Photos – Page 12 – Ferocious Blog

An electric atmosphere..

Rockstock and Barrel is fast becoming one of my favourite festivals – to take what is, frankly, a somewhat tired old social club attached to an abandoned power station and sprinkle it with imagination, art and music is a real testament to Debbo, Phily and their ever-expanding team of helpers. This year the them of the festival was Tim Burton films – the decor and fancy dress were the magic dust on top of a solid foundation of facilities and great acts.

I’d dumped Ludo on the site on Thursday night, but alas work commitments meant I couldn’t stay – arriving back on site on Friday afternoon – complete with some shopping for Tim and, perhaps most randomly, a watering can for Lynne and Ian (which looked alarming like some kind of thing you’d find in Ann Summers!). First order of business was to get the van sorted out – and then get my mits on the first of many Pineapple ciders.

As well as organising superb venues, decor and entertainment the stand out feature of Debbo and Phily’s events are their wonderous array of ciders and wines – and of course the Cheezy Vinyl Bar, which even had the option of pre-booking a baked camembert too. The main stage was in the social club, the cider bar hosted the second stage and a third was nestled in the attached Cheezy Vinyl Bar.

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Freeborn Al / 5th October 2016 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Lee Bonsall, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

All’s well at Whitwell..

We had a really busy weekend just gone – with events on Friday and Sunday we wouldn’t have missed for the world, combined with the possibility of me finally getting completed on a new house we thought Whitwell might’ve been a step too far. Luckily the house move was delayed by a week – some hasty arrangements involving somewhere for us to park Ludo meant that we could at least make the Saturday. And it was sure worth it!

The festival nestles in the Whitwell Community Centre – what I’m presuming is a former school building eerily reminiscent of my old Primary school (which has long since been torn down and replaced by an old folks home!) – with a stage and stalls outside, and a couple more inside functioning as the second stage and an open mic performance area. Stalls ranged from food, clothing and of course a bar.

Upon advice of people who’d been there on the Friday I was pointed towards the cider bar to sample the Mango cider – it had sold out the night before, hasty new provisions had been sourced – and I took heed and made sure I got a few pints in before it had gone. My gosh, what a delicious drink… keep an eye out for Lilley’s Mango Cider – it really is a thing of beauty (not quite up there with Rockstock Pineapple cider for my money, but bloody nice!).

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Freeborn Al / 14th September 2016 / Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

It’s all butter side up for Black Thorn..

Butter Side Up is a great name for this album. Your metaphorical dropped toast lands butter side up on a good day, and whacking this in your CD player is definitely a precursor to one of those!

If I could sum up playing it briefly (not my forté I realise!) then it would be that it feels optimistic, summery – it wonderfully encapsulates the kind of festival feeling in which you might invariably encounter Black Thorn strutting their stuff on a stage. I think it’s the accordion wielded by Josie more than anything that soaks these tracks with cheerfulness and light-heartedness, with Joel’s heartfelt vocal style, Jack’s bass rhythms and Adam’s guitar it all knits together into a well-honed collection of songs.

There’s some development from the live performances I’ve seen – double bass, brass, melodica and synths feature in here, as well as guest appearances giving more vocals, percussion, didgeridoo, harmonica and cornet, but it doesn’t detract one little bit from the kind of turns on stage I’ve seen the band put in a number of times over the summer. It’s ambitious, but it doesn’t over-reach by any stretch – add to your consideration that the whole thing was mixed and mastered by Joel himself – in a damp cellar in Derbyshire according to the album sleeve – and it becomes all the more impressive!

It opens up with Cabin Fever – one that felt immediately familiar with a few festival outings – starting with birdsong and guitar strums, a ‘woo!’ kicks the full track in (Black Thorn are a very woo-y band – and it fits them perfectly) – it changes rhythm and pace, I think the narrative is the anticipation of waiting for summer. Psychic Sally picks up a very different theme – on the dubious merits of the psychic industry, whether or not it’s inspired by a famous ‘psychic’ of that name was fervently denied on Facebook by Joel – it carries on nicely in tone from the first track but is gently scathing by the same token with an empassioned chorus.

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Freeborn Al / 8th September 2016 / Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Freaky fingers in Doncaster..

