Potemkin.. definitely came to something!

A cold night in November, Sheelagh and I are off to The Cluny 2 for the album launch of The Union Choirs debut album, The Ghosts in the Room. Arriving late, sadly we missed the first performer, Trev Gibb but we were in time to catch most of the set from Nixé. This was her debut performance and it was quite a set, full of flowing sounds and Nixé has a rather good voice, will certainly be on the look out for more performances and sounds. You can catch the video for the single Rib Cage here.

Next up were Slow Decades, who seemed to be having great fun on stage, alternating with front man, Ben Lowes-Smith being very angry! They have an album out and it's available on Spotify, give it a listen.

The Union Choir have actually been around a good few years, my introduction to them came about when my eldest daughter decided to date bassist Peter Hall and they're now happily married!

A short wait and on came The Union Choir, all 9 of them, two of the brass section being tucked away to the side of the stage! Looking fresh and ready to go, they launched in to Wonderland. They sounded, at least to my ears, tight and well rehearsed. I'm not sure exactly how long it had been, but the band had been on quite an extended hiatus. In fact last time I had seen them live, they were playing with Tom Robinson during BBC Introducing back in 2012! The opener received a war reception and next up came Potemkin!, surely destined to elicit a bit audience participation. Mid set came two favourites, Eleanor and Dancer in Pearls.

On stage The Union Choir looked and played with a confidence that comes with being in a band of friends and pretty good musicians to boot. Jon Melvin taking centre stage proved to be quite a performer engaging with the audience and keeping the band moving along. In fact it all moved along way to quickly and after closer Lavender, it was all over. A few cries of 'More, More' but it was not to be and the cold North East air beckoned once more... taxi ride home! There's a video available for the first single from the album 'Wonderland'

Luckily more gigs are planned and it's worth checking local venues for dates. The two photo's have come from David Wala Photography check out his portfolio,

Tonight's gig was actually free to enter, so buying the album, available from Jon's mum,  was a no-brainer and at just £5.00 excellent value. All these bands need your support, so if you like and enjoy what they're doing head over to Facebook, give their pages a like and follow them or even better spend a few pounds and buy their albums and singles. After all if original songs and music is good enough for Simon Cowell...

Public Service Broadcasting

Well that was a gig and a half! Excellent live performance from Public Service Broadcasting @ The Boiler Shop in Newcastle. Meeting up with Lani and Pete at Newcastle Tap before the gig, we had a chance to sample an ale, although Sheelagh stuck to her guns and ordered wine - despite being a Guinness and Black drinker when she was younger I don't think she will ever develop a taste for craft beers! The ales were so good we decided to move on to Box Social. It's quite small, actually it's very small but again a good range of ales and a friendly atmosphere. By this time we had missed the support, but arrived a good 15 minutes before Public Service Broadcasting were due to start.

Bowie's Sound and Vision filled the Boiler Shop and on came Public Service Broadcasting, opening with Every Valley, title track from new album and followed by The Pit, I wondered if we were going to get a full performance of the album. But then came Theme From PSB and the "even sillier" The Now Generation from their full-length debut  Inform – Educate – Entertain both are good songs in their own right, to be fair, but in the sombre tones of the openers felt like awkwardly intrusive gatecrashers. In fact the new album, every Valley featured pretty heavily in the set list, it's a bit of a departure from their older stuff and can be a bit on the 'serious' side, but then again an album dealing with the rise and decline of the Mining Industry in South Wales is never going to be a toe-tapping singalong! Consequently it's the older songs that are the highlights, Spitfire from their debut album came early in the set and was superb, then it was back to Every Valley, which although good, and probably better in a live setting, doesn't have the energy of their 2 earlier albums.

The whole gig was good but was lifted to the epic status as we came to the closers - Go!, which had everyone calling out and much raised fists and then the encores Gagarin, from The Race for Space featuring synchronised dancing spacemen and finishing with Everest.

Lots of smiling faces as we headed out in to the unseasonable warm Newcastle night air.

A word about the Boiler Shop, it's been converted or refitted to be used as a music venue, it's very much a venue of two halves, one half being in front of the stage and the other off to the side with the supporting pillars of the venue dividing it. Whoever did the sound has done a great job. My one gripe would be that because the bars are at the back there's a constant stream of people moving back and forth. As usual we seemed to be standing on the direct route to the bar - I do miss the years when you couldn't do that and watching the band was why you had bought the tickets in the first place, but it's a small price to pay for another music venue in Newcastle.

