Weekend of the LB
Jul. 31st, 2007 07:00 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
lonelybritEveryone's rather edgy at the moment, walking with nervous glances every two steps up at the sky. It's being sunny, you see, blue skies and birds singing etc. - it can't last...
Anyway, I get to write up my first ever festival experience! Well, technically second. The first being the Moseley folk festival of gum boots, marijuana smoke and Seth Lakeman. This weekend saw me and former Brum housemate heading off to Clapham Common for Ben & Jerry's Sundae on the Common. Not a big festival like say the V or Reading, only running from 12 - 8pm, but still technically a festival with music and - this was the main selling point - free B&J icecream all. day. long. YUM.
In the end we didn't eat that much icecream. After the third cone of chocolate therapy you do start to feel a bit icecreamed out. Tickets were only £8.50, proceeds going to charity and the organiser's proudly stating that this festival had no carbon footprint. Any stalls there were either selling food/drink or promoting climate change awareness/energy saving schemes/free-range chickens etc. Nice atmosphere with people dozing on their G&D rugs using their HP7 books as a pillow.
The day was mainly spent wandering around with icecream, visiting the Pimm's bus, and lounging on the grass under the sunny sky listening to snatches of music.
The Lea Shores - Their music was inoffensively rocky, though the lead singer earned our admiration by seriously rocking out (headbanging/air-guitaring/etc) with a pair of maracas. For about 10 minutes. Respect where it's due, it was impressive to watch.
Lucky Jim - again pleasantly dull and inoffensive. One man and his guitar singing bluesy jazz. If you like that genre I've no doubt you'll like him a lot, but it's not my cup of tea so whilst I can appreciate it as being musically sound, I got bored and wandered off for icecream.
Kate Nash - disappointing. Everyone perked up and gathered when she came on, obviously with her single out interest is growing. However whilst her songs are all very nice, after the third they do all sound the same. The audience shrank in size as we and others wandered off in search of Pimms. To be fair, she did also suffer a few technical glitches that delayed her songs and changed the order.
The Brakes - awful. We fled pretty quickly, as did a lot of others. We spent time in the pancake queue wondering how on earth these guys got so high up in the billing: there was no tuning at all, just noise. After hearing him speak, the suspicion was that the lead singer was utterly wasted on god knows what, and probably we just caught them on a very very bad day.
The Rumble Strips - good fun, they won back the audience's interest (most had stayed away after the Brakes). Apparently the style is ska - I just saw it as being slightly jolly, a little bluesy, a little country with quite a bit of reggae thrown in. By the time they did a cover of 'The Boys Are Back In Town' you could see people drifting back over to see what was going on. They enjoyed rocking out on the stage and we enjoyed watching them.
The Bees - The former housemate and father of the former housemate are big fans of the Bees and they were not disappointed by this day's playing. It started out with the band pulling up the RSPCA's six-foot chickens onto stage to be their dancers for some chicken-titled song. It set the mood for the rest of the set. The band shamelessly showed off just what good musicians they were, playing pretty much every instrument under the sun and nearly every band member taking his turn at being lead vocals. They got the audience waving their arms, throwing the giant inflatable banana up to the singer when he demanded it, and generally starting to perk up. Good times.
The Feeling - great, thoroughly deserved being top of the bill. I'd never heard of them before and didn't know any of their songs (as was the case with all the bands) but I utterly enjoyed every minute of this set. It didn't start well, they got on stage, started to sing, and promptly there was a power cut: lights, sounds, music, everything - dead. The response was to laugh and everyone played on the drumset since it was the only instrument audible. When the power returned (briefly), the lead singer split the audience into two halves, each half singing a harmonised 'Never be lonely...' We were the chorus, he told us, and if the power went again, we were to finish the song for them.
And the power did cut out, so we did finish the song, and the band bowed to us, aww.
The singer went on to apologise, saying he had a stinking hangover and was rather wasted so we were to bear with him if he fell off the stage. (He didn't, by the way, and if he hadn't told us I don't think anyone would have suspected anything amiss.)
Two other highlights - their cover of 'Radio Star'. Everyone was up on their feet, dancing and singing along - great fun. The second highlight was them wheeling out a glitterball-ed piano and the singer appearing in red tails, striking 'blue steel'esque poses.
Anyway, they seemed a decent bunch, all very nicely dressed and all with very decent voices. Bit like Take That meets Coldplay meets some other band who does soft rock.
On the strengths of all the performances, the former housemate decided she wouldn't be bothering with Kate Nash's album when it came out, we both agreed we might try The Feeling, and I agreed to keep my ears open for any songs by The Bees/The Rumble Strips.
All in all, very good weekend =)
Anyway, I get to write up my first ever festival experience! Well, technically second. The first being the Moseley folk festival of gum boots, marijuana smoke and Seth Lakeman. This weekend saw me and former Brum housemate heading off to Clapham Common for Ben & Jerry's Sundae on the Common. Not a big festival like say the V or Reading, only running from 12 - 8pm, but still technically a festival with music and - this was the main selling point - free B&J icecream all. day. long. YUM.
In the end we didn't eat that much icecream. After the third cone of chocolate therapy you do start to feel a bit icecreamed out. Tickets were only £8.50, proceeds going to charity and the organiser's proudly stating that this festival had no carbon footprint. Any stalls there were either selling food/drink or promoting climate change awareness/energy saving schemes/free-range chickens etc. Nice atmosphere with people dozing on their G&D rugs using their HP7 books as a pillow.
The day was mainly spent wandering around with icecream, visiting the Pimm's bus, and lounging on the grass under the sunny sky listening to snatches of music.
The Lea Shores - Their music was inoffensively rocky, though the lead singer earned our admiration by seriously rocking out (headbanging/air-guitaring/etc) with a pair of maracas. For about 10 minutes. Respect where it's due, it was impressive to watch.
Lucky Jim - again pleasantly dull and inoffensive. One man and his guitar singing bluesy jazz. If you like that genre I've no doubt you'll like him a lot, but it's not my cup of tea so whilst I can appreciate it as being musically sound, I got bored and wandered off for icecream.
Kate Nash - disappointing. Everyone perked up and gathered when she came on, obviously with her single out interest is growing. However whilst her songs are all very nice, after the third they do all sound the same. The audience shrank in size as we and others wandered off in search of Pimms. To be fair, she did also suffer a few technical glitches that delayed her songs and changed the order.
The Brakes - awful. We fled pretty quickly, as did a lot of others. We spent time in the pancake queue wondering how on earth these guys got so high up in the billing: there was no tuning at all, just noise. After hearing him speak, the suspicion was that the lead singer was utterly wasted on god knows what, and probably we just caught them on a very very bad day.
The Rumble Strips - good fun, they won back the audience's interest (most had stayed away after the Brakes). Apparently the style is ska - I just saw it as being slightly jolly, a little bluesy, a little country with quite a bit of reggae thrown in. By the time they did a cover of 'The Boys Are Back In Town' you could see people drifting back over to see what was going on. They enjoyed rocking out on the stage and we enjoyed watching them.
The Bees - The former housemate and father of the former housemate are big fans of the Bees and they were not disappointed by this day's playing. It started out with the band pulling up the RSPCA's six-foot chickens onto stage to be their dancers for some chicken-titled song. It set the mood for the rest of the set. The band shamelessly showed off just what good musicians they were, playing pretty much every instrument under the sun and nearly every band member taking his turn at being lead vocals. They got the audience waving their arms, throwing the giant inflatable banana up to the singer when he demanded it, and generally starting to perk up. Good times.
The Feeling - great, thoroughly deserved being top of the bill. I'd never heard of them before and didn't know any of their songs (as was the case with all the bands) but I utterly enjoyed every minute of this set. It didn't start well, they got on stage, started to sing, and promptly there was a power cut: lights, sounds, music, everything - dead. The response was to laugh and everyone played on the drumset since it was the only instrument audible. When the power returned (briefly), the lead singer split the audience into two halves, each half singing a harmonised 'Never be lonely...' We were the chorus, he told us, and if the power went again, we were to finish the song for them.
And the power did cut out, so we did finish the song, and the band bowed to us, aww.
The singer went on to apologise, saying he had a stinking hangover and was rather wasted so we were to bear with him if he fell off the stage. (He didn't, by the way, and if he hadn't told us I don't think anyone would have suspected anything amiss.)
Two other highlights - their cover of 'Radio Star'. Everyone was up on their feet, dancing and singing along - great fun. The second highlight was them wheeling out a glitterball-ed piano and the singer appearing in red tails, striking 'blue steel'esque poses.
Anyway, they seemed a decent bunch, all very nicely dressed and all with very decent voices. Bit like Take That meets Coldplay meets some other band who does soft rock.
On the strengths of all the performances, the former housemate decided she wouldn't be bothering with Kate Nash's album when it came out, we both agreed we might try The Feeling, and I agreed to keep my ears open for any songs by The Bees/The Rumble Strips.
All in all, very good weekend =)
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no subject
Date: 2007-07-31 08:01 pm (UTC)As for Kate Nash... she's just another Lily Allen. And I don't like either of them at all.
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Date: 2007-08-03 07:33 pm (UTC)Kate Nash... She did seem very sweet but needs a bit more experience of how to hold a field full of people.
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Date: 2007-08-01 10:09 am (UTC)I love both the Rumble Strips and The Bees muchly. Motorcyle! Chicken Payback! Awesomeness!
no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 07:35 pm (UTC)Chicken Payback! That was the song - it was great, the musicians rocking out while eight-foot fuzzy chickens danced on the side. It got a great response =)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-05 03:58 pm (UTC):)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-05 04:40 pm (UTC)Thank you!! Ah, you should have seen those chickens grooving, it was a moment of beauty =)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-01 01:58 pm (UTC)The audience shrank in size as we and others wandered off in search of Pimms.
That just makes me giggle. Heeeee.
I do like The Feeling, or more specifically that one song "Fill My Little World" so it's good to know they're a band that should be taken further :)
no subject
Date: 2007-08-03 07:46 pm (UTC)I had a listen to one of their songs and probably I wouldn't be so interested if I hadn't seen them live. On record they sound so clean and potentially pretentious, but live you can see they have a sly sense of humour and have no trouble not taking themselves to seriously. Plus, they really did do well to perform such a good set and keep the entire audience riveted when they had such technical difficulties throughout. I'll definitely be keeping my eye out for their album :)