Dingus Khan and SuperGlu at Ipswich Music Day
Ipswich Music Day – depending on your perspective, “the perfect setting for an enjoyable, exciting day out with family and friends” (Ip-Art) or a nightmarish vision of hell that Hieronymous Bosch could have conjured up after knocking back 8 cans of warm Stella and starting a fist fight with a 15th century art critic.
Traditionally, it’s an event where 40,000 parents, children and drunks congregate for some of the most inoffensive, family-friendly musical entertainment Suffolk has to offer. This year, the numbers were down and spirits were dampened by the dismal weather, but the sun came out for SuperGlu mid-afternoon and they pulled out a set of shout-a-long summer hits in the making. Some perfectly pitched jokes about class A drugs from Ben Ward drew a mixed response from the families in the audience and a couple in front of me mumbled something about the music being “generic” before wandering off… presumably in search of an Albert Ayler retrospective at the Town 102 stage. The pre-Latitude warm-up in the bag, the two Bens had an hour to recuperate before returning to the stage with Dingus Khan.
Transformed into Mick Squalor, Ben Brown seemed amused that the Toyota stage was in fact a large Volvo truck and proceeded to clamber onto the roof of the stage in order to teach the children in the crowd that you don’t need to be fit, athletic or trained in any way to endanger your life with parkour. For those families who preferred their Sunday afternoon entertainment a little more racy, Ben Ward and Tom Armstrong delivered some hot, drummer-on-bassist live action during Ambulance, but this was a mere sideshow to the spectacle that is Dingus Khan live onstage. The Khan may well be the best live act in the country (copyright: top DJ Richard Haugh) and they rarely disappoint. They brought people to their feet with an improbable mix of bludgeoning bass-end riffery, hooligan vocals and madcap stage antics. Somehow managing to get to the end of their set, with a promise of “no more stunts” to the stage security, they brought the show to an end with a rousing rendition of Made a List and then departed, secure in the knowledge that there is no chance of them ever being invited back.
What could possibly follow that? A group of 50-year old men dressed as pirates, of course.