Alcest and Anathema in Glasgow

Once more it's a trip to the North West for the first gig since Green Man and surprisingly the first proper gig of the year. A new venue as well - The Garage - to see Alcest and Anathema, both bands I've seen before. This would be the fourth time for Alcest and the second for Anathema. Another one of those early starts, Alcest would be on-stage at 6.45. We arrived early and decided to head down the front, the venue was about half full, maybe 300 people in. Alcest arrived and launched in to Kodama, it should have been a great start but the sound was awful... were we too close? maybe. Things never really improved and it was only during the quieter moments (Autre Temps) that the vocals were discernible - the drums and bass were overpowering pretty much everything, even the guitars sounded lost. Have to say it was something of a disappointment, enjoyable but not great. Such a poor sound didn't bode well for Anathema who rely on clear vocals and harmonies for their sound.

Rory and I wandered to the bar at the back of the venue for the obligatory pint of Joker IPA and a Red Stripe, drinks in hand we decided to head to the balcony for Anathema. After what seemed like a long wait they came on-stage and immediately ran in to problems as Vincent Cavanagh's (lead vocals and guitar) rig just packed in. Ahh the joys of a first night on tour! Much scurrying around the stage from their guitar tech eventually coming up with a 'fix'. Opening with San Francisco off new album The Optimist Untouchable Parts 1 & 2 - one of my favourite tracks by them, they'd sorted everything out and went on to play a great set - you can view the setlist here.

This clip of Anathema performing Thin Air is from this summers Download Festival.

 

So why did Anathema sort out the sound issues and Alcest not, I guess it's got to be down to your sound engineer. Perhaps a supporting band don't have the funds to take their own engineer on tour with them and they rely on the headliners or venues engineer. I'd suggest after this experience that a band should make finding a good sound engineer a top priority. There's no point in having a great set of songs if your audience can't hear them properly. I don't expect (or want) a replication of the studio sound but with the technology available poor sound at a gig isn't really acceptable. Alcest have been getting better and better with each album and gig, but this one I feel let them down. It won't stop me seeing them again though. Hopefully next time they'll headline and their sound engineer will know his stuff!

Green Man Festival 17th - 20th August 2017

I kind of want to dive straight in to the music and the Festival itself but it wouldn't tell the full story of a traumatic and yet wonderfully life-affirming 4 and a bit days. The tickets to Green Man Festival were part of Sheelagh's birthday gift from Lani and as such Peter Hall had been planning the event carefully, with a great deal of thought being given to where we should stop and the food available, estimating what time we would arrive and who to go see on Thursday evening. In fact he had arranged to meet up with a set of friends at Washington Services also travelling to Green Man.

Sadly on the A1 we were involved in an accident, luckily no-one was hurt although it might have been very different if Lani hadn't reminded Sheelagh to put her seat-belt on. Also Peter's car was a right off. Peter and Lani just were not going to be able to continue the journey. The police gave us a local taxi firms number and Sheelagh and I headed to Woodall Services to meet up with Jon Melvin, Glenn Coyne, Richard Milburn, Ben Lowes-Smith and Rebecca Evans, all friends of Peter's and Lani's. There were many phone calls back to Lani to check up on their situation, as we got closer to Green Man, they still hadn't been collected by the recovery vehicle and taken back to Newcastle, in fact they were left waiting for a good 3 and a half hours and we were only a few miles from the site when their journey back up to Newcastle began.

We all arrived on site early evening and began the 'pitching of the tents' if it wasn't for Glenn we would still be at it. Not only did he assemble his own tent but helped us assemble ours and single handedly put up Lani and Peters tent. Soon though all was good on site and we received a message from Lani that they were back and planning how to get to Green Man on Friday. Sheelagh and I took a walk around the Green Man site and settled on a bowl of chilli for the night.

FRIDAY

Friday turned out to be an odd day as the full impact of the crash and how lucky we had been began to sink in. Lani and Peter were having problems sorting a hire car to come down and after initially planning a early 7am start, didn't leave Newcastle till after 11 am, they would be arriving late! There was nothing we could do to speed up their arrival so Sheelagh and I headed in to the Festival site.

A bit about the location, the Green Man site is in a long green Welsh valley, with the River Usk snaking through it and the Black Mountains scooping steeply upwards into the mist behind the main Mountain Stage, it's the most beautifully positioned festival I've ever been to. Rollo Maughfling, Archdruid of Stonehenge and Britain, blessed the ground with a Druid ceremony at the beginning of the day in something of a downpour - a portent of the weather to come!.

First band of the weekend - W.H. Lung, interesting sound but largely forgotten even now. Next up and local to Newcastle, were Warm Digits a band I'd seen a few months earlier. To say they had come along way would be an understatement as they turned in a bright, polished and fun performance which would be a contender for performance of the Festival if it hadn't been for the band that followed them.

