GIJF Day Three - Polar Bear.

Seb Rochford’s Polar Bear had a lot to live up to after Shiver's performance!

The quintet, a study in cool, meandered onto stage stepping over miles of cables and plugged in. Wired to Leafcutter John’s multi lap-topped set-up, the tenor horns of Mark Lockheart and Pete Wareham bagged the majority of the solo statements, the hirsute (cool hillbilly style) bassist Tom Herbert impressed and his solos contributions received much applause. 

Drummer Rochford, positioned at the back of the stage under the first floor overhang of the cockpit theatre, spoke engagingly, although typical of the gentle soul that is Seb Rochford, he spoke ever so quietly. A percussive style all his own, ‘leftfield’ being the shorthand description (drum heads are welcome to offer their expertise by way of posting a comment), the Newcastle College alumnus knew what he was doing and drove the band from the traps. Leafcutter cut up and processed the quintet’s sound, horns and all, via two or three laptops, one of which in particular occupied LJ, spending time solving a LED rubic cube or so it seemed. Full-on is what you get from Polar Bear, the audience lapped it up, demanded an encore, got one then emerged blinking into the afternoon sunlight to hang around the bar to take time out and come down from an exhilarating high.

Russell.