Videos – Page 6 – Ferocious Blog

Splendour highlights too!

Just in case you hadn’t had your fill of Ferocious Dog on the tellybox, Tim has managed to get the Notts TV special from Splendour festival on to YouTube as well – four songs and a bit of interview action. Just look at that dust cloud above the mosh pit – powdered mud and deer poo, no wonder I was poorly after it! Haha!

Freeborn Al / 6th January 2016 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Videos / 0 Comments

Miss the band on Notts TV? Fear not!

Due to watershed related issues (John’s t-shirt possibly? Haha!) Notts TV had unfortunately decreed not to add their Noise Floor special featuring Ferocious Dog at Rock City, nor seem very amenable to sharing the video in any other means than repeat broadcasts – which is great if you live in Nottingham or have Sky so you can tune your box to it. Not so good if you have neither of these options.

Well, Tim found a handy YouTube link featuring a decent quality rip of the whole episode – enjoy! If you want to keep it for posterity try using a service like KeepVid to download the video file. Together we are strong indeed!

Freeborn Al / 6th January 2016 / Band, Gigs, Interview, Music, Videos / 0 Comments

True, Fast and (mostly) balanced..

Nights like last night are the kind of occasions that you simply won’t forget – to coin a phrase from one of the acts in question, I can’t stand the thought of lying on my death bed with regrets, but I’m pretty sure this evening’s fun and games will be one that I relive when that time comes. Okay, a bit morbid, sorry. For a mere £8 something Andrea had bagged not just Funke and the Two Tone Baby and Gaz Brookfield, but Maelor Hughes and Ken Bonsall in a Ferocious Dog one-piece guise too.

Any one of those acts in my admittedly slightly biased opinion are worth that fee – throw in a bonus song from Brian Stone, the awesome Rock and Blues venue in Barnsley and friends too numerous to count in attendance and I don’t think I’m exaggerating at all to say it’s one of my favourite gigs of this year. Ella and I headed up to Barnsley from Loughborough and had treated ourselves to an inexpensive Premier Inn room a ten minute stagger down the road, and were soon battling through the wind to get there.

Upon getting into the venue and wrist banded up it was already pretty full of familiar faces, we had plenty of time for mingling and getting a few drinks down us before the doors to the venue proper were opened. Maelor was up first with a slightly poorly throat – it didn’t take away from a top opening set though, Morning Sun was the second song in, by the time he’d moved into Better Day the crowd were already shouting the ‘Oi Oi’ bits without him asking them to, he treated us to Won’t Fight Your War before offering us the bonus of a guest appearance.

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Freeborn Al / 12th December 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Fly on the wall..

Over the last year I’ve been privileged and humbled by the fly on the wall opportunities I’ve been afforded by the band. Last week I was lucky enough to join them in the rehearsal studio after a day of exploring then driving back from Clitheroe to get a sneak preview of some of the treats in store for Rock City. Of course, I couldn’t write about it then as it would’ve spoiled some of the surprises – but I can now!

It is a small glimpse into the work that happens behind the scenes from the band – after a gruelling three days with Ken suffering from what turned out to be laryngitis it was essential they got some time in to run through some of the finer details. Les and Scott had never played Pocket full of Madness before, John had a few times and the rest of the band hadn’t played it in ages (nor had Kyle!).

Whilst Chloe and Megan had worked out their dance routine it was important to get a chance to practice with the band – timings between live and recorded songs can differ quite dramatically, and then of course there was the extended version of Freeborn John to work through with The Afterdark Movement rapper Bru-C (as an aside, since then I’ve been listening to a bit of The Afterdark Movement and I really like it (aside from referring to my favourite football team as Notts Forest – haha!)).

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Freeborn Al / 30th November 2015 / Band, Music, Photos, Thoughts, Videos / 0 Comments

Run with the wolves while I hunt like a hound..

