Hudson Taylor
Main stage
****
There’s a stampede towards the main stage for Hudson Taylor, an example of unquestionably good grooming and entirely winsome ways. Their mood, like frontman Alfie’s enviable quiff, climbs ever upwards, their harmonies both honeyed and driving.
It helps that they know their way around a singalong and a handclap.
Brightly strummed acoustic guitars, delicate electric piano and vigorously agitated tambourines place the Dublin group’s music in the folk rock category.
But when even new song Feel it Again sounds as vigorously familiar as anything in their sunny repertoire – with the relentless positivity of a mobile phone advert – their sweet spot is to set soaring rhetoric to a pumping rhythm.
As though to prove a point, For The Last Time asks, around a screeching violin solo, "Hey how does it feel to get what you want?"
It feels pretty good.