A welcome return to live music came courtesy of Darren Eastell and the Freaky Fingers EP launch in The Leopard, Doncaster this weekend just gone. Darren was a last minute replacement at Wistful Festival, and they made a great impression – certainly on Ella who treated us to the tickets! Gritty bluesy rock was my vague memory from Wistful, a bearded frontman in a truckers cap – what could possibly go wrong? We had the bonus of two support acts too – Laura Kelly and Framing Witches.

Becky and Pete were hosting the evening (and us, having fed us before driving into Donny!), and we met Herb at the venue too. It was certainly more packed than last time we ventured to The Leopard, soon enough we were amongst a very healthy crowd – including assorted members of Darren’s family. As well as entry to the gig the ticket also provided access to a free EP and a sticker too – stickers adorned most of the people in the room, often with a fair bit of encouragement from family members in attendance!

We sat and drank cider in the green room for a while whilst sound-checking was underway, before heading downstairs to the bar for general nattering and merriment. It was probably the freaky fingers element of the performance I was most excited about watching – as a fledgling cajon player listening to Liam’s soundcheck (which you’d think was a full drum kit if you weren’t able to see him) was at once inspiring and incredibly daunting!

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Freeborn Al / 5th September 2016 / Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Feather and Flame..

I was really remiss in picking up a copy of Feather and Flame – released back in Spring this year, Headsticks‘ second album. It was at Deerstock I finally got my mits on it, when Andrew handed it to me – then of course there’s been quite a bit of festivalling so whilst I’ve been listening to it and loving it, it’s taken me a bit of time to get around to getting all the event-based blog posts done (and of course make sure I’ve really got to know the recording well too!).

Headsticks are making real waves certainly in my musical circles – hard-hitting folk-roots with a healthy slug of punk chucked into the mix. As I’ve been listening to it Andrew’s vocals are the distinctive driving force, a real transformation from his quietly-spoken off-stage manner. At times there’s Johnny Rottenesque elements, other times he reminds me of Justin Sullivan – that’s not to say he’s by any stretch a soundalike for either, sometimes chanting, sometimes singing – unashamedly in his own accent, he sounds like – well, he sounds like Andrew from Headsticks!

The subject matter is universally fairly bleak – the album is evocative of a dystopian and disfunctional society, it rails against this, protest music – but delivered with chugging guitars, leaden bass and insistent drums with the occasional sting of harmonica. Topics might be bleak – but the music is irresistably danceable and the insistant and passionate vocals (you don’t quite get the effect of Andrew eye-balling you like at a live performance – but you can pretty easily bring it to mind with the album on!).

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Freeborn Al / 21st August 2016 / Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Wellington Roots..

Having wisely taken Tuesday off work to further acclimatise from field-life, perhaps heading up to Eastwood for an open mic night was a bit foolish with work in the morning. Especially as I’d still got two blog posts to write about Farmer Phil’s to go as well, but well, I can’t say that I regret taking the opportunity to eke out my time off work a little bit further and enjoy yet more quality music in the confines of The Wellington Inn up in Eastwood.

A quick blast up the M1 saw me arrive at the pub in pretty good time – resisting the lure of popping in to Ikea for meatballs or Dime bars (alright, Daim if you insist, strange Swedish furniture peddlers!). Sam Jones was the host, and he’d got Mark Jones (aka Sam’s Dad), Spud and Nick Parker to play sets before he took to the stage himself. It was just too tempting a proposition to pass up!

Settled in with a very rock and roll lime and soda, it was great to sit and have a natter with Nick whilst Chris of Roots Acoustic fame got his PA set up. They were waiting on Mark to finish up a guitar lesson to arrive and open up the set – in the meantime we were accosted by football themed scratchcards, I think somebody called Kev won – in the absence of a team I liked I went for Leicester since I live in Leicestershire!

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Freeborn Al / 17th August 2016 / Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos

Geddin’ on Farmer Phil’s land.. part three..

Sunday morning arrived with that feeling of simutaneous amazement at how quickly the time had gone whilst feeling like we’d been on that happy campsite for much longer than just under a week. We started the day cooking bacon (we had a lot of bacon to cook) and celebrating Sally’s birthday with.. well, bacon. And cake, too, as all birthdays should be celebrated.

I think we were supposed to dress up in olympic get-up on Saturday, as we hadn’t done that Tim, Dave, Andy and I donned our Cool Runnings inspired lycra suits perhaps a day late (there was at least one other Jamaican bob-sled team on site though, so maybe it didn’t matter!). It was universally decided that in the interests of decency that shorts or kilts should be worn over aforementioned suits. I’m not sure it was any more flattering!

We’d got Sunday dinner booked at Nana’s Kitchen for noon (didn’t stop a sneaky bacon cob though), which clashed with Headsticks opening up the music. The lovely Drew was happy to serve our food into takeaway boxes – and lucky for us a few technical wibbles meant that there was enough time for us to sit by the main stage and get our dinner eaten before the first act started on the stage. It turns out Headsticks is a great way to work off a Sunday roast!

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Freeborn Al / 17th August 2016 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Lee Bonsall, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Geddin’ on Farmer Phil’s land.. part two..

I’m dead when Ella sees this!

Saturday morning came and despite the strange cold-like thing I’d had the night before I felt fine aside from a bit snotty, which is a bonus! Speaking of Snotty, she had an appointment with an open-mic night where Morganella were scheduled to perform – so our first order of business was to head over a couple of fields where clan Parry were camped for an opportunity to rehearse a bit, grabbing a coffee en route.

By the time we’d finished and headed up to the arena it was lunchtime, nachos were my weapon of choice, we munched food whilst Emma and the Professor were getting started, it provided a most excellent soundtrack for a nice lunch – I only caught Kisses Sweeter Than Wine amongst the set before we decided to check out the shops. I had designs on a poncho – as The Mighty Boosh rightly states, it’s impossible to feel sad in a poncho!

Whilst shopping though I was drawn down the bank to the second stage where Guitar Cubed were playing Wish You Were Here by Pink Floyd – one of my favourite songs, and done justice here. They moved on to Hey Jude before I headed back off up the hill to find Ella mooching around the shops some more. It was a shame not to have had the chance to catch more of their set though, the little bit I caught sounded great (I managed to miss getting a photo too).

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Freeborn Al / 17th August 2016 / Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Geddin’ on Farmer Phil’s land.. part one..

How to go about summing up the best part of a week in a field in Shropshire at Farmer Phil’s? Herb did a great job in poetic form already – I doubt I’ll be as succinct! It was a windy field I arrived at on Tuesday evening, soon enough I’d got myself sorted nearly in the same spot as the year before, a fun night was spent eating fish curry (thanks Spike!), being cheated out of winning a rock, paper, scissors game, campfire singing and watching the stars.

Wednesday arrived and so did more people – Dave and Caroline got stuck in the mud, needing to be towed out by festival ‘Mr Fix It’ Craig, having spent our time in the campsite Tim, Jo and I opted to head up to the arena to case things out – and see Debbo and Phily in the Cheezy Vinyl Bar. Back in the campsite there was more fireside singing, more star gazing and lots of dogs to make friends with. Lurgan was a gorgeous young lurcher camped nearby – sadly Murphy didn’t get on with him!

Thursday started with bacon, a shopping trip with Tim and Jo to pick up supplies (for me that was a gas bottle and more bacon, ha!) whilst Caroline whipped up an awesome chilli. Ella arrived having been delivered by the lovely Parry clan – eventually finding me having been for a wander around the campsite. We took Kezzi up to the arena where she put on a dazzling performance in the kids open mic, before Emma and the Professor put on an early performance whilst we socialised.

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Freeborn Al / 16th August 2016 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Lee Bonsall, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Sunday.. that’s my fun day..

Departing in the morning from Thorne – fuelled by bacon and tea (thanks Becky and Pete!) we had a pretty packed agenda – all before getting Ella back down south for a reasonable hour given that we both had work in the morning. A top way of ekeing out a weekend! So we jumped into Ludo and hotfooted it to Shirebrook FC’s ground where a charity match for the Lee Bonsall Memorial Fund was taking place.

We bought some raffle tickets and watched the match, featuring Lee’s old team (including frequent sub appearances from Ken). It was good to catch up with everyone, and the match was pretty entertaining – the first live footy I’ve watched in ages! I think the score was 3-2 to Lee’s team when we left during the second half – Ken had had an eventful game, missing a penalty at the end of the first half, and scoring one in the second (sorry Ken, I was too slow with the camera for the second one!!)

There was an afternoon fun day planned at Fatboy Ink Tattoo Studio after the game – but unfortunately it was one of those days where too much was going on so we had to miss that. We hotfooted it to the Yew Tree Inn in Ednaston, both ready for lunch – and what a lunch it was, I went for a beef roast and Ella an awesome looking lamb shank, which we duly devoured whilst nattering with Jonny and Katie. The Yew Tree is a bloody lovely pub!

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