I’d booked tickets for Prodigy ages ago and kinda forgotten about it – subsequent Ferocious Dog tour marathoning has rendered me pretty much without holiday now so it was a straight-from-work driving job. Ella and I met up with Phil in Nottingham and headed on to the venue, Nottingham’s Ice Arena, a fairly characterless carbuncle of an arena. Once in we were directed outside to join a monstrous queue for those of us with standing tickets (one of the bouncers inside did clock my Ferocious Dog hoody though!)

Seeing Prodigy at the G-Mex centre in Manchester back in 1997 was my first ‘proper’ gig really – I was with Phil then too, funnily enough. We had naively made our way to the front for a good vantage point, getting smashed around the mosh pit during the support act – some band called the Foo Fighters – before Prodigy took the stage. My then girlfriend passed out at some point during their set meaning we watched the second half from the medical area while she recovered.

But well, you live and you learn – whilst I’m a fan of being up close and personal in my general gig going this one was always going to be one to appreciate from a distance so upon gaining entry past the zealous and unfriendly arena staff we were faced with a pretty packed floor space and Public Enemy already underway. Eventually we settled in a spot not far from the exit around level with the mixing desk, occasionally being impolitely compelled to move in by some jobsworth harpy with a radio.

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Freeborn Al / 25th November 2015 / Gigs, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Songs for the deaf..

It was a leisurely drive up to Manchester from Telford with no real incident, news of the extent of Gaz’s throat infection filtered through from Facebook so we were feeling a bit glum – and set about researching a bit about Sammy Battle, drafted in to replace him as the support act. It looked promising, so whilst of course we were both gutted to be missing out on some Gaz action, it’s always good to get a chance to take in a new act too.

Checking in at Ibis in Manchester there was a suspicious package waiting for me at reception – highly dubious it turned out to be from the good folk at Laterooms – I hadn’t used Laterooms since the debacle at Stamford earlier in the year, so I guess this is their way of dealing with customer complaints – and well, I quite like it! Clearly they’d had a look at my Twitter bio and picked a few presents compliant with that. Really nice customer service!

Kind of wish I’d complained via my @FerociousBlog account rather than my personal one now to see what kind of gifts that would’ve inspired! In the hotel we caught up on snoozing, as well as exciting news from The Leylines who’ve launched a crowd funding campaign to pay for their new album next year – take a look at the campaign and see if any of the rewards tickle your fancy. I’m a big fan of these ways of raising capital without resorting to begging for record labels.

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Freeborn Al / 23rd November 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Triumphant return to an old Haunt..

In Southampton I was lucky enough to wake up in time for breakfast this time, and once everyone had convened and Wez had fetched Cerebus round for the next leg of the journey it was rather a more sombre trip along the coast to Brighton as the full extent of the awful events in Paris became apparent. There was a degree of mood lightening with the scattered remnants of the previous night’s entertainment that John and Scott, both surprisingly chipper considering, could actually remember.

The hotel we were staying in was actually in Newhaven, some miles outside of Brighton, we opted to head there first to get checked in – Waggy’s sat nav amusingly taking us to a Premier convenience store nearby instead – but soon enough we did find our destination. I ended up in with Ken for this night as Les was travelling home after the gig since Margate is just down the road for him relatively speaking – we got our bags dumped, freshened up and it was back on the bus to get to the venue.

Of course we were all at The Haunt earlier in the year – it’s an ace little place, sound checking seemed to go pretty well. Ken had casually announced Jeremy from the Levellers was coming later, and Nick Burbridge too – hopefully getting up to perform with the band. Nick is one of my all time favourite songwriters – so this was unfeasibly exciting for me even more so than normal! Waggy and I also cased out the balcony – not open that evening for the public – as a good potential photography spot – the video below shows the soundcheck from up there.

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Freeborn Al / 17th November 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Talking heads and moshing elephants..

Premier Inn has a good night sleep guarantee (this is definitely something endorsed by Scott – but you’ll have to ask him about that), and they certainly delivered after Camden – both Waggy and I slept in and missed breakfast. By this point the cold I’ve been having an on-off relationship with over the last few weeks seems to have developed into a nocturnal rasping cough, but that didn’t seem to disturb Waggy, unlike the early hours phone calls for the late night revellers looking for directions back to our digs, haha!

Having not really attempted to get my mohawk up for Camden I actually did a reasonable job of it in the hotel room with the hairdryer and some hairspray, we headed down to the eatery which was being cleared up and charmed some tea from the cleaning staff who were very taken with Kenny, discussions centring around the best hair products to use to achieve his liberty spikes (Schwarzkopf got2b glued blasting freeze spray, if anyone was wondering – I’ve got some now since I used all my hairspray up at the weekend!).

As we drove through London heading inexorably south Scott’s observation skills came to the fore “It’s fucking ginormous int it, London?” he opined. There was lots of speculation on house prices as we saw the many facets of the capital, meanwhile no matter how far we got out of Camden John, Ken and Scott were adamant that they’d wandered down passing streets at some point last night whilst out galavanting post-gig. The missed breakfasts on board was causing some widespread hunger issues, so it was time for me to bring out my secret weapon…

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Freeborn Al / 17th November 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Not extinguished at the Old Fire Station..

As morning broke in Newcastle I was feeling pretty good – both Carl and I had a great night’s sleep and were up and ready to tackle breakfast downstairs where we found Waggy and Ellis already seated. That’s right, Ellis was already there! Folk started arriving downstairs, piecing together the night before – Les had walked to the wrong Premier Inn who gave him a map to find the right one, John and Scott had been on an adventure that saw them end up at the University and in the middle of a busy traffic island – but everyone was unscathed.

Breakfast was very welcome, that’s for sure! Eventually with everyone sorted and checked out we returned to Cerebus for the next leg of our journey, Brad hopping in Ellis’ car, Les coming with us as he’d travelled up by train from Leeds. We needed to get a bit of fuel, and as Carl spotted a convenient petrol station Scott and John’s choice of location for a cigarette break gave Ken the chance to spot and recognise The Denton, which was the venue for Jay’s wake last year.

Having bought some poppies in the garage Ken decided we needed to go and have a pint to honour our old friend – Carl duly drove the bus over there and we did just that, a fitting way to be heading out of Newcastle to follow the course of Hadrian’s Wall (every wall we passed on the way loudly announced to be Hadrian’s Wall). Kenny’s battery had run out so I let him use mine to peruse Facebook. Amazingly he resisted the urge to ‘Frape’ me – unless he left inappropriate comments somewhere I’ve yet to find – I don’t think he did though, what a gent!

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Freeborn Al / 25th October 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

Howay the Dog in Toon..

… and so seemingly no sooner had my head hit the pillow it was time to get up again for the reverse journey of a few hours before, Mansfield to pick up Scott and John, then onward to Warsop to reconvene with the Ken, Waggy, Carl and Brad to get into Cerebus and head north to Newcastle. It was a decent run, punctuated by card games – some pretty impressive card tricks from John and some unfortunate experimenting with sherbet and crushed Parma Violets.

The least said about that the better. Let’s just say that the crushed Love Hearts were a step too far.

The Cluny is an old converted industrial spinning mill in the Ouseburn Valley area of Newcastle. A cracking venue with a low dance floor/stage area overlooked by a balcony with a small bar at the back of a nice looking eatery/bar area. As this was my only gig of the weekend where drinking was really an option we’d indulged a little on the way up, and carried on in the venue after loading in all the gear whilst everyone went about their setting up. It was quite nice to just sit up on the balcony and chill for a bit – Mick had arrived early too so joined us.

The soundcheck was over quickly for the band, when it was Gaz’s turn he even did a few Brad impressions – meanwhile Waggy had been sorting out who was rooming with who at the hotel later, and gave Brad a few tips on how to get Ellis to settle down to sleep. I hope he didn’t take it too seriously! I was sharing a room with Carl which worked quite well – we were both knackered from lack of sleep so were up for a few drinks post-gig but not a ridiculously heavy night. Meanwhile Scott dropped the revelation that he could do Mongolian throat singing and promised to demonstrate at the soundcheck in Carlisle.

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Freeborn Al / 25th October 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments