Festival Q&A: EMF

Who else are you excited to see at Gigantic?
Looking forward to seeing the Wedding Present and hearing Jimbob’s acoustic Carter set. I saw Jim recently play live at a festival in Amsterdam – it’s quite remarkable how good those Carter USM tunes really are, especially stripped back. He’s definitely a great wordsmith and there’s a lot of love out there for him. It’s always a pleasure catching up with Graham and Mary from PWEI. Mary took me under his wing when I first started out, dragging me around seedy Camden haunts and showing me how to be an indie kid. Their live sets are always pretty raucous and worth a bop around to.

What’s your best festival memory?
I once spent the whole of summer 1998 playing every European festival known to man with BRA. I never knew what day it was, what time it was and what country I was in, although there could have been other factors involved here. I remember EMF did some crazy shows in Scandinavia where we would go on stage at midnight just as the sun was setting. By the time we finished our set the sun would be up again. We did a big UK festival show where Zak never turned up until 30 seconds before stage time. By this time Richard from PWEI had had to learn all the bass lines in a Portakabin backstage.

What are your festival essentials?
Pace yourself, don’t get too pissed too early in the afternoon. Yeah right…

How does playing a festival differ from playing your own gig?
Usually the fact of having no sound-check or a feel of the stage before you’re on it gives a certain uncertainty to what to expect, sound, equipment working, etc. It definitely gives you the attitude of “fuck it, let’s just go for it”, adding another level on energy.

What’s you favourite part of playing a festival?
Definitely checking out the other bands, getting out front and meeting fans, catching up with old friends and partying the night away.