Next up were Kikagaku Moyo a Japanese band who I really wanted to see and WOW! were they good. A short 45 minute set and 5 songs but absolute perfection in sound and atmosphere, the first smile of the weekend crept across my face, looking across to my side, Sheelagh was applauding enthusiastically - this was definitely why we were here. if Kikagaku Moyo ever tour outside of London I'll definitely be there.


Couldn't quite shake off thoughts about Lani and Peter repeating the journey down, so we headed out from the music to call them and take in a few other parts of the Festival. It now looked like they wouldn't arrive till past 8pm. We decided to grab some lunch, Sheelagh elected for chilli again more for it's comfort factor than anything else. I went for a Vietnamese Bun Pho - pork balls in a spicy broth and it was lovely. Once we'd finished eating we headed off to the Babbling Tongues tent to catch a discussion titled 'The Plural of Vinyl is Vinyl" with Laura Barton, Richard King and Paul Noble. very entertaining it was to, although owning in excess of a dozen copies of variations of an album is too much, even for me - question of the day - How do you store and catalogue your vinyl? Deciding to take in one of the theatre pieces on offer we headed to the Omni Tent to see Publish or Perish, a somewhat apt piece as Rory had just completed his finals! It certainly raised a smile and provide some welcome relief from the worry we were both experiencing, but avoiding putting in to words as daughter Lani and son-in-law Peter continued their journey. Time was getting on, it was almost 8pm and they still had not arrived. We waited anxiously in the car park as like us the day before they got lost on their way to the site. Approaching 9pm they arrived, smiling but it was clear to mum and dad (thats us!) all was not great. Hugs and greetings followed and we took them to the tent. Luckily there would still be time to take in 3 bands.

The four of us headed to the Far Out tent to catch Angel Olsen and it was very good, she has a real good voice but I think we were all slightly muted. Headlining tonight on the Mountain Stage were Future Islands, a real feel good bounce was in store, at least so we hoped. Don't get me wrong Future Islands were good, but not great and I think all four of us needed a 'great' end to the night to make up for Thursday.

If I'm honest I found myself distracted and just a little bored by them, so we decided to head back to the Far Out stage to catch a bit of Kate Tempest, who we had caught during her sound check earlier that morning. Kate Tempest was full of energy and had a good sized audience but we only caught the end of her set so headed back to the tent. A few of the others were already there and everyone went to their tents. I think the shock of Thursday was beginning to not just sink in but cast a bit of a shadow over the Festival.

Saturday

Around 9 am everyone was up and general feeling was Future Islands didn't deliver that headliners set. it turned out only Sheelagh and I had seen Kikagaku Moyo who for us had delivered the performance of the day. Lani emerged from her tent smiling followed closely by Peter, who innocently asked if it was an appropriate time to crack open a can of Guinness! With much encouragement from Jon, Peter took his first swig and I think we all felt that we could and would put Thursday behind us. Everyone headed their separate ways to either get breakfast or in Lani and Peters case to get a view of the festival site. We all arranged to meet up in front of the Mountain Stage to see Pictish Trail, who were highly recommended by Peter and apparently had played at every Green Man festival. So Sheelagh and I opted for the Walled Garden and took in a hugely popular and positive talk from Brendan Cox, sensible words of hope for us all. Moving to the Mountain Stage, we decided, following Peter's advice, to start the day, musically with Pictish Trail, who were great fun live, a quick walk back to the Walled Garden to take in Warhaus followed by Aldus Harding, both pretty good in their different ways. After these two performance and a drink of cider Sheelagh and I decided on a wander around the site, taking in some of the visual arts installations and other entertainment. In fact we ended up in the Omni tent again, this time to see Gemma Arrowsmith perform Earthlings, funny and provoking, its well worth seeing and includes one of the darkest pieces of comedy I've seen in a long time! No doubt there's clips on YouTube, well worth checking out.

All through the weekend Sheelagh and I were exploring different parts of the site and came across art installations set in a small wooded area, all quite magical and impressive. Oddly dressed characters, simply wondering round the site. Einsteins Garden filled with strange ideas and curiosities. A whole area devoted to alternative therapies and hot tubs!

