Gigs – Page 10 – Ferocious Blog

Park life in Thorne..

It was a jam-packed weekend just gone – just the way I like it! It started with a morning soujourn to Thorne near Doncaster for A Midsummer’s Music in the Park, a reprise of last year’s event. I parked up Ludo outside Becky and Pete’s, got him set up for later in the evening – unfortunately Ella’s train was delayed which put a spanner in our finely honed plans so I grabbed our new camping settee and wandered parkward alone.

With the Meadevil Bar in place, inflatables for the kids, facepainting, and a couple of stalls (including the ever-popular magic stall) already in place I found a suitable spot to spend the afternoon, grabbed a cider. The sun was shining, there was good company – aside from rail based delays everything was going according to plan beautifully! I really do like the Memorial Park in Thorne as a place to sit and chill watching good music!

The first music was served up courtesy of Honeywitch – stripped down somewhat, with guitar, bass, cajon (I was watching this most carefully) and Claire on vocals. They started with acoustic guitar for more ethereal folksy numbers – Fly With Me kicked off the set, followed with a song whose title escaped me but was about a chap who’d until recently been on death row (having subsequently been exonerated) – with the awesome lyric “democracies die when democracies kill” – succinct and perfect.

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Freeborn Al / 8th August 2016 / Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Deer-stocking.. across the universe.. (part three)..

At some point over the course of Saturday Jamie the Pirate had arrived at Deerstock. AKA ‘It was Jamie’s fault’. Come Saturday morning, clutching his breakfast White Russian as we were sitting around whilst folk were munching breakfast (Ella and I were abstaining from breakfast for reasons that will become clear). Jamie sauntered over with the dreaded morning tequila. Luckily there were only a couple of shots each – although we did have lime and salt too!

We were up early as The Star Botherers were due on at 11:20 – during an ill-advised conversation the previous day concerning going to see them wearing what you sleep in – Ian foolishly revealed he slept eu naturelle. A dare ensued thanks to Lee, charitable pledges were made that were at the £150 mark before a step was taken – Ian was duly tasked with walking up to the arena in his birthday suit.

Cleverly mindful of the ‘what you sleep in’ context he was able to grab a couple of pillows – emblazoned with images of Blackballed – to cover his modesty as he made the walk. Being the kind person I am I live streamed it to Facebook, getting a worrying number of viewers. By the time he’d finished and we’d pinched Craig’s bucket he’d collected well over £100 from the crowd too – all for Wish Upon A Star, a charity Lee supported recently. His JustGiving page is over here if you fancy chucking a few quid in.

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Freeborn Al / 29th July 2016 / Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Deer-stocking.. across the universe.. (part two)..

Feeling surprisingly fresh we emerged from the van into an already pretty warm day – greetings made, breakfast acquired (again, from Nana’s Kitchen), we had an early appointment up at the arena.

Saturday was Pixiestock day – so it started for us in the kids tent, where Tina was telling the assembled young ‘uns a story about why foxes and badgers live in holes. Ella was up next, complete in tiger onesie, to read The Tiger That Came To Tea – with the temperature already soaring it was warm work! Kezzi followed with a fairy story before the assembled children were led to the glade by the Pixie King.

Lucky escape for me, Naomi had been plotting for me to dress as the pied piper at one point for the purpose of leading the procession to the stage! Once in the glade Spike read The Gruffalo complete with amusing accents – before we were treated to a frankly slightly sinister yet oddly compelling Mouse Circus puppet show. One of the fantastic things about Deerstock is the amount of thought that goes into keeping the young folk entertained.

There was a vote whether the wooden deer mascot called ‘No Eye’ should be burned or saved – I’ve no idea what the outcome was. I voted to burn him. Mwah ha ha!

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Freeborn Al / 29th July 2016 / Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Deer-stocking.. across the universe.. (part one)..

We arrived on site at Deerstock on Thursday afternoon for some early revelry – once we’d set up and settled amongst the other festival pioneers it was really just a splendid afternoon and evening for nattering, eating and drinking. The most exciting part of the day came though when Pete and Becky asked us to keep an eye on their lads for a while, they disappeared off to Nana’s Kitchen for dinner and came back engaged!

Pete had been plotting with Ella, and we’d agreed to watch the boys whilst he whisked the Evil Mead Lady off to a pre-planned steak dinner and proposed. As they returned to the gathered folk we sat and stared for a while, before Becky announced it was okay to hug her now – awesome news! They make such an ace couple. The other thing of note was that upon visiting the on-site portaloos, the inclusion of some air-fresheners made them the most fragrant ever!

The festival proper of course started on Friday though – over a breakfast cider we were treated to a jam from The Star Copiers (well, most of them, Kieron was absent and there’s an extra one now) at the campsite, Paul and Sarah had brought vodka infused watermelon as has become a bit of a Deerstock tradition whilst breakfast was a delicious bacon sandwich courtesy of Nana’s Kitchen (and of course washed down with aforementioned breakfast cider).

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Freeborn Al / 27th July 2016 / Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos

Pissed fool at Wistful (part two)..

Saturday started with a slightly thick head, which was soon put to rights by a hearty breakfast from Moo n’ Brews (whose awesome home made burgers I neglected to mention in Friday’s update). Coupled with a nice slug of breakfast mead from The MeadEvil bar and the world was looking a much better place, certainly was for Paige who appeared to have taken up residence at the bar for much of the day!

Meanwhile in the barn Ovacast got the day off to a very lively start – mainly blasting out very accomplished rock covers (clearly my note-taking wasn’t up to much, I only captured Wanted Dead or Alive – but it was very tight. Lisa H was their main spokesperson over the weekend so I discovered they’d actually been performing together for years, they were excellent – I think the energy of their set would’ve benefited from being on a little later in the day but still most enjoyable!

To follow was the inimitable Brian Stone, it was pretty warm in the barn – and I don’t doubt he was up ’til the wee small hours around a campfire somewhere on the site. It didn’t detract from the performance though – kicking off with Life Begins @ 50 and then into Barrow Downs. His rendering of Ward The Pirate was delivered complete with ‘the dance moves’ from Karen and Ella initially, before spreading further into the crowd.

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Freeborn Al / 19th July 2016 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

A pissed fool at Wistful (part one)..

There’s no greater frustration than working the day you’re heading to a festival – coupled with that, I was waiting for a delivery so even when I’d worked my way through my to do list for the day I was still waiting to set off to Wistful Festival. The Parcel Force man arrived, I hit the road and got to Hankin Farm by early evening on Thursday – the lovely folk that run the farm were on hand to arrange payment for the camping, and after a few attempts I found a good flattish bit of the field to get set up.

The van sorts itself out for the most part, I’d packed the teepee too for Becki and Emma who were arriving the next day and brought a gazebo as an experimental awning substitute. Soon enough I had everything where I wanted it, greeted the neighbours (Mary, Rachel, Spike, Beth, Christina, Julie, Mark and The Seabridges amongst others!) and headed down to the arena where a film screening was happening courtesy of a projector and a white screen on the side of Paul and Lisa’s caravan.

A fun way to pass the evening – although the temperature dropped ludicrously after dark – still, cider and mead flowed nicely and Paige and I fought for the attentions of Alfie and Pebble the dachsunds (furry hot water bottles!) before starting to wander back up the hill. A campfire drew me over where rum was flowing, and Brian and Jonny were entertaining us with guitars and songs – perfect wind down before the lure of bed finally took over. The first time I’d slept in Ludo on my own, which was a bit weird!

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Freeborn Al / 17th July 2016 / Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Royston-buried! It was Jamie’s fault..

One of Ella’s many talents is an ability to sleep in once the sun’s up – be it in a sweltering tent or a less-so van. Not so much me, I was awake, I made myself a tea and went for a wander – Jamie was up too, I made him a tea and eventually we all settled around Paul and Jayne’s van for a civilised sit down. I’d grabbed a breakfast from Nana’s Kitchen, Paul and Jayne were cooking theirs, and that’s when it all started to go a bit wrong…

“Fancy a Bloody Mary, Alan?” asked Jamie, casually. I was reluctant, but as I’d not indulged too much the night before there was no normal festival delicateness, I went for it. And breakfast descended into a bit of a shot-fest – there was vanilla vodka, Disaronno, Honey Rum, Tequila (complete with lime/lemon and salt purloined from Nana’s), Triple-sec and – well – safe to say we were all pretty drunk well before lunch time when the music started. Ah well! We did have a bubble machine and some ace tunes to accompany our excesses!

Doozer McDooze was up first, having broken the main stage – which hadn’t been used yet! – he switched to the acoustic stage to open up the day of music. He launched into Searching, a track on his new album (stay tuned for a review of that in due course) and into Dreams – given our alcoholic lubrication we were probably much more fun for an early performer than we normally are!

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Freeborn Al / 4th July 2016 / Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Roystonbury part one..

It was back in March I got a Facebook message from Janice out of the blue asking if we wanted to come to Roystonbury, as tickets were getting scarce. I must confess, I hadn’t heard of it prior to then, but after some not very hard convincing, a bargainous £20 ticket price including camping and a check on the calendar to see we hadn’t got anything else on it wasn’t a difficult decision to get the tickets bought!

The event started last year as a birthday party for Roy, which went so well it became a festival proper this year – raising money for Horatio’s Garden. They are an awesome charity who create and maintain fantastic outside spaces for NHS Spinal Injury centres – providing essential areas for folk who have months to spend in hospitals to spent time outdoors and closer to nature. An idea created by Horatio Chapple, who was tragically killed before seeing it become reality.

So on Friday after finishing up at work I headed off in Ludo for the short drive to Burbage, Leicestershire via the station to pick up Ella. A slight sat-nav mishap was corrected and we arrived on site to be parked up by Roy himself – an ace little site accessed through a farmyard, with a few chickens to dodge and other assorted livestock of a woolly variety. The arena was right next door, and a few familiar faces were already present. For us we just needed to break in the levelling blocks to get the van level then the bed set up. I don’t miss tents!

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Freeborn Al / 3rd July 2016 / Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Estival the best of all?

We always look forward to a trip to Thorne – it generally involves something awesome set up by Pete and Becky! Estival is in a similar ilk to last year’s Midsummer’s Afternoon in the Park – a fundraiser for Firefly Cancer Support and community engagement project to get the local folk of Thorne exposure to the arts as well as the aim of giving the local food bank a boost. We hotfooted it straight from Banbury, picking up some ice and water en route and dropping it off at the park to keep the wine and mead cool.

After the errand was run we popped the van round to where we were going to stay, and made our way back to the park armed with chairs, and having glanced at the weather prognosis a couple of umbrellas! With the weather in mind the MeadEvil bar was set up in one of the marquees with another set up with seating to protect folk from the elements – and the first performer, Davey Wilson, was already underway on the bandstand.

He was perfect for the time of day, the sun was still shining just about – and he flooded the park with acoustic cover versions often in medley form. Pete had said he hadn’t had time to tell him, a last minute substitute, that he doesn’t like his events to be full of cover versions (a pity, as Davey would’ve preferred playing his own stuff too!), however it worked really well for me – a myriad of songs like Valerie, Sweet Home Alabama, Let’s Get it On, Stuck in the Middle With You sounded nice to me!

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Freeborn Al / 27th June 2016 / Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Along the old straight track.. to Banbury!

I didn’t really have any definitive plans for Friday – Ella made the suggestion of going to see The Leylines in Banbury, which is a pretty good idea – and an opportunity to try a spot of stealth camping proper! Once work was finished I hit the road and arrived to find a handy parking spot, for the princely sum of 80p I was sorted until 7pm from which the parking was free until the next morning – all within a short stagger of the venue!

Once the bed was down in the back and sorted, I was able to catch up with Addie and Jane grabbing some food in the Wetherspoon’s round the corner (seeing most of the band getting settled in to The Swan on the way past) – by the time we’d finished in at the pub we went back round to the venue – Mark and Rob followed, then Maty and Pil and finally Simon and Ella. There was a slight lack of t-shirt communication with Ella and I both wearing a Sweetchunks Bees t-shirt – I had to nip back to the van to change out of mine!

Soon enough the rest of the band arrived – some deft van reversing from Dave gave them the chance to get unloaded at set up. The Swan is a nice little pub with a small area up front which disappears off in an L shape around the bar, with another room around the back. We’d assumed they’d be playing in the back room – but no, they were setting up – all five of ’em – in the front area for what would prove to be a very intimate setting. Suits me! It definitely wasn’t me that set off the smoke alarm with an electronic cigarette. I blame Mark!

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Freeborn Al / 26th June 2016 / Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments