As a photographer covering Kendal Calling this year, up on the outdoor Woodlands stage over the previous days I had rarely seen more than 2 photographers. Now we had the site of around a dozen or more legging it across the fields to get there. Upon arrival word had obviously got round the crowd too, as we were met with one if not the largest crowd for that stage of the weekend. As 5pm arrived and the band walked out on the small stage I think they were generally taken aback by the size of the audience and an equally small pit area crammed with photographers. After a few nervous words of “Hello Kendal” from lead singer Jennifer Ball the band started the set and boy was the buzz warranted. Most of the band originate from Ireland with Jen herself a native of Cornwall. This unique blend of Irish and Cornish influence is evident in their music.
The band only formed in November last year but in a short space of time have gone from strength to strength, multiple festival appearances this year on the back of a tour with one of Kendals headliners this year, The Kooks. On the music side a much vaunted cover of Massive Attack’s ‘Teardrop’ on the soundtrack of Peaky Blinders: The Immortal Man has drawn in many new fans and a debut single in March “Mama, My Heart is Achin” was equally well received. To date the band have not committed much to recording with the release of only 3 songs, the two mentioned plus “Ode to the Glory Days”.
More songs are on the way and the proposed next single “Wet Paint” was to many, myself included the highlight on the day, a powerful emotional roller coaster piece of musical artistry about personal boundaries and consent. Incredibly moving performance, you could hear a pin drop in the quieter moments as the crowd looked on entranced and in some cases moved to tears. It may have been the high point of the set but that’s not to say the other songs were far behind , far from it. Each was performed with an incredible energy without any loss of musical integrity by a band of artists right on top of their game feeding off as they readily admitted to their biggest audience to date.
At times you could see Jen especially tying to take it all in and being blown away by the crowd in front of her. All this fed into a frenzied whirling dancing, at times ferocious, tartan skirted tornado flashing before our eyes on what in reality was a very small cramped stage. I felt for the safety of her fellow band mates at times. On top of this the striking emotionally charged vocals of Ms Ball were mesmerising. I’m doing my best here but words are still failing me as to how damn good this was. It was truly an “I was there!” moment. Next big thing? Tick.
The 11 date “Girl in the Year Above” Tour starts in Nottingham on 11th October and finishes in Dublin on 25th October.
