Mr Mojo

What's in a name?

Let’s get something cleared up. The New stage used to be called the New Bands stage, but the same old questions pop up every year. “What’s so-and-so doing on the New Bands stage when they’ve been around for years?” being the most dominant, but it’s not a tent for new bands. It’s a bands tent and it just happens to be new, that’s all. Although it’s not exactly ‘new’ anymore, it’s still called the ‘new’ stage because the better names were taken already. We call it the ‘Newt Tent’ to differentiate and to be pretentious, but being labelled the ‘new’ tent appears to be a lucky charm that has seen the likes of David Gray, Doves, Coldplay and many others come back in successive years and conquer the Pyramid. This is the place to be for when you want to be one of the annoying few that were there ‘in the early days’, but what’s in a name anyway?

Well, names are just names and some are better than others. Not terribly well-named, Mr Mojo are led by a fat bald scouser with a sincere sense of gratitude which gives them a very restrained confidence perhaps being born from their occasional nervousness. Notwithstanding, they’re having a wonderfully easy time as the deluge of rain sends people trickling stagewards. With the leaking roof (hey, isn’t water dripping from the light supposed to be dangerous or something?) making it only marginally drier in here than outside, they’re a valid enough excuse for seeing what’s on offer while the bacon sarnies digest. Shrug off the damp, sit on your jacket, get out the smoking paraphernalia and take stock of what’s going on because there’s something making music that originates somewhere around Cast but has grown into something else entirely, with a far more serious and expressive personality.

Radio friendly, catchy, yet melancholically melodic, Mr Mojo are perfect for sheltering from the rain to. They don’t overstate, overemphasize or develop anything provocative, but they are certainly gloriously listenable and appear to revolve around their dynamic approach to a simple melody, twisting into whatever direction they want to take it. It’s music that makes you sway, is ultimately a little dull to watch but annoyingly clever, which belies their rather dubious moniker.

An altogether intriguing, albeit unobtrusive noise.

Paul Mills

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