the leylines – Page 4 – Ferocious Blog

Weston-Super-Stars..

The day for us started in Doncaster post-Levelling. We’d arranged to meet Becky, Pete and Rachel in a Toby Carvery for a spot of all you can eat breakfast. Unfortunately we hadn’t clarified brilliantly which one, so the Hotel Campanile crew all piled into the wrong one – a quick google later we’d located the right one and headed there for a plate full of greasy goodness to stave off potential hangovers. It was a nice way to start the day off reminiscing over a great evening, not least updating the non-Campanile folk of cheese-party disclosures.

Best still, as a potential neat sideline for the MeadEvil bar, Pete had been sourcing some drinking horns – after expressing my excitement about owning such a vessel they very kindly gifted one to me. So that shall be making plenty of appearances at festivals next year – mmm, meeeead! I just need some kind of holster for it, or maybe my Dogfest lanyard thing will do the job! Perhaps I should’ve thought a bit more about the photo I posted on Facebook that John must’ve spent all of five minutes gleefully ‘adjusting’ with, well, I was going to say Photoshop but I think it might’ve been MS Paint – haha! I’ve not used that picture in here!

Then for Ella and I it was time for goodbyes and hitting the road to Weston-Super-Mare via Donny station where Andrea joined our merry road trip to go to The Leylines christmas party. We had a pretty clear run all the way down, arriving at the windswept town with plenty of time to get checked in. Andrea’s hotel had free parking so we used that – she checked in to Room 101 initially, but swapped it for one with a sea view, in the meantime we were just round the corner in a different hotel which was pretty comfortable too!

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Freeborn Al / 6th December 2015 / Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Dogfest 2016 – going, going… gone!

If you blinked you might’ve missed the window of opportunity for ordering tickets for Dogfest 2016 which went on sale shortly after the Rock City gig. Dan announced on Facebook he was putting on sale the remainder of the tickets for the event on 13th February 2016 – which will once again be hosted at The Black Market Venue in Warsop – and it’s now officially sold out in a matter of days.

The line-up is all but confirmed – with one slot remaining for prospective bands to vie for – there’s been some amazing suggestions on the thread in the Facebook group already, so if any of those are successful in getting the final place it’ll be a fine addition to what is already a stellar line-up. Gaz Brookfield isn’t available for the date sadly, although y’know, you need to mix it up a bit – he’s done the last two Dogfests after all!

Quite a change from the first Dogfest I attended back in 2012 – that definitely wasn’t a sell out, and my own attitude was less committed too. We hotfooted it up mainly to see Ferocious Dog finish the day off having been at the football in the afternoon. Fast forward to 2013 and there was merchandise and a lot more people, 2014 I think was sold out and amazing, of course 2015 was skipped to make way for Rock City and a change of date for February in 2016.

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Freeborn Al / 2nd December 2015 / Band, Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

And a Bostin’ time was had by all!

How on earth do you go about summing up a day like Bostin’ Days Live? Both Jamie and Bart at different points in the day asked me how on earth I was going to keep track, I revealed a bit of note-taking on my phone to act as an aide memoire but well, that’s something I generally do (except when in Ferocious Dog moshpits funnily enough – can you imagine?!) and I frequently still frequently forget crucial details. But making a few notes and making sure I grab a photo of key things I’ve seen generally suffices to at least try to get the point across.

The early finish in Bristol combined with exorbitant drink prices in the O2 Academy saw me on the road in good time – only an accident on the M42 caused some delays around Solihull, as I work there I’m well-versed in dodging that road, so got myself to my hotel where the owner was glad to let me check in early so I was at The Crew well before everything started. Clad in the best wristband I’ve been given all year (it’s going to be a real bind to take this one off) and a nice plastic pint pot. I thought about being sensible and ordered a cider. Oops.

Shortly after Snotty and Simon arrived, it had been a bit odd being at a couple of Ferocious Dog gigs without her (the first question either of us get when out without the other is ‘where’s Snotface/Fisher?’ Anyway, it was good to be at an event together – as folk started arriving we made our way upstairs where things were kicking off – Steve Bentley opened the event by introducing the first performer and compere for the upstairs stage, Stevie ‘One Bloke One Mandolin’ Simpson, and also inviting a sheepish looking Addie on to the stage to mark the start of the event.

Now, I am confident I’ll remember everyone I saw – whether I remember songs I heard is another matter entirely!

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Freeborn Al / 18th October 2015 / Gigs, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

Geddon moi laaaaand…

Wow. Farmer Phil’s you were a bloody spectacularly good festival – I have no idea how many words, edits, or sittings this is going to take (edit – did it in one, sorry in advance for the typos), but felt the need to make a start on trying to document five days and nights of great fun, company, music and just general soul nourishment. Dean has been telling me to go to Farmer Phil’s for about three years now, I’m glad I finally listened to him. The festival proper starts on the Friday, but camping passes enable you to get on site from Monday, which many did – I opted to travel on Wednesday.

First order of business for me was to nip and pick up Tina before we headed over to Shropshire in the sunshine – I’ve subsequently found the setting to quell my sat nav’s desire to take me down the bloody M6 toll road at every opportunity it gets – but last week I was lucky that Tina knew the best way to go without having to pay to drive on a road. Once on the site we drove into the ‘noisy’ field and found a suitable sized area next to Naomi, Joe and family and set about plotting tent and car positioning to try to save space for others arriving later.

It was pretty warm so by the time we’d put up mine and Snotty’s tent, one for Simon, and Tina and Tim’s teepee we’d tired ourselves out pretty well. There was time to leisurely settle by the campfire to spend time with the Deerstock collective next door – one of the best things about the weekend was getting the chance to get to know Naomi and Joe’s awesome kids Jake, Kezzi and Rohan a bit better, whilst Ant provided a pretty non-ceasing stream of comedy as only he knows how as the ciders started flowing perhaps a little too freely.

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Freeborn Al / 18th August 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos

Bostin’ Days album review..

I was dead excited when Bostin’ Days was announced. A compilation of covers of Levellers songs – who are the root node of pretty much all my musical loves – performed by loads of my favourite performers many of whom have become friends. Then I got scared. Like many fans I guess Levs songs are precious to me – what if I didn’t like them? What if I didn’t like them and the artist in question was somebody I knew? What if it was all just a terrible idea?

Luckily Addie isn’t as big a worrier as me – and his drive and passion along with the folk who’ve been helping him has seen the project come through to fruition finally, and it’s an absolute triumph. I’ve not been able to stop listening to it – a four hour plus round trip on a Sunday would normally be a bind, but last weekend it meant I got to listen to it through twice – and suddenly hold-ups on the way to work are a bit more tolerable because it might mean that I get to squeeze in another couple of tracks before reaching the office.

Of course, we should start with the mission of the project – and that was to raise money for the Devon Air Ambulance. This came about in the wake of an accident at Beautiful Days last year where the service was mobilised to airlift a couple of injured folk to hospital. The idea of the album was conceived to raise money for the charity, and there’s also an accompanying live event which you’d be a fool to want to miss, in Nuneaton in October.

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Freeborn Al / 7th August 2015 / Band, Music, Other Bands, Photos

Rest and recuperation..

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(Ferocious) Dog tired

The tour schedule has a handy break this weekend for a bit of much-needed rest and recuperation.

It’s been a busy week at work so that’s much appreciated. It’s also given Ferocious Dog the opportunity to get back in the studio to put what are hopefully the finishing touches to their album – they’ve been pretty quiet about how things have gone which I’m taking as a good sign. It was clearly a gruelling schedule they were undergoing given the photo of Waggy asleep in a chair that surfaced on Facebook earlier in the week!

Speaking of Waggy, he’s been confirmed as the official tour manager for the band – a great choice! He’s also caught up with his photo albums, so you can check out pictures from Bridport, Plymouth, Exeter, Stamford and Newbury – there’s some crackers in there as ever – let’s hope he’s able to delegate what ever during-gig duties he might have as tour manager to make sure that camera is still in action!

Of course the other big news this week was on Monday when the autumn tour dates were finally revealed – twenty dates in all, including the previously announced gigs with Mad Dog Mcrea in Camden, Bristol and of course at Rock City. Exciting times. Whilst I’m on a good run of FD gigs so far this year (!) I’m coming to terms with the fact I’ll not make it to all of them – even so, I’m pretty sure I’ll be on for most. I’ve been plotting with the work holiday planner and a good few are already booked in, with a fairly hefty number on the ‘to order after payday’ list.

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Freeborn Al / 1st May 2015 / Band, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos / 0 Comments

The south-west? We shall exit ‘er in Exeter..

Well, now the dust has settled and I’ve grabbed a few hours of kip in my own bed it brings us to the Exeter leg of the tour. Having surfaced and written yesterday’s blog I got the call from Dan on loading times from the venue, so I checked out and staggered that way to find John and Scott had pretty much got everything out of The Hub and we just had to wait for the bus (or ‘the buzz’ if you’re John) to load up. It’s worth considering at this point how much stuff it takes to make a Ferocious Dog gig. Just some of it is pictured below.

It’s fairly obvious really – there’s six of ’em, Ellis plays about eight million instruments, there’s a drum kit – there’s amps, there’s merchandise, there’s the stage backdrop and assorted maintenance kit, there’s a few spare guitars for quick changes in case of string snappage. Then of course there’s up to ten people in the bus too along with their travelling gear (in our case we only had six of us for most of our journeying). It’s a logistical challenge for sure – and Waggy and Ken are masters of the game of 3D Tetris involved in getting everything in the back section of the dog bus.

When you see a band playing to a group of people going crazy, people eulogising about them on Facebook (not least me) and clamouring to get photos or just talk after gigs it’s easy to forget after that it’s the same people – admittedly with some help from venue staff or folk they might have on tour with them – who will be packing everything up and getting it either in the bus or ready to collect in the morning. It makes Ken’s mingling with the crowd after gigs all the more charming – and it’s not an act either, he turns heads and starts conversations wherever he goes!

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Freeborn Al / 19th April 2015 / Band, Gigs, Hell Hounds, Music, Other Bands, Photos, Videos / 0 Comments