With time getting on, we decided now would be a good time to eat so we headed to the Mountain Stage to try some Tarteflette, filling but nothing to write home about. While we sat there Shirley Collins came on to the stage. There's much been written elsewhere about her return to performing and releasing music, so if you don't know about her you'll have to look elsewhere. For Sheelagh and I it just didn't work and although we sat through most of her set - there was just so much food to eat - it was distinctly unimpressive although the smallish crowd who were in front of the stage were clearly entertained. Grabbing a beer at the Courtyard Craft Beer Festival (yes not only was it a music festival but a beer one too!) we headed back in to the Mountain Stage to meet up with everyone, catching the end of Lambchop in the process. I wasn't really paying any attention to the stage as everyone had tales to tell of different performances they had seen through the day.

As we waited Sheelagh felt the need to get all creative, as is often the case it was me who suffered for her art!

It was dark by now and from the stage came the distinct sound of Michael Kiwanuka, opening with Cold Little Heart from his Love & Hate album - the second WOW moment, this was good, no it was better than that, this was amazing. Turned to my side to see Jon Melvin grinning as insanely as me - how had I not heard this guy before, he played an excellent set although opener Cold Little Heart was simply stunning. Michael Kiwanuka would be the first artist added to the 'get an album' by this artist list. Smiling and getting details as to which album to buy - Love & Hate topped the list.

We all stood waiting for Ryan Adams, the crowd began to thin, definitely less here than the previous evening.

On came Ryan Adams opening with Do You Still Love Me? from new album Prisoner this turned out to be a classic festival performance, full of great tunes, lots of guitar and just great fun. So much fun in fact that there was almost a 'Spinal Tap' moment as the stage was engulfed in so much dry ice, the band disappeared, then out of the smoke came a dark figure, eyes burning red, horns upon his head and banging a tambourine! I really, really enjoyed it despite not originally expecting to. Artist No2 was added to the 'get an album' list - Gold being the recommendation from Peter. Here's the setlist.

We all made our way out from the Mountain Stage and crossed by the Rough Trade tent, Sheelagh and I had watched a couple of low key in-store performances there. Along came 'Chad' greeting Peter like some long lost brother, we all stood perplexed none of us, Peter included, had seen this guy before and then from the tent came the strains of Lifted by The Lighthouse family, the sight of Peter, Lani and the others dancing to this finally and completely dispelled Thursdays accident. Everyone was going to be just fine.

Sunday

So the final day came round way to quickly and as everyone crawled out their tents sporting various degrees of hangover I knew it was going to be a good day, unfortunately the weather had other plans!

Starting early Sheelagh and I headed to the Far Out stage to catch Circulus - Power to the Pixies time - you had to be there! Arriving soon on stage were Wolf People, another of the band I was looking forward to seeing and they didn't disappoint turning in a powerful, loud blast of proper rock. Smiles all round once more. Heading for eats, not that I can remember what I had this time round, but it was almost certainly very tasty as the food on the Festival site was top notch. Back up to the Far Out to take in Richard Dawson, we got there early so managed to catch Sunflower Bean who were really really good - Front duo, striking blonde vocalist Julia Cumming and Nick Kivlen were great to watch and they filled the tent with a pretty powerful sound, apparently they were on the NME one's to watch list in 2016 and they are third on my 'get an album' list!

There was much recommending of Richard Dawson from everyone we had travelled with so it was with some anticipation that we waited for his arrival. I'd not knowingly heard him before so this would be new to me. On Richard Dawson came to enthusiastic cheers and applause. One song in and I thought, I'm missing something here, two songs in and although lyrically he was very clever it just wasn't falling in to place for me, by the third song I realised I just didn't like his voice. Sheelagh to was shaking her head, so we headed off to a alternative stage to see someone else, who turned out to be Fruit Bats. Another band new to me, although they won't be making the list! Round about now the temperature started to drop and the sky was looking particularly ominous so we decided to head to the tent -  tiredness might have influenced the decision! No sooner had we got there than the skies opened, not just heavy rain, a biblical, apocalyptical, end of the world downpour that felt like it would never stop. Slowly the rain eased and we ventured back to the main stage.

Next up would be The Shins, another band I've never really followed or listened to very much but they were a perfect piece of pop perfection, bouncy, happy songs dispelling the gloom cast by the weather, also one of the bigger crowds for the Mountain stage, they to have been added to the 'get an album' list.

The festival was going to be closed by PJ Harvey. She has kinda dropped off my musical radar a bit and I wasn't really sure what to expect. It turned out to be a stunning, dramatic
headliner set, based principally around her most recent two albums  Let England Shake and The Hope Six Demolition Project, she and her mean-looking band of nine dark-suited dudes cut a sharp visual feast as they let rip with bone-rattling guitars and low-down dirty sax.

