DEPOT IN THE CASTLE | LIVE REVIEW
Cardiff Castle, Sat 2 June
If there’s one thing Depot know how to do, it’s run a festival. After the success of last year’s Depot In The Park, the pop-up event veterans have taken over Cardiff’s most famous medieval landmark to bring us Depot In The Castle, an extravaganza of music and family entertainment spanning a whole Saturday.
It’s a wonderfully sunny summer Saturday too. The queue is a rainbow of face paint, smiles and unicorn costumes. Inside the walls, kids have stilt walkers, craft activities, and jugglers to keep them busy, while parents can enjoy a cocktail or one of several artisan food trucks. Even the security team are in cheery spirit – as festivals go, I suspect it’s a lot more fun (and practical) to patrol a castle than battle fencehopping ravers in a muddy field. If you want wholesome, Depot In The Castle has it in abundance.
It’s a stark contrast to larger, more commercial festivals like last month’s Radio 1’s Biggest Weekend in Swansea, where this reviewer paid £9 for a miserable half-frozen pizza that would have been better used as the world’s worst frisbee. Depot has thankfully set their standards a little higher. Dirty Bird’s buttermilk fried chicken is a particular delight, with a spice dredge garnish that elevates the flavour without being pretentious. Elsewhere, Brother Thai brings a vibrant dash of Bangkok to Wales, while The Pork Society serves delicious marinated meat from their vintage caravan.
Afternoon DJ sets from Horse Meat Disco and Fleetmac Wood whip through a range of funk, soul, and 80s disco, with a pinch of Dizzee Rascal thrown in for good measure. The nine-piece Hackney Colliery Band deliver a lively set full of roaring brass and jazzy saxophone solos. Best known for their oompah-pah reworkings of popular songs, their covers of Toto’s Africa and Nirvana’s Heart-Shaped Box are delights that earn them plenty of cheers from the crowd.
Scottish rockers The Fratellis [left] might not be the youthful indie juggernauts they were in 2006, when debut album Costello Music was first tearing up the charts, but they prove more than capable co-headliners today. Frontman Jon Fratelli makes for a lanky, laid-back figure, belting out familiar tunes like Henrietta and Whistle For The Choir with minimal waffle between songs. He barely needs to touch the microphone for Chelsea Dagger, the shoutalong megahit that any footie fan is required to know by heart. Today’s affair might be more glitter and toddlers on shoulders than lager and Mexican waves, but The Fratellis’ pub-rock credentials couldn’t be more apparent.
The highlight performance of the day goes to headliners Sister Sledge [top]. The disco girls are in dazzling form, both figuratively and with literal sequins. You would hardly guess that the siblings are on the cusp of their 60s, with vocals that soar effortlessly and hips that never stop moving. When the show climaxes with an extended version of the iconic We Are Family, there’s not a soul in the castle who isn’t in the groove. As the sisters would say, tonight we are all lost in the music.
words and photos JASPER WILKINS