Videos – Page 5 – Ferocious Blog

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

Ten years of Doonimania!

Murphy!

Who would’ve thought a novelty band themed on reuniting the disparate offspring of Val Doonican would have the legs to last ten years? Well that’s what they’ve done – buoyed by a huge attendance in the Woodland at Bearded Theory, and now a sell-out anniversary show on their home turf – perhaps it’s fair to say they’ve ascended from novelty support act to a destination band. I think it definitely is.

We’d arranged to take Ludo to park at Sam and Matt’s – Ella got the train to be collected by Sam and once work was finished I drove up to meet them, arriving first thanks to some train delays. Once the van was parked up I had a lovely cup of tea, being the rock and roll person I am – but soon enough once Ella, Sam, Dave, Caroline and Murphy had arrived the lure of cider was too much – then we drove in to Barnsley for the party!

Once the many many many greetings had taken place we headed in to the venue in time for Pocketful o’Nowt – I don’t even know how to begin doing them justice in words! Mike, the frontman, greeted the audience flaunting his iPad, loaded up with a music app for him to accompany guitar, bass and drums – often whilst dangling from the light fittings, climbing over the barriers to join the crowd and generally cavorting.

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Freeborn Al / 21st June 2016 / Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Brad-bothering on Sunday..

I’d deliberately planned a quiet weekend for the one just gone, and it was very welcome – a chance to relax, watch the England match with my Dad and generally not be dashing about all over the place was great. But come Sunday with the working week looming I had a craving, and spotting Brad Dear was playing at the Workman’s in Warsop for Star Bothering on Sunday I fired off a WhatsApp message to Andy to see if he fancied a sedate road trip oop North.

He was! So we were off – Brad was due to play as well as of course a bit of Star Botherers and a couple more acts… or so we thought. A young lass due to play did arrive, but hadn’t realised the start time would be a bit later and had another open mic night to play, a pity – Bart too wasn’t around so no Star Botherers – and I’m not sure what happened to the third act – Warren Ireland – but well, it all worked out pretty well for us all told.

Brad arrived – and with a fairly small crowd of friends to watch we basically had a lovely ‘evening with Brad’ – he kicked off the evening, unusually opting to sit down with his guitar (I think he wanted the novelty of moving a mic-stand downward. A quick initial set took in the likes of Far Away, Festival Bar Blues (see first video) and Maid of the River (unprompted – and my favourite Levellers song too!). With just a few locals, Dave and myself and Andy initially it was a very up-close and personal session!

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Freeborn Al / 13th June 2016 / Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Disarm you with a smile..

Late on Saturday Ella and Morgan had sneakily secured themselves an open mic slot on the hidden stage. As Sunday morning came I was up and ready way before the performer – luckily for me I scored some bacon and and egg from Herb to cook up for breakfast to stick on a sandwich, thanks Herb! We alternated kettle boiling whilst the rest of the camp got themselves mustered.

I sneakily told as many people as I could about the imminent performance – given the relative earliness of the hour – Mick had come round to say goodbye, but was eager to stay to watch, and we managed to round up a few more folk to get a bit of a crowd ready to head on down to the hidden stage where last minute rehearsals / discussions were taking place, whilst the stage crew got everything plugged in and soundchecked.

Morgan – as noted yesterday – had been writing down guitar chords during The Leylines set, then wasted no time in teaching himself Run For Cover overnight, which was the song they opened up with. As Ella spent time in the recording studio with The Leylines and did backing vocals for that particuar song – it was one she didn’t need any lyrical help with at all! It sounded lovely, to my admittedly biased ears.

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

Dreams can come true..

I’ll have more to say ahead of closer matters of Ferocious Dog’s gig in Derby at the weekend, but for now – how excited is everyone in the FD world?

Freeborn Al / 20th April 2016 / Band, Hell Hounds, Music, Videos / 0 Comments

Put the wine glass down..

One of the charming traditions that has arisen amongst Hell Hounds is to mark the anniversary of Lee Bonsall’s tragic passing by all raising a glass in his memory. As I’ve spent the evening watching the notifications pour in (literally!) from the Ferocious Dog group on Facebook with folk posting photos of them doing just that I found it quite moving.

So it seemed to me that the best thing to do was to gather as many of them together as I could (I’m sorry if I missed anyone) and set them to Lee’s Tune from the first Ferocious Dog album. Here’s the result. Beautiful people.

Together we are strong.

Freeborn Al / 3rd March 2016 / Band, Hell Hounds, Lee Bonsall, Music, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Life begins at fifty..

These birthday party/gig combos are starting to become a thing – I love it! This time round it was for Dave’s 50th – Caroline had been busy organising all manner of exciting things. Dave knew he was having a party, but he didn’t know who was playing. For us the day started with gathering a few bits and pieces – Ella was frantically finishing off some paper cuts which were gifts for Dave and Caroline (who shares his birthday), I grabbed some food from the shops.

Caroline picked us up to go to the pre-party at their house – which meant we got to spend some time with Murphy the awesome festival hound, and have a few drinks with the gathered folk who were either staying with them or outside in camper vans – their street had become a mini festival by the looks of it! Then it was a short taxi ride to the venue, Brennan’s in Long Eaton, where we were ushered into the function room which was stocked to the gunnels with food and people already.

Dave meanwhile was in the second taxi run – which gave us the opportunity to catch up with folk already arrived – and prepare to film Dave’s reaction when he walked in to see the magnificent Bar-Steward Sons of Val Doonican banner on display over the stage (not to mention the band themselves). Ken had called me to ask where the venue was – when he was parked next door – and it didn’t take long to get the party underway. The venue had a novel power system that cut out if a certain noise level was reached – with a gauge over the bar. Luckily the sound system was plugged into the kitchen which bypassed this!

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Freeborn Al / 28th February 2016 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

A bit of bothering before Dogfest..

Of course everyone was rightly excited for Dogfest the weekend just gone, but there was the small matter of a bit of ‘bothering’ for the night before. The bargainous sum of £5 gained entry to the main hall in the Black Market venue for a nice little warm up. I arrived in where we were staying in Edwinstowe and met up with Ella and Simon who were awaiting a bit of food, giving me time to get checked in and finish up my working week with a couple of conference calls (oh such fun!)

Once that was over and we were suitably fed and relaxed we hopped into the car for the short drive to Warsop – keen to arrive in time for the first act, easily making it in time for a marathon round of hellos before heading through to the main room. First a word for Black Market Brewery‘s offerings – well recommended for ale lovers, after a warning from Dave (which I suspect for many would be an advert!) I steered clear of Insane but did enjoy a few pints of Illicit and Imposter, quickly putting paid to my plan of not going to mad with alcohol.

First up on stage was the inimitable Brian Stone. He is building in confidence more and more – although taken aback at how many people had made it to the wilds of Warsop for a 6pm start. Launching into Life Begins at 50 his set was an energetic singalong both of his own songs and an eclectic selection of cover versions like Believers by Levellers and Ward the Pirate. Highlights for me were his own song Where is all the Rum Gone evoking memories of that campfire at Farmer Phil’s, and a raucous singalong of Gaz Brookfield’s Let the East Winds Blow to finish.

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Freeborn Al / 14th February 2016 / Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

A cheeky little DVD teaser..

If you’ve been pondering ordering the Rock City DVD and CD or simply can’t wait to see it, Dan’s provided a nice little teaser of the start of the gig with the band launching into Gallows Justice. The image and sound quality looks to be cracking, production should be this week or so, shipping straight after – just the thing you’ll need for the post-Dogfest comedown!

Freeborn Al / 9th February 2016 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Videos / 0 Comments

Peace in the valleys.. not!

I hadn’t really got that excited about this gig, other things going on in our family meant it rather snuck up on me. But once we’d got in the car and underway at lunchtime on Saturday I must admit I was gearing up for a good mosh, it’s been a long time since Rock City after all. Even the increasingly awful weather and occasional aqua-planing down the roads didn’t dampen my enthusiasm. Ella chose to use the trip to start to testing out her Go-Pro (video below), an experiment that was curtailed by a technical glitch, but shows some real promise for a fun way of documenting gigs and festivals.

Despite the rubbish weather it was a clear run through to Cardiff and a pretty easy job to get parked up and checked into our hotel. Opting to have a bit of chill time we’d noticed the rain had stopped a bit, which was cause for optimism. Alas, by the time we were ready to emerge it was once again pissing it down – after a bit of a wander we found (after a couple of attempts) Hopbunker. It had been recommended to us on Facebook by fellow Hell Hounds Martin and Diane, who work there and are very proud of their bar.

And with good reason – just opposite the castle and down some stairs you’ll find a grotto of real ales, craft ales and ciders – but without the wanky pretentions that seem to attach to such bars in my experience. A fun relaxed atmosphere, and just £3 a pint from a fine selection of pumps – I tried a pint of Ella (had to be done didn’t it?) a Ginger beer and an IPA whose name escapes be before switching to Reveller cider – which was lovely. Dave and Sally arrived with us, and countless folks of a Ferocious Dog persuasion followed. Once the Rugby was over the bar was awash with Ferocious Dog related music. Highly recommended pub if you find yourself in Cardiff, and the urinals in the gents were a work of genius – and alas, the only thing I took a photo of in there!

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Freeborn Al / 7th February 2016 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Lee Bonsall, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments