Designer1 Posted September 3, 2014 VT Supporter Share Posted September 3, 2014 Cleft (although apparently Cleft closed their set with covers of RATM's Bulls On Parade and Killing In The Name Of, which must have been bloody ace, bit gutted to have missed that). My mate has been banging on about how good Cleft were, i'll have to check out some of their stuff. He was also blown away by Alpha Male Tea Party so that's another for my list. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Designer1 Posted September 3, 2014 VT Supporter Share Posted September 3, 2014 (edited) This year has been so barren for me in the gig attendance stakes. Only been to a couple but i'm now booked up for The Wedding Present (next Friday) and HMHB (again) in October. Might be popping to 'that London' to see Bonobo (with Darkstar as support) too, but that's up in the air at the moment. I am excite. Edited September 3, 2014 by Designer1 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dAVe80 Posted September 3, 2014 Share Posted September 3, 2014 Still recovering from ArcTanGent last week. It was absolutely feckin' brilliant. Got there quite early on Thursday with plenty of time to get set up in the tent and have a good mill about until the first act was on. Just the one stage on the Thursday, but the line-up was ridiculous and we only skipped one act to get some grub. Highlights for the day were The Physics House Band playing a heap of new material, Three Trapped Tigers closing their set with 11 followed by Reset (the combination of which meant I'd already done my neck in after day one) and Nordic Giants who struggled through 15 minutes of setup issues to put on the second best performance of the whole festival for me (certainly the best spectacle with the creepy raven costumes and ethereal audio-visual set up). Highly recommend catching them live to anyone. Ever so slightly disappointed with And So I Watch You From Afar, though they were entertaining and the crowd was well into it, I would have liked to have heard some of the earlier, heavier stuff. They seemed to stick exclusively to the more upbeat noodling of All Hail Bright Futures, which I do like but it does tend to get a bit samey after a while, something like These Riots would have just broken it up a bit but then I don't know if the line-up change since the last time we saw them live means they're phasing out the older numbers. Still, like I say the crowd were buzzing which always makes for an enjoyable experience. By Friday we'd realised the double decker bus/book-mobile was the best place to chill out between acts and - crucially - get the cheapest tea and coffee. Plus they had a scrabble board, guitar and a ukelele (the missus and I sat down for 5 minutes and worked out how to play Dueling Banjos, then followed that with a rendition of My Lovely Horse). Our plan of attack for the day meant a rather nice juxtaposition flitting between mathy bands like Alpha Male Tea Party and 100 Onces and the folky post-rock acts like Monster Build Mean Robots and Human Pyramids (the latter of which felt more like watching a school choir and lead to a wonderful call and response chant from the audience during Relapse). Sadly, Friday also saw the worst clashes. In the end we went for Tellison's more straight-up indie rock over Enemies (I figured there's probably only so much math-rock the missus can take, plus we still had a day to go) and they didn't disappoint, then we opted for Tera Melos over Cleft (although apparently Cleft closed their set with covers of RATM's Bulls On Parade and Killing In The Name Of, which must have been bloody ace, bit gutted to have missed that). Weather took a turn for the worse and the mud started to set in, but we soldiered on to the band I was practically wetting my pants looking forward to; El Ten Eleven. By gawd they did not disappoint. Some of the sounds Kristian Dunn gets out of his double neck guitar/bass combo are face-meltingly good, when the drummer started hammering out bass licks with his drumsticks simultaneously on the same guitar it was just a feckin' sight to behold. They even got a sing-along (or what amounts to one for an instrumental band) for My Only Swerving. Just amazing, worth the price of admission alone. On to Russian Circles for the headline act, but three songs in the rain became somewhat apocalyptic so we wimped out and beat a hasty retreat to enjoy the rest of their set from the safety of the tent. Saturday was a more sedate (and much drier) affair as there were less acts on that we were keen on seeing so we took the time to take in the rest of the festival (by which I mean hit every food stand going; ice cream, burritos, pizza, pad thai, some tasty stuff on offer). Managed to somewhat control my spending on tees at the merch tent (for a change), I think our bank account had suffered enough by that point. Walking around chatting to random people was definitely a highlight too, so many like-minded folk happy to shoot the shit about music or anything, there was definitely a sense of community about the whole thing. As for bands, No Spill Blood were immense despite playing to a fairly sparse and static tent (think most folk had shot off to see Alarmist instead) and being afforded a second chance to see Mutiny On The Bounty was great. Gunning For Tamar won the everything-that-can-go-wrong-will-go-wrong award, having broken a guitar and put their foot through the kick drum after two songs. They struggled on with some acoustic numbers but we used the opportunity to get a good spot at the main stage for Tall Ships who were very well received. We then had a mad dash to catch the start of &U&I who tore the roof with a set that included a Blakfish tribute and a fantastic cover of Kiss From A Rose. Then back to main stage for God Is An Astronaut, whom we saw about 5 years ago and, oddly enough at the time they bored the arse off of us. None of that this time around though, when they dropped Calistoga I nearly gave myself a hernia launching myself up the railing. Japanese bands LITE and Mono saw out the rest of the festival, rather than crowd in for Mono we sat on a bench on the top of the hill overlooking the stage and just took in the moonlight to the sounds of Hymn To The Immortal Wind etc. Special feckin' moment. Did the Silent Disco until about 3am when we couldn't dance and sing anymore, all of which was brilliant but especially taking off your headpones to listen a couple hundred people drunkenly belting out a mix of Spice Girls, Wheatus, Eiffel 65, Game Of Thrones theme tune, At The Drive-In, Rage Against The Machine, Jurassic Park theme, Darude, Zombie Nation and a whole mess of random stuff. We joined in with some random group singing songs from The Muppets' Christmas Carol. Feckin' magic. Probably can't afford to do it again next year, but I'm damn sure saving up those pennies for 2016. Man, I don't know what the **** you just said, little kid, but you special, man. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
GarethRDR Posted September 3, 2014 Share Posted September 3, 2014 (edited) He was also blown away by Alpha Male Tea Party so that's another for my list. They were very, very good. It also helped that, being the first act of that day, they threw a load of Kellogg's variety packs into the crowd. I narrowly missed out on some Coco Pops. Edited September 3, 2014 by GarethRDR 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dAVe80 Posted September 3, 2014 Share Posted September 3, 2014 Live recording / bootleg of the support band, from the Acid Mothers Temple gig I went to the other week. Leeds / Bradford underground super group, Nope. Big Krautrock influences. Worth a listen, if you like that kind of thing. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
chrisp65 Posted September 3, 2014 Author Share Posted September 3, 2014 Swn Festival coming up 18th October. This year will be the first year I've been home for this so I'm going to love it. Already looking forward to: Candelas / Cian Ciaran / Golden Fable / Telegram and a whole host I've never heard of http://swnfest.com/lineup/ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Xann Posted September 4, 2014 Share Posted September 4, 2014 Pentagram were about the nearest thing to Black Sabbath the US produced. Age has made front man Bobby Liebling even more creepy. The support, The Admiral Sir Cloudesley Shovel, are pretty much a modern version of Sir Lord Baltimore, another Hard Rock/Proto Metal band from the day. Anyone who didn't get to the Uncle Acid and the Deadbeats supported by Cloudesley, which sold out waaay before the gig, could do worse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dAVe80 Posted September 29, 2014 Share Posted September 29, 2014 (edited) Off to see Goat in Newcastle tonight, and will be rammed full of pain killers, for my back and cold medicine. Hoping for a Psychedelic light show, so I trip balls. Should be fun. Edited September 29, 2014 by dAVe80 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dAVe80 Posted September 30, 2014 Share Posted September 30, 2014 Think I just did a little bit of wee. Nick Cave is playing a solo show at The Sage next April. All over that! 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
hogso Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Holy jesus Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Think I just did a little bit of wee. Nick Cave is playing a solo show at The Sage next April. All over that! Oh yes yes oh yay, I will be making the trip to The Sage for this one, just spoke to one of my mates and he is on board as well. Love The Sage and love Nick Cave so they will be awesome 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dAVe80 Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Think I just did a little bit of wee. Nick Cave is playing a solo show at The Sage next April. All over that! Oh yes yes oh yay, I will be making the trip to The Sage for this one, just spoke to one of my mates and he is on board as well. Love The Sage and love Nick Cave so they will be awesome Bit pricey mind. Top tier on the sides £35 to £65 down stairs. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Ah I couldn't find any prices for it, that was the one thing it was dependant on, I'll have to take a look and reassess the situation, I can't afford to spend too much on it lol Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dAVe80 Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Ah I couldn't find any prices for it, that was the one thing it was dependant on, I'll have to take a look and reassess the situation, I can't afford to spend too much on it lol I wasn't expecting it to be cheap, but £65 is a tad excessive. I'll probably still go though. He's playing Nottingham too I think, which might mean you having to shell out less for travel etc. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Designer1 Posted October 1, 2014 VT Supporter Share Posted October 1, 2014 Ah I couldn't find any prices for it, that was the one thing it was dependant on, I'll have to take a look and reassess the situation, I can't afford to spend too much on it lol I wasn't expecting it to be cheap, but £65 is a tad excessive. I'll probably still go though. He's playing Nottingham too I think, which might mean you having to shell out less for travel etc. Think i'll be doing the Nottingham gig. 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dAVe80 Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 The Sage is only 45 mins up the road from me. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Ah I couldn't find any prices for it, that was the one thing it was dependant on, I'll have to take a look and reassess the situation, I can't afford to spend too much on it lol I wasn't expecting it to be cheap, but £65 is a tad excessive. I'll probably still go though. He's playing Nottingham too I think, which might mean you having to shell out less for travel etc. Me and my mate provisionally said £40-£50 and we would definitely do it, I enjoy staying over and making a bit of a weekend of it in Newcastle though that's why we are going to do that, plus the sound quality of The Sage can't be beaten 1 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dAVe80 Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 Yeah, I love The Sage. Hall 2 is possibly my favourite place to watch gigs in the world. Coincidently I saw Dirty Three there (featuring Warren Ellis, who will be playing with Cave), and the sound was up there with the best I've ever experienced. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted October 1, 2014 Share Posted October 1, 2014 I've done the ringing round and there are currently 5 of us going Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
leemond2008 Posted October 3, 2014 Share Posted October 3, 2014 got my tickets (5 of them) another 3 of my mates were going to try and get them but I have got a feeling that it will sell out before they manage to get hold of any 2 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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