You can view the set list here, so many highlights to it. But as Down by the Water echoed across the stage. Lani turned to me and we both let out a silent WOW. PJ Harvey proving to be an excellent choice as Festival closer and for me this was the highlight performance of the weekend, followed by Kikagaku Moyo. As the last strains of River Anacostia faded out a group of 12 black-cloaked and gold-glittered torchbearers lead a parade to the ritual burning of the giant Green Man sculpture.

It was quite a sight as the Green Man and encircling dragon were wrapped in flames reaching high up in to the night sky. The closing pyrotechnic fantasia, as flames spat from a dragon’s mouth and fireworks arced gracefully into the unpredictable Welsh skies was a suitably uplifting end to what turned out to be 3 days of excellent music, food and camaraderie.

Spending time at Green Man, despite the traumatic start was just wonderful. It's a friendly easy going place with loads to do and you don't need to walk miles to do it. Whether it's spoken word or dancing to the small hours, craft beers and ciders, from festival headliners to bands breaking through, from vintage fashions to artisan crafts it's all well organised and safe. Oh and the food was just excellent, whether you're a committed Vegan or meat eater, there was a huge number of vendors to choose from and all reasonably priced.

It may have taken me 15 years to revisit a festival but it certainly won't be another 15 before the next one, in fact Sheelagh and I have already trawled through smaller festivals happening in 2018, I'd be sorely tempted to come back to Green Man, but maybe Kendall Calling will win out.

Mouth of the Tyne Festival 6th July 2017

A pleasant surprise for a Friday night as unfortunately my daughter  Lani Hall was so full of cold she couldn't make use of her ticket for Laura Marling at The Mouth of the Tyne Festival. I'm not really aware of any of Laura's albums but you can never miss an opportunity for a live performance. So meeting up with Peter Hall we headed in to a less than full Tynemouth Priory. Definitely the most middle class audience I've been part of... think picnic hampers, prosecco and seats!

Three bands on the line-up, already on stage was Karen Elson apparently born in this country but now working out of Nashville, a pleasant enough voice but the country leanings didn't do it for me. Next up - King Creosote - who would have known the leader, one Kenny Anderson has some 40 plus releases to his name. With a distinctive gravelly voice this was an enjoyable performance although none of the songs played have stayed with me.

Having sampled some of the food on-site... if only I could remember what it was, we made our way forward for the Laura Marling set. Although I'd only briefly listened to a few tracks from current album Semper Femina there was a real buzz of anticipation as she came on stage. Her performance was pretty restrained but the quality of her song writing really shone through and even though I didn't particularly recognise any of the tracks she performed, it was a pretty good gig and drew appreciative applause from the crowd. All in all an enjoyable Friday evening Laura Marling has a lovely voice I could hear shades of Bonnie Raitt and even a bit Sheryl Crow. Will have to do a search on Spotify for some tunes!

Record Store Day April 22nd 2017

Before going on to the Record Store Day Haul I must mention a very intimate gig from the 3rd December 2016. As a thank you to their North East Followers Lanterns on the Lake were to play a special gig at The Mining Institute in Newcastle - it's a place very special to me as it was the venue for my daughters wedding. Following on from their excellent gig at the Sage earlier in the year this was a lovely special event and would have been a great ending to the year had it not been for the sad death of my Mother in Law just a few days later. In fact I've not been to another gig since then, so it's time to move on and put that right!

On to Record Store Day 2017, now in it's tenth year and this time round I actually got the list and made my selections well in advance, giving in to temptation just once for a last minute addition! Arriving outside Reflex at just after 8 am I was surprised to see a queue that had snaked around the corner and ended half way along Grainger Street. Oh dear, this is going to be a long wait, but I wasn't prepared for the 2 hour 45 minute wait it turned out to be!

At this point I'm somewhere back round the corner and a couple of hours away from getting to the front!

Luckily the monotony of queueing up was happily broken up by engaging in conversation with my fellow, patient queuers and an unexpected request to do a brief interview with our local news network ITV - must have been a quiet day news-wise as the short clip was actually aired!

So what did I buy, well top of my list was the 1966 recording from Pink Floyd of Interstellar Overdrive, packaged with poster and postcard, next was a double album of some Psychedelic rarities from the late sixties, add in some singles from T. Rex, ELP and Hawkwind and there you have my shopping list. The spur of the moment purchase was David Bowie No Plan, the final recordings on clear vinyl.

Lots of releases to look forward to for 2017 including Roger Waters album out on 2nd June and a new Steven Wilson album later in the year. I'll no doubt be discovering some new music along the way as I'm off to the Green Man Festival, my first festival for about 15 years, in August of this year. Roll on Summer.