ferocious dog – Page 12 – Ferocious Blog

A triumphant homecoming..

I talked about my reservations over Splendour as an event before – a little too sterile, a bit too rule-bound, and it didn’t bode well when arriving at the site as it opened to see loads of people having assorted things confiscated. In defence of the security guys, they were very courteous and I thought the organisers had done a decent job in communicating what would and wouldn’t be permitted on the site – but well, taking a lads water off him because he’d had a swig on the way to the park? A bit much!

After the state I got in three years ago I didn’t attempt any smuggling of contraband this year – more’s the pity as I wasn’t so much as patted down on my way through the gate! It’s probably a good thing though! Early on to the site my first objective was something to eat, which was duly purloined from the bacon cob van – shortly after this I bumped into Ian and Lucy for a quick chat over our assorted food choices. They’d hit the bar already, which was my next stop.

Ah, beer tokens. I loathe them – but grudgingly bought some in order to get that all important first cider of the day. You can see why they don’t want people bringing their own booze in when they’re charging £4 a pint for their own edited range of beverages. That said, ales, lager, cider, jägerbombs and Pimm’s were all on offer in exchange for a magic token. After picking up a drink I wandered down to the Confetti Stage where Georgie and her band were getting set up.

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Freeborn Al / 19th July 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos

The Splendour of the weekend to come..

Whilst I’ve been still basking a bit in the warm fuzziness of last weekend at Wistful, it will be good to get a bit of full-on Ferocious Dog this weekend at Nottingham’s Splendour Festival. I’m not generally a huge fan of Splendour, it’s pretty pricey (although I guess if you divide the ticket price by the number of acts you want to see it does work out good value this year). FD played it last year but an early slot on a small stage so I didn’t indulge, although I did go to it when the Levellers played a couple of years back.

The list of terms and conditions are potentially entertaining too depending on how many Hell Hounds descend for the 5:15 showtime. We shall see! Definitely this year I won’t be attempting to smuggle in a litre and a half of rum (successfully) like I did on my previous visit… after consuming that I found myself practically asleep against the crash barrier for much of the Levellers set. Mercifully this rendered me unable to ‘appreciate’ the headline act of Dizzee Rascal too so perhaps it wasn’t such a bad plan!

This year though with Roots Manuva, The Specials and James on the bill too there’s more to look forward to than just Ferocious Dog which is always a bonus, and there’s sure to be new acts to discover. The other drawback to Splendour is the lack of camping option – on account of the potentially vicious deer in the park – although whilst not my current home Nottingham is a place I can find places to stay pretty easily – and I’m sure there’ll be a few folk out and about to make it into a suitably fun party!

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Freeborn Al / 16th July 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands / 0 Comments

Warsop Carnival fun..

Warsop is a place I’ve become more familiar with than I was (which was not at all) before Ferocious Dog entered my life. It’s a really nice north Nottinghamshire village – that would’ve been developed to support the colliery sunk there and obviously subsequently closed. The carnival there is one of many years standing and held on the first or second sunday of July, on The Carrs, nestled between Market and Church Warsop. It’s a cracking community day out in its own right – although of course there was the obvious lure for me of a certain band closing it off in their three piece acoustic guise.

Upon parking up in the middle of Warsop I wandered over just ahead of the procession to find the field set up with an assortment of stalls, a funfair and a central arena, with the music stage in the far corner of the field. With events like jousting and falconry on offer as well as music there was plenty to entertain. I bumped into Ken who was talking with a chap from Warsop Remembers, an organisation that he’d painted a picture for that might potentially end up as a raffle prize to raise money for the cause – so look out for that for a bit of unique Ferocious Dog related memorabilia.

However, it was the music that was my main motivation for going – so I soon found myself settled in front of the stage where Ellie Keegan was up first. I’ve seen Ellie play a few times now and she’s a cracking performer – although not to my knowledge with the addition of a loop pedal (remember spare batteries next time!). She played a mixture of covers and a couple of original ones – with things ranging from Crazy by Gnarls Barclay, a mash-up of Come Together by the Beatles and Lose Yourself by Eminem (I think – that’s not my genre!) with plenty of use of the loop pedal on both guitar and vocal layers.

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Freeborn Al / 5th July 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Lee Bonsall, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Cutting a Funke Outline..

A diversion away from my normal subject matter again, but a good one – and kinda FD-related. For my day job I do quite a bit of driving, which can be a bind but also a great opportunity to absorb music, and this week the postman was especially kind to me this week delivering new albums from both The Outlines and Funke and the Two Tone Baby (the latter of which I forgot that I’d backed as part of a crowdfunding campaign a while ago – so that was a great surprise!).

Both acts are probably familiar to most folk reading a Ferocious Dog themed blog – Funke has shared events with them a number of times, including DogFest and indeed Something to Smile About last month. To my eternal shame whenever I’ve been at events he’s played I’ve either found myself missing it due to getting food (DogFest) or being under extreme influence of alcohol and not really taking it in (Something to Smile About) – only to find my friends absolutely raving about him.

So come Deerstock I fully intend to be in a fit state to appreciate his performance. I’m making no promises though, there’s strange fruit and other goodies at that particular festival! As for The Outlines, well they are fronted by none other than Kyle Peters who was guitarist and vocalist for one song for Ferocious Dog until recently – now along with Martyn Brown on Bass and Dean Hill on drums they are producing some rather awesome punk rock tuneage. I’ve yet to catch them live, I’m looking forward to doing so soon though!

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Freeborn Al / 2nd July 2015 / Music, Other Bands / 0 Comments

New album artwork revealed..

I’m sure most of you will have spotted on Facebook that Dan has revealed the forthcoming album cover as we’re looking at a slight delay to the release date. It features two sinisterly feature-limited and thus dehumanised police officers restraining a person – rather roughly judging by the blood splatter on the floor, with a third standing behind smiling at one of his companions.

Those of you who’ve had a chance to absorb some of the new songs at gigs (or had a listen to some of the unmastered recordings) will have already attuned to the underlying disquiet either at specific events or the current political climate – which all hooks into the album title From Without too – the first album just bore the Ferocious Dog logo (and indeed name), whereas now we’re seeing something that draws together the themes from the songs and gives it accompanying imagery and a name, a consistent message.

Exciting times! The countdown is almost over…

Freeborn Al / 1st July 2015 / Band, Music, Photos / 0 Comments

Glaston-buried, but the fun doesn’t end..

I think it’s fair to say that Ferocious Dog‘s debut at Glastonbury has been a resounding success – just look at this photo I pinched from Scott! Certainly the number of search engine hits to this site searching for more information about them has increased since Monday. The cherry-on-the-cake of some BBC coverage of course never transpired, but with folk uploading photos and videos to Facebook we did at least catch a glimpse of the performance, to the third biggest Avalon crowd of the weekend. Fantastic. (special shout out to Colin who was uploading stuff as it was happening).

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Freeborn Al / 1st July 2015 / Band, Gigs, Interview, Music, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments

A fish that’s learned to fly..

Sam Jones

Nights like tonight are how a weekend constrained by work in the morning should be eased out of. Of course, like many of us I was forlornly checking Facebook for scraps of how the boys might be going down at Glastonbury (and thanks to a kind chap called Colin uploading some videos, as well as a few pictures arriving, I saw much more than I thought I would – scan the FD Facebook Group to see). It sounds like a rip-roaring success we were confident they’d achieve.

The third biggest crowd in Avalon over the weekend, and whilst perhaps not as lively as they’re accustomed to, a lively crowd nonetheless and an encore demanded and delivered – there’s a video of the crowds reaction as Ken was leaving the stage (with the obligatory picture from Waggy in the background) which suggests that there might have been a fair number of new Hell Hounds indoctrinated into he fold this afternoon. I’m sure further video and photographic evidence will feature over the next week or so!

But for me today was leading up the M1 to Mansfield to the Brown Cow for one of Sam Jones’ acoustic evenings – a somewhat hidden gem of a fortnightly event that takes place showcasing both Sam himself as well as a fine array of other talented performers. Tonight we had Sam, Paige and an unknown quantity for me called King of Rome – something I twigged as being a reference to the famous homing pigeon from Derby (don’t even ask how I knew that…)

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Freeborn Al / 28th June 2015 / Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Not-being-at-Glastonbury distractions..

As the appointed hour of the appointed day comes for Ferocious Dog at Glastonbury since I’ve not been able to follow them to this particular landmark it’s been a week of finding alternative musical amusement for myself, and frankly it’s been rather an easy task. I’ve heard reports that their smaller gig at the Bimble Inn went down very well indeed and now they’ll be psyching themselves up to take to the Avalon Stage at 2pm today.

Looking at the array of talent available in the Fields of Avalon I’d be spending a lot of time there – so hopefully plenty of similarly-minded folk are doing just that to get them in front of plenty of new appreciative faces. Not least I hope the various folk I know who are there heed my advice and get themselves there – otherwise there’ll be trouble, and since the BBC cameras don’t reach as far as Avalon, we’re depending on Waggy et al to try to capture some of the event.

But for me I’ve been finding my fun elsewhere – whilst I can well imagine the experience of being at the festival is unforgettable – I’ve never really got much out of watching highlights on TV. So last night I headed over to the lovely Colville Arms in Lullington where a small beer festival was underway with the promise of a couple of sets from Paige Seabridge to make up for the fact that I needed to drive there so couldn’t sample more than one of the beers on offer.

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Freeborn Al / 28th June 2015 / Band, Lee Bonsall, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Here comes the Willow man..

To be home in Leicestershire, showered and in bed with t’laptop before 11pm having spent a day basking in a fine array of talent at a festival in North Yorkshire is both a good thing and perhaps in another light testimony to a missed opportunity of spending more time at the Willowman Festival. It was a cracking day and I’m reliably informed by friends who spent a long weekend there that today was certainly not an exception – definitely one I’ll be looking out for in the future. I reckon Brian might well blog in more detail about the whole festival later.

Whilst of course I can offer no guarantees of my intentions and what I end up doing to watch Ferocious Dog, it had been my intention to ‘settle for Settle’ this weekend and skip Willowman, but with the twinned revelations that the former gig had been cancelled and that Ferocious Dog’s closing set was in fact finishing before 8pm it opened up the opportunity to travel up for the day and still get home at a reasonable time to get to bed at a reasonable hour in preparation to get up for work in the morning.

So come Sunday morning in the car I hopped and quick service station stop aside it was an event-free journey. I elected to leave my car outside on the road rather than go into the car park simply to aid the quick escape, and it wasn’t far from there to the entrance to the festival. E-ticket exchanged for an armband and at just gone noon I found myself walking into the field – almost immediately bumping into Mick, buying the most gigantic portion of nachos I’ve ever seen in my life!

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Freeborn Al / 22nd June 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Why Settle for less?

I’m sure that you’ll have heard by now that the Ferocious Dog gig in the Victoria Hall in Settle has been postponed due to issues outside the control of the band. Disappointing, but in the face of such adversity of having the promise of a weekend gig it makes you have to work on alternative plans. Hopefully once the gig is rearranged I’ll be able to make it as I was looking forward to the visit!

First up I’ve been playing with some of Waggy’s photos and was particularly pleased with this one of Ken taken at the Evesham gig made up entirely of the words ‘Red Ken’ – I’ll have to have a play with other images when I get the chance!

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Freeborn Al / 18th June 2015 / Band, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Thoughts / 0 Comments