Venue: Whitchurch Festival                 Date: 4th August, 2001

The Cardiacs were born out of the British punk scene in the late seventies, and their music has continued to reflect a style which is predominantly punk but which echoes many other genres from psychedelia to pop.

Last year saw the The Cardiac's first appearance at the Whitchurch Festival and this year they were invited back again as the headline act to close the first day of the weekend.

Not being familiar with the band or their music it has proved impossible to write a review that does more than comment on the impression they made and, like them or not, The Cardiacs are certainly a band that make a deep and lasting impression.

My initial mood on hearing that The Cardiacs were playing at this year's festival was not a good one it has to be said. Having caught a couple of the band's songs last year I was certainly among the 'can't stand them' brigade but, regardless of this fact, I was determined to give the band a fair crack this time around.

There was a good sized crowd in the hall before the band took to the stage, and it was fairly apparent that many of them had come specifically for The Cardiac's show...

As the lights dimmed, a single figure took to centre stage and simply stood behind the mike stand not speaking as the crowd cheered and shouted enthusiastically.  After a while the rest of the band came on and took up their places, but still the silence from the stage continued while the crowd worked themselves into a frenzy.

To see a group exert that level of influence on any crowd is somewhat disturbing, and along with the fact that two of the band were dressed in outfits reminiscent of the Hitler Youth, this effect is exaggerated even further.

When the show proper finally got underway, the effect of a seemingly tangible wall of sound was almost literally stunning. I don't want to give the impression that this was simply noise, or that the sound levels were mixed too high - this is not the case at all.  Just about every note was clearly defined, and the guitar and bass work was very precise, but the overall effect was of an aural assault battering the senses into submission.

The fact that all the keyboard parts were prerecorded, coupled with the stop/start nature of many of the tunes left very little margin for error, but the timing was impeccable throughout.  The way that the band members hurled themselves around the stage was also something which must be have been fairly well choreographed and has to be seen to be fully appreciated.

As I have already mentioned the band clearly had a lot of fans in the crowd, and for those in the know there was great delight to be had from the rapport between band and audience. From the outsiders' point of view however, this was one of the most bizarre aspects of the evening.  The level of humour at best can be described as puerile and would appear to be so even on the junior school playground.

All things considered I have to say I'm still not converted to the cause - part of the problem may be that I don't understand them, and the schoolboy humour does little to make me want to do so. That said I have to admit to a grudging admiration since I have been impressed by what I have seen and, while I cannot seriously imagine myself listening to their music at home, I would not be averse to seeing them perform live again in the future.

If you are already a Cardiacs fan I hope you will sympathise with this outsiders' view. While I still cannot decide whether or not I like them, I would suggest they are a band that everyone should see - at least the once.

Simon