, and new single Succubus which starts with an infectious swagger and slowly decays into an all out static assault. Every sound is so intricately arranged as to give the feeling of spontaneity, but, unlike TigFest – which triumphed with a great day of music on a knife-edge schedule - you can tell this has taken a long time coming.