By Al Brown

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Midland Railway Centre, Saturday 30 July 2011

Indietracks is one of the nicer, but more musically unadventurous festivals around, populated almost entirely by twee indie-pop kids playing to other twee indie-pop kids. But everyone is well-behaved, there aren't any 17-year-old Slipknot fans setting fire to the toilets and Pendulum have never played there. So, overall, total win.

Saturday

First on the main stage - which backs onto the railway that gives the festival its name - are Just Handshakes (We're British), a Leeds-based pop-combo whose most obvious USP is their strangely childlike, reticent lead singer. There's something about the way her eyes lazily scan the sky and fixed, benign smile that suggest she is constantly involved in the most wonderful daydream. Her band of handsome indie dorks have a penchant for slightly tricky tempos and odd instrumental flourishes. For a while the loudness of the main stage seems set to obliterate their many charming subtleties, but 'Falling Over Our Fear' and a couple of other mid-set pop masterpieces restore faith.

Guatafan are a Spanish, all girl, two-piece twee-pop band and therefore about as quintessentially Indietracks as it gets. There's some pop nous on display but reliance on pre-programmed beats and one particular organ sound means all their songs sound almost the same. A song which may or may not be called 'Un Dia De Verano' is a standout, and the way the singer attempts English banter then collapses into giggles between songs is never less than charming. If you're not into petite, pale Spanish girls with bowl-cuts maybe it's not so charming? I don't know.

Butcher Boy seem like a more folky, serious Belle & Sebastian, or a less concise R.E.M. Again, a below-par sound mix threatens to ruin this seven-piece; but the lack of dynamic and general musical variation is a more serious problem.

Over in the atmospheric but sweltering wooden church, London's Dignan Porch are playing some really awesome, sincere rock music. These dudes bring the euphoria that the twee-pop bands love, but it's counter-weighted with danger and sex. There're elements of Pavement, Pixies and Sonic Youth, but Dignan Porch have their own sound - it's no Yuck-style pastiche - and you can see from the expressions on their faces they really mean it. When the Joe Walsh and Hayley Akins sing in unison it is just heart-pumpingly real and great.

Back to the main stage for the triumphant finale of Help Stamp Out Loneliness' set: as they play the closing refrain of 'Split Infinitives' ("Went down for the weekend/ it lasted forever/ had fun with my friends/ it's officially summer") a cheeky hot air balloon pilot buzzes the crowd, most of whom give him a wave. Earlier, I hear, the set had been thrown off course when an amp blew at the climax of crowd favourite 'Record Shop'. Technical problems continue when it turns out the main stage is now completely out of power, which doesn't stop The Hidden Cameras performing three songs unplugged to a necessarily quiet crowd - an unexpected festival highlight.

After staying up all the previous night, I'm flagging by this point. Shamefully, I leave Edwyn Collins' performance (moved from the kaput main stage to the train shed) halfway through, only to be regaled with many tales of his wonderfulness the next morning. Understandably, Edwyn is a hero to many, and his long struggle to continue playing after suffering a debilitating stroke is heartwarming. Personally, Orange Juice and Collins' solo work are the biggest and most embarrassing gaps in my musical knowledge and I'm sure I missed a special introduction.

Sunday

Zipper - one of the bands I got slightly obsessed with in the run-up to the festival - make the most excellent catchy indie-punk-pop you could wish for. 'Phone Song' and 'The Badge', with guitarist David singing the verses in his distinctive nasal, Spanish-accented twang, are particularly great. In general the interplay between lead singer Maria del Mar, with her clear, yearning vocals and David, often providing falsetto backing, is what makes this band so compelling, that and their absolute mastery of effortless pop choruses.

The Jeffrey Lewis Band are on great form in the train shed. Lewis is an excellent raconteur, perhaps in a small way a spokesperson for a generation of people with a need for friendly moral guidance and bad-acid trip empathy. His stripped-down band are tight and energetic, he performs '100%' by Sonic Youth, 'Don't Let the Record Label Take You Out to Lunch' and 'Roll Bus Roll' among others. David-Ivar Herman Düne joins in on lead guitar for a few numbers. It's the kind of sincere, enthusiastic, literate stuff that has earned Lewis a deserved cult following.

Crystal Stilts are a little incongruous at this festival. Singer Brad Hargett is one of the few compelling frontmen on show (because, generally, you need confidence to be a great frontman). He's got a Bob Dylan birdsnest of hair, but his general demeanour is more Lou Reed: a gently swaying sunglassed obelisk you can't quite turn away from. In the music itself there are elements of The Velvets, and hints of The Doors and Can, but perhaps these can be attributed to the use of Hammond organ and motorik drumming respectively. Lovers of reverb, they're the first band to actually benefit from the cavernous train shed, and single 'Shake the Shackles' in particular goes down storm with a tipsy, sunburnt crowd.

Herman Düne close the show with their comforting, drowsy melodicism. There's something a little bit easy-listening about the exaggerated snare-hits that punctuate every one of these indie-lullabies, but 'Tell Me Something I Don't Know' is lovely, and it's not the only one. For the first time ever I see their purpose; the situation in which Herman Düne make sense. It's here: I'm tired and dishevelled, slightly disgusted at myself and terrified of the future. Some of us indie-nerds are going to need Herman Dune to see us through the long, lonely summer nights when we're not at Indietracks.