YOU INSTEAD
I never thought the day would come that I’d find myself in Cineworld, popcorn in hand, watching a movie in which a horny couple get down to business in a tent as Frightened Rabbit’s intercourse anthem Keep Yourself Warm plays in the background. Such is the flawed genius of You Instead, shot entirely on location at last summer’s T in the Park festival and a rare treat for anyone wanting to play Scottish indie ‘I spy’ with the soundtrack. No Cigarettes by Withered Hand, you say? Mapped By What Surrounded Them by The Twilight Sad? If I Don’t Belong by Strike The Colours? Freaky Freaky Raving by FOUND? Step this way.

The film finds Adam (Luke Treadaway) and Morello (Natalia Tena), lead members of fictional rival bands – electro-rock duo The Make (think Editors meets MGMT, badly) and all-girl punk band The Dirty Pinks (featuring the charming Clare Kelly from Suspire on drums) – handcuffed together against their will as they stumble about from bar to Portaloo to stage to bed to shower… you get the idea.

There are brief (I’m talking blink-missable) cameo appearances from The Proclaimers, Kassidy, and Kyle Falconer from The View, with the most potentially career-affecting exposure given to Glasgow singer Jo Mango, whose angelic performance of her song The Black Sun to a small backstage gathering makes for one of the more tender scenes.

In fact, much of You Instead is shot backstage, fenced off from drunken hazards, so if you were at last year’s festival then don’t go into a screening with high expectations of spotting yourself unless you work in security or happen to be the young lad in the Main Stage crowd who was holding a homemade sign reading, “I’m alive, mum”.

The Make – You Instead by YouInstead

In saying that, directory David Mackenzie certainly doesn’t offer a sheltered portrayal of the T in the Park experience – far from it. Everything you’d come to expect is happily present – the mud, the wastedness, the fast-food monstrosities, the Slam Tent, the campsite that never sleeps. The most striking scene of all sees hundreds of scavenging seagulls screech terrifyingly over the site in search of abandoned food. Alfred Hitchcock, eat your heart out.

It’s such a pity the spine of the film is found wanting. The two leads are so devoid of charm that their hate/love relationship just feels like a major irritation as both actors give lame performances with what is already weak dialogue and a tissue-thin plot.

Gavin Mitchell, in the role of The Make’s American manager Bobby, delivers one of You Instead’s few laugh-out-loud moments when warning his band about Scottish crowds (“Watch out, they’ll deep fry you”) but ends up trying too hard to look like he’s having The Best Time Ever.

The long-awaited big finale performance from The Make is a complete cringefest, which really does make you wonder whose idea it was to name the film after a sorry, lyrically-limp excuse for a song.

Withered Hand – No Cigarettes

Suspire – King Of Absolutes (acoustic)

Suspire’s new single Salvation Sister will be released on April 30.

Jo Mango – The Black Sun

You Instead will be in cinemas on general release this summer.

UPSIDE DOWN
Danny O’Connor’s excellent, attention-grabbing documentary film provides a fascinating insight into what went on behind the scenes at Creation Records. Revealing and frank interviews interspersed with music from the Creation archive take us from humble beginnings in Glasgow to the biggest rock concert in British history.

Fittingly, the film begins with The Jesus And Mary Chain’s first single Upside Down, laying a marker for the next 100 minutes. It’s a gritty, no-holds-barred sound that doesn’t relent as the director manages to get all the major players to give a blow by blow (pun intended) account of the label’s history.

Creation took off thanks to the profits generated by the Mary Chain, whom McGee managed. From a dingy little east London office, he set about signing acts such as Primal Scream and The Loft. McGee knew Bobby Gillespie from his days in Glasgow, but it was his passion for music and belief in the artists themselves that enabled him to land these bands, something Noel Gallagher later alludes to.

Despite having some successful acts, Creation continued to have financial difficulties, partly because of the prolific intake of drugs McGee was consuming. It nearly ended the company, it nearly killed him, yet perversely it opened the door to opportunity. McGee relocated to Manchester when The Hacienda was in full flow. When asked by Tony Wilson in an interview why he moved, McGee replies, “A better class of drug”. It was these ecstasy-fuelled nights which led McGee to introduce Gillespie to that scene, in turn leading to Screamadelica.

A few years later, we are back in Glasgow and the much-told tale of Oasis at King Tut’s. No need to go over that again but it was the narcotics on tap as well as the people at Creation HQ that helped Gallagher sign to the label. In the space of just a couple of years, Oasis were proclaimed the biggest band in the world.

Yet the peaks (Knebworth) and excess (McGee and Noel at 10 Downing Street) ultimately led to the fall of Creation. McGee’s drug habit saw him hospitalised in America. His passion was never the same and it led to a sell-out to Sony, something Dick Green, one of the founders of Creation, gives an emotional account of. At the end of the film, the video for Live Forever is played. We see a wreath being laid – the band that took Creation to new heights ultimately responsible for its demise.

The film as a whole, though, is an uplifting watch, full of refreshingly candid interviews from the likes of My Bloody Valentine, Ride, Teenage Fanclub and Seymour Stein. It provides a timely reminder of a time when the little guy could be king. However, those who rule can be dethroned, as Creation discovered, although much of it was self-inflicted. McGee looks back and calls himself deluded. But without delusional people like him, what sort of music scene can we look forward to?

Graeme Broadley

The Jesus And Mary Chain – Upside Down

Upside Down will be shown at the An Lanntair Arts Centre as part of the Celtic Media Festival in Stornoway on April 13.