Festival Review: Handmade Festival 2018

Handmade Festival (Leicester, 5-6 May '18) // Words: Saam Das

Leicester's Summer Sundae Festival was a notable selection in the UK festival calendar prior to its formal cancellation in 2013, but thankfully in its wake emerged a new music festival in the area - Handmade. An independent festival with a keen eye for new music, Handmade's also had bands of the stature of We Are Scientists and Frightened Rabbit as headliners, and 2018 offered a similar mix of established and new names.

Dinosaur Pile-Up

Matt Bigland, formerly of Leeds based troupe Mother Vulpine, has re-emerged with a solo outfit of sorts (he has a live entourage at gigs) entitled Dinosaur Pile-Up. Well, I say re-emerged but Dinosaur Pile-Up has been going for aaaaaaaages. I even mentioned them a couple of weeks ago in a Grammatics post [link].


Now I don't know about you but I love dinosaurs, from Jurassic Park to Rex from Toy Story to paleontology, it's all good. Thankfully, Dinosaur Pile-Up are equally as great. The demos combine The Cribs' early rawness and the rock anthem ethos of Weezer. The track I'm featuring below ('Love Is A Boat, And We're Sinking') is a hypnotic dancefloor stomper, and feels a lot like a Bloc Party demo.

DINOSAUR PILE-UP - LOVE IS A BOAT, AND WE'RE SINKING