Couple o' shows...

First from last Monday eve at The Star in Guildford.



Apparently the place has recently been refurbished but having never been there to the back room beforehand I couldn't tell you what they've done except a second fire exit for health and safety reasons. Whatever they did it's a pretty sizable place now which makes me wonder why the GYC ever gets used. First band on were called Drones whom I actually quite liked, the singer/guitarist had quite a lot of energy and there were a couple of catchy songs in there. To be honest I filmed the wrong one, if I remember rightly the song after this was bloody good.

Next up were Flippant Malarkism from Bournemouth, video is on the ol' youtube channel. There was a time when I'd probably have been right into this but sadly no longer. That said, their blend of punk with a dash of ska is most definitely dance-able which is what I always thought was important when it came these bands.

Bastad! Rats! are just a bit shit so I'd advise against watching this. The sound wasn't brilliant for them, could hardly here Tank's vocals and when you take away half the oi's and woah's you're in trouble. There were a couple of other bands on after but I had to take off so let's just assume they were really, really good.


Post-Fest Blues Fest Day 1


As well as being an evening for those of us (reasonably) fresh back from Gainesville to mope around it was also Break The Habit's last show in Kingston (their final show ever being this coming Saturday.) On account of work and trains I didn't get there in time to see Fun Alf play everyone a few tunes and only got there half way through El Morgan's set in time to film her last song. Next on were WeGrowBeards complete with new bassist Chil. Unfortunately on account of him being 7ft tall and me standing at the front I couldn't film anything without cutting his head and shoulders off.



And so to BTH. During the song prior to this some guy gets on stage and hugs both guitarists to cries of "What the fuck are you doing here?!" Turns out this is Ed, who is from Pennsylvania and has turned up out of the blue to surprise them for their farewell shows and then takes over bass duties for this song. That's dedication folks.



Last on is Ok Pilot, Fest veterans extraordinaire, whom Lucas, the Austrian I met on the plane from Atlanta to Gainesville, was disappointed by their absence this year. This song is called Black Eyes, it's pretty awesome yes.

Also The Ashes start this coming week. Hello to late nights and tired mornings. And on that note I have now uploaded 111 videos to my channel, 20 points if you know why these 2 things are relevant to each other.

UK Pre-Fest 9 Weekend 8th-10th October

In a way it was last year's Pre-Fest show in Dorking that paved the way for all you see before you as it's where I met a bunch of UK Fest-goers and started going to all the shows I record videos at. This year, it's pretty safe to say, didn't live up to the same standards unfortunately. Not helped by the fact that Pacer pulled out of the Friday show and the multitude of other things that seemed to be going on it wasn't the best turned out event on either day and was certainly lacking the party atmosphere of the previous year. On the other hand there was an absolutely packed show at the Windmill in Brixton on Saturday night (which is why the Pre-Fest wasn't that day as it was last year) for Lloyd and Helen Chambers' birthdays. RVIVR headlining with some of the best UK bands in support. I'd have videos of the Bangers set usually but was too busy jumping about and to be honest it was so busy that night I doubt that someone of my towering 5ft 5 stature could have captured much. I also wish I'd gotten something from 1 of 2 Caves sets I saw; struggled to see much on Saturday but they rocked hard on Sunday evening. It sucks they're clashing with Calvinball at Fest as otherwise I'd definitely be watching their set. What I do have is a new song from Porches from the Sunday show at the Lincoln Arms in Dorking, check it out y'all.