Now into its 10th year, Leicester’s Summer Sundae Festival proved this weekend that bigger is most definitely better. After having increased the capacity of the festival to 7,000 and added another major stage, the festival played host to more major acts and spectators than ever before, so here’s a run through of all the action from the weekend…

Local boys Kyte kicked off proceedings, having been selected by BBC Radio’s The Beat to open the main stage. Attracting a huge crowd despite the torrential weather, the Leicestershire quartet played a mesmerising set featuring songs from current album Dead Waves amongst others. A brilliantly beautiful opening act, which very much set the bar for the bands to follow.

The decidedly soggy weather, fortunately, wasn’t reflected in the quality of the music of Friday afternoon. Erland and the Carnival delivered a stunningly intense performance on the new, enlarged Last.fm Rising Stage, whilst on the main stage, The Sunshine Underground did an admirable job at keeping the rain-soaked crowds moving with their cheerful, catchy indie anthems, warming the crowd up for Teenage Fanclub and headliner, Seasick Steve.

The Indoor Stage played it slightly cooler on Friday afternoon, showcasing acts such as the gorgeously gifted Lou Rhodes and Sheffield’s loveable duo, The Slow Club. This chilled out atmosphere was pulled to pieces later in the evening with a roof-shaking performance from the one and only Roots Manuva. Playing to a crowd diverse in age and culture, Roots’ infectious energy and persona stirred the crowd into a hip-hop frenzy, with Roots Manuva rapping along to brilliantly talented live musicians.

So what to do when the music stops? After hours at Summer Sundae meant only one thing…Silent Disco. The Last.fm Rising Stage was each night, transformed into a shaking, raving, chanting idyll for Summer Sundae Weekenders that couldn’t quite bring themselves to go home (or back to their rain soaked tents!).

Saturday provided an equally as dismal day, weather-wise, but the crowds flocked back in high spirits, if a bit better prepared for the rain than they had been the day before! Kicking off festivities were acts such as Nottingham’s brilliantly catchy Dog is Dead, and Leicester’s very own electro-pop outfit Autohype. The Moulettes provided a touch of the classical, adorning the main stage with their incredible renaissance dress, and superb musicianship. The Musician Stage played host to the fantastic Leisure Society mid afternoon, who dazzled crowds with their Ivor Novello nominated tunes, as well as a brilliant flute and ukulele based cover of Gary Numan’s ‘Cars’. A particular highlight of Saturday’s festivities was seeing Caribou turn the Indoor Stage into a power-house of mesmerising noise, with an enormous, transfixed crowd revelling in Caribou mastermind Daniel Snaith’s every action. The intense atmosphere carried through to the next act, with The Fall packing out the indoor stage to capacity and delivering highly charged, unbelievably loud renditions of Mark E. Smith’s various classics.

Back on the main stage, The Go! Team were another group faced with the daunting task of entertaining the crowd through the downpour, but they did so with such energy and ease that they could easily have been playing to a party of beach-goers. Tinchy Stryder was the final artist of the night to grace the main stage, an act highly debated amongst the generally ‘alternative’ crowd of music listeners that tend to frequent the festival, as to his suitability for such a billing. But the crowds came out in force, breaking out their best ‘hip-hop’ (if we can call Tinchy hip-hop?) moves and making him feel very much at home.

The final day of this year’s festival was doused in glorious sunshine, a gift for those who had soldiered on through two days of absolutely horrendous weather! Leicester acts These Furrows and Little Night Terrors opened the show, on a day which would play host to the likes of David Ford, Frightened Rabbit and Los Campesinos! At 4pm, Junip took to the main stage to be greeted by an enormous crowd gathered to see what advert-soundtrack maestro José Gonzales is up to nowadays. Summery, introspective tunes with pretty little melodies and gently lulling vocals provided the answer to that question, in complete contrast to what was happening on the indoors. Errors played an almighty set early Sunday evening. Described by one festival goer as ‘this madly brilliant, electronic, instrumental…wickedness!’, the indoor stage saw crowds pouring in to watch as the 4 Glaswegians created huge, brilliantly crafted soundscapes of samples and synthetics, combined with brilliantly crafted live instruments that entranced and enthralled spectators.

Returning to the main stage, Local Natives made a triumphant Summer Sundae debut, with a much more energetic performance than anticipated, showcasing their trademark multi-layered harmonies and instrument swapping. The final band to play on the main stage at 2010’s Summer Sundae Weekender were Radio 1 favourites Mumford & Sons. Following a hugely successful Glastonbury performance, the London band received a rapturous welcome as they made their way through the melancholy hits from their debut album, Sigh No More. The action on the indoor stage however, proved to be much, much louder, with The Futureheads tearing through singles, past and present and proving why, even 6 years after the release of their debut album, the Futureheads are still an unstoppable live force.

Local talent shone throughout the weekend, notably from main stage openers and local favourites Kyte, but also from bands such as These Furrows, Little Night Terrors, Autohype and Charlie and the Martyrs. The upgrades made to the festival site particularly impressed radio guru Steve Lamacq, who commented; ‘Now you’ve got two really nice sized tents, and there’s a really good atmosphere as it’s spread out, it gives the whole thing just a little bit more space, and obviously, upping the capacity to 7,000 gives it a bit more weight when promoters are trying to bring in talent to play the event. All in all I think it’s been really good.’

So to sum up, a wet yet wonderful, muddy but magnificent display of all kinds of alternative music, new and old, local and international. Summer Sundae, in its 10th year, has managed to maintain the diverse appeal that it set out to target in its first year, and although it’s grown, it has retained that family orientated, creative charm that makes it stand out from other festivals in the UK. With great food, facilities and surroundings, Summer Sundae has gone from strength to strength and judging by its success this year, will continue to get bigger and better over the coming years. A superb outlet for local, as well as new, up and coming bands, Summer Sundae is doing a great job at nurturing and exposing the ‘alternative’ music scene, and is therefore, a very important resource. In the words of Steve Lamacq, ‘little festivals like this can make a difference’ which is why we’ll definitely be supporting the Summer Sundae Weekender next year, let’s just hope the weather’s a bit better!

Words by Francine Gorman
Francine runs the Music Listener blog as well as writing for the Monograph. She takes interest in the issues currently affecting the music industry.
Read all articles by Francine Gorman