Having spent a very pleasant and chill day in the sun, I’ve now decided for a 180 in vibe because I arrived at the Park Stage for Wunderhorse. If I told you a band genuinely named after Champion the Wonder Horse were played Glasto, you might think of something twee, but far from it. Wunderhorse are famed for their ferocious and intelligent rock, and when frontman (and core of the group) Jacob Slater takes to the stage he is dressed in black, black sunglasses and shit open to the navel, clearly intending to pound the shit out of us.
The band tear into their set, but this isn’t out of control or feedback for feedback’s sake. There’s a constant sense of intelligence and control behind the screaming guitars, the feeling that it’s meant to be precisely this aurally violent. It’s less like watching a crazy rock act and more like being observed by a guitar slinging snake.
Slater once played Paul Cook in a drama about the Sex Pistols, but while Wunderhorse have the same primal rawness, they’re foreboding and powerful in a way the Pistols were just posturing. Sam Fender’s made a career of singing about the ennui of modern life and has a song called Hypersonic Missiles, whereas Wunderhorse tackle that ennui – drugs, depression, relationships – by being a hypersonic missile. Yes, we said it, Wunderhorse: the absolute fucking livid Sam Fender.
All of which made it a bit weird when a member of the crowed set off a pink flare halfway through… although I suppose they don’t make black flares, so you do the best with what you’ve got.
Not that the band don’t have their slower, contemplative numbers, it’s just that they conjure up spilled gasoline in asphalt grit rather than being a British field on a hot day. You often hear that Glastonbury transports you to another place, but Wunderhorse transported us to a decaying megalopolis where the weeds are making a comeback. And forgive us, but there was a brief moment where Slater screams a refrain and its full on Kurt Cobain.
How good were Wunderhorse? Whereas I’m meant to stay for the whole set as I’m reviewing, our team photographer often has to leave early and arrive late so he can get to the right amount of stages… but while was rooted to the spot in enjoyment, so was he, and he couldn’t move until they’d finished. I think I spotted him last running…
Their first track ….’Midas’ was so energetic, so powerful, and wth lyrics that I could only vaguely connect with Gonzo, with Holden Caulfield that it makes the Oasis reunion not a whole lot different from that of the Searchers from 1964, great as they were, it rendered the Gallagher brothers redundant. Redundant. A masterpiece of work comparable only to Led Zep’s Communication Breakdown from 1968, as in less than three minutes of, as Eddie Cochrane might have said …..”Something Else”
Brilliant by any standard there or now!