Back in the Trailerpark tent we encounter Mackating continuing to expand their fan base. Or at least we would have if we could get within five yards of the place, such is the demand for their authentically traditional reggae sound - watertight rhythms and Slimma’s Gregory Isaacs-style croon showing just why they’ve stuck around to come so far over the last few years on the local scene. But anyway, yes, ABRASIVENESS! Lapsus Linguae, ladies and gentlemen.

Contender for the band of the weekend. Their particular form of abrasiveness involves several grand pianos being thrown down an assortment of mountainsides, deep wells and steep flights of stairs. All accompanied by grinding guitars, tribal drumbeats and hysterical vocals, all wrapped up in skinny black t-shirts and topped with a dusting of super-strength hair gel. The Birthday party-meets-Tori Amos? Oh yes. On crack? Almost certainly. These guys regularly injure themselves or each other during their gigs and it’s not difficult to see why.

Inconveniently The Samurai Seven and Dustball clash with each other but by careful positioning (conveniently right next to the bar) you can hear them both at the same time. Both bands are playing blinders today, confirming their standing as enduring local favourites: flailing limbs, sharp elbows, spiky punk-pop melodies, harmonies and a headstrong determination to get to the end of each song before anyone’s caught breath from the last one. What else do you need? And by another piece of careful positioning (sadly this time nowhere near the lovely two-quid-a-pint bar) you can here an uncannily in-synch soundclash of The Sammies and Kaito. So you get the trademark Samurai Seven sunshine pop experience with added excitable female backing vocals and wobbly synthesizers. It’s a once-only Truck Festival bootleg experience! And only we got to hear it, so nyer nyer.

Doughnuts then and off to watch Menlo Park, another band wearing cream suits. They’re certainly the suavest band of the weekend, fronted by a gravel-throated crooner of the Johnny Cash school and a drummer with a haircut that looks like Crystal Tips with hair extensions and her fingers stuck in a plug socket. They also play a version of Blondie’s ‘Heart Of Glass’ with a banjo lead. Stylish.

An early contender for rock and roll moment of the day comes from Meanwhile Back In Communist Russia, playing their first gig without guitarist Mark Halloran, whose contribution to the ABRASIVE grand prix is of the sultry, enveloping kind (enveloping us in cigarette smoke mostly). All’s going well until Emily gets hit in the face by something thrown from the crowd and sulks off. It’s happened before though and they carry on as normal until bassist Ollie smashes his guitar to bits on an amp and narrowly avoids a fight with the soundman. Mark’s departure is a blow to the Russians and they find themselves at a crossroads. They’ve always been a chaotic live experience but if they can harness all that pent-up negative energy they could really win hearts and blow minds.

Their friends and lovers The Rock Of Travolta then really do blow us all away. Just in case we’d forgotten that they are in fact the best live band in Oxford, they go about reminding us in style. They are the post-rock-electro-experiemntal-prog-blardy-blah (delete as applicable) band by which all others must be judged. They play a fair amount if new stuff, mixed up with old favourites like ‘Giant Robo’ and ‘Lukewarm Skywater’ (with Joe Bennett back on trumpet duties) and are bombastic and exhilarating. And it’s a crazy, mixed-up world isn’t it, when the best front man of the weekend, Dave Warrington, doesn’t even sing.

Time is wearing on now, but there’s no let-up in the fun, not where Newport’s McLusky are concerned. Where Jon Spencer meets The Butthole Surfers is where you will find these ultra-wired hardcore punkabilly fiends, barking semi-intelligible madness about drugs and ballpoint pens. Cleverer, wittier and far, far nastier than almost any other punk band on the planet, they deliver almost all of the best lines of the festival (The Handsome Family notwithstanding), including the highly appropriate, “Don’t go fucking in the barn / because the barn’s on fire”.

Fonda 500 then make McLusky look and sound like a bunch of miserable old stick-in-the-muds with their demented synth-pop cabaret and Mickey Mouse ears, before it’s time for our genial hosts Goldrush to make their traditional appearance. In past years they’ve been cute local heroes with a philanthropic bent. Now though they’re on the verge of something big and today is akin to a homecoming triumph for them. After a recent jaunt round the UK with The Flaming Lips they’re in celebratory mood and a jovial set is their way of partying. Amazing to think how far both they and their festival have come in five years. A triumph in every sense.

Dale Kattack

TRUCK 2002 review continued... ---->