Sunday 24/05/09 Dot to Dot Festival @ Various Venues, Nottingham

The venues are bigger, the queues are lesser and quite frankly the organisation just feels much better than the London jaunt. Sure Friendly Fires can’t quite match Kasabian for box office appeal but there’s just as much new music bursting out of the seams of Dot to Dot as any other festival in the UK this year.

That new music starts with San Francisco upstarts LoveLikeFire in the Bodega Social Club, the smallest venue on offer at Dot to Dot. Fronted by striking vocalist Ann Yu they have the energy of 10 bands and the tunes to match. The outstanding moment is ‘Stand In My Shoes’, a thoroughly invigorating slice of pop which sees Yu dismantling her vocal chords for the benefit of the audience. It may be sweaty in the Bodega but that’s through the sheer excitement of the crowd rather than any nerves – LoveLikeFire exhibit the confidence of a band many years their senior.

I heart Hiroshima are no less impressive at the same venue. The Aussie 3-piece are a heady mix of Biffy Clyro guitars and Futurehead rhythms. They take their lead from frontwoman-cum-drummer-cum-goading queen Susie Patten who has more charisma than anyone else on stage at the whole festival.  The result of all of this is a collection of short, fast paced pop tracks with a complimentary running commentary from Susie throughout. She even takes to teasing (or possibly bullying whichever way you view it) guitarist Cameron Hawes into changing the set, much to the amusement of the packed audience.

Mumford and Sons may be the next big indie kids on the block but they don’t exactly retain your attention span for long. Their folky acoustics laden in double bass will surely sound better on record than on a big dingy club stage.

Down in the basement of Rock City (the stage, not literally the basement) Baddies take to the stage with gusto.  Frontman Mike Webster managed to chip his tooth on the Bristol leg of the festival and isn’t he proud as he gurns and shouts his way through their 30 minute set while asking who likes his newly acquired disfigurement. ‘Holler for my Holiday’ swaggers while ‘Battleships’ remains their outstanding pop track. They’re slowly beginning to garner the buzz they rightly deserve.

Ladyhawke is advertised as one of the headline acts of Dot to Dot so it’s a shame no one informed her or maybe she would have put on a better show. The Rock City stage seems just too big for her and her complete lack of stage presence is ruthlessly exposed by her half-hearted display. She refuses to interact with the audience, barely uttering a word in between songs, and her vocals sound weak and lifeless in the live arena. It takes her outstanding tracks like ‘Back of the Van’ and ‘My Delirium’ just to stop the rot and even these sound vastly inferior to record.

What a contrast then that Friendly Fires provide. As the other big name at the top of the bill the organisers are relying on the St Albans group to pull it out. Fortunately they steal the show without even breaking sweat.  They open with a jazzed out version of ‘Lovesick’ which sets the party tone. ‘Skeleton Boy’ is taken from dance floor banger to saxophone led funk fest instantly and still sounds as cool as it always has. Ed Macfarlane is the perfect front man: polite, funny and full of energy as he bounces through ‘Paris’ and slides through the outstanding ‘Strobe’. By creating a party atmosphere and whipping the pants off all of us they ensure Dot to Dot has at least one headliner to remember.

Or do I mean two headliners to remember? Little Boots Victoria Hesketh has the honour of polishing off proceedings over at the Rescue Rooms in the early hours. As ever she’s not hard to spot, with her golden blonde hair and an inflatable pink unicorn balloon adorning the stage. It doesn’t take much more than that for her to fill the stage and at her best she is a mesmerising mix of pop princess and indie-dance superstar. She’s not lacking in confidence either, prowling the stage and chatting away when she feels like it. Fortunately it seems there’s plenty more than a pretty face to Miss Hesketh – this won’t be the last festival she headlines you sense. And with that our Dot to Dot experience is over and it’s back to London for Gigwise with Friendly Fires saxophone’s still reverberating in our ears – and there’s a lot worse journeys down the M1 than that.