Just got back Was really good. Highlights: Dalek, Asva, Gravetemple mainly but i enjoyed most of the bands. Only took under 3 hours to gt back which compared to the 5 hours getting there is pretty impressive. Although it is the middle of the night so maybe that is why.
Where was Julian Cope?
Obvious question alert;
How were Battles?
Battles
Seemed to have sound problems that apparently were a bit of an issue all day on that particularly stage.
I'd describe them as being very good, although p'raps not quite reaching the dizzy heights of the hype they get.
Y'know around an 8/10.
didnt see battles...
it was all about the harvey milk
More obvious question alert;
How were Harvey Milk?
twas indeed awesome!
asva made my skull vibrate. mmmmm
Harvey Milk
were a bit dull to be honest, will give them another chance tomorrow however. It was all about Oxbow, brilliant stuff.
Really?
I don't know whether to be disappointed or happy to know that. I've been kicking myself for not going to this, but I don't feel as bad now.
Well it's only my opinion!
They seemed to go down really well so I'm sure I was in the minority. As I said previously I'll be seeing them again tomorrow and will be quite happy if they blow me away.
I also thought they were
dull as fuck
I dunno....
they were a lot of fun
merzbow?
how was Merzbow
How was Wooden Shijps
wooden shijps were ok
nothing really that special, saying that they were the next band I went to see after Oxbow so it was never going to top that.
The Merzbow/Kenji Haino colab was intense as hell (in a good way) with Merzbow playing behind the drum kit for a section of the performance.
kenji/merzbow
was pretty harsh
You could've just PM'd me.
As ace as I was expected to believe
Standouts on Saturday were Guapo (nice glittery costumes), Efterklang (I love the CD-glitch sound so much) and Oxbow (did Eugene ever get his red wine and what happened to his ear?)
Highlights of Sunday were ZX Spectrum Orchestra (best geek band I've ever seen), Earth (made much more sense absorbed in a live context) and Errors (especially when they dropped the keyboards, picked up guitars and got mathy).
Biggest wrong-turns of the weekend were Magnetophone (their voices sounded ropey and out of tune - basically out of practice) and Gravetemple (seemed to be Stephen O'Malley's baby, but far less engaging than Sunn0)))).
I spent most of the weekend
complaining about the despicable sound on the Space 2 stage and being interviewed for Kerrang. Oh and there were some bands that were ok.
It was amazing!
So many highlights:
Justice Yeldham
Gravetemple
Drumize
Max Tundra (I had tears of joy in my eyes when he played "Lights")
Fucked Up
Beestung Lips (apparently the lead singer has quit the band now though)
Kikuri (Keiji Haino = BADASS)
HARVEY MOTHERFUCKING MILK
Thai Food!
"creatures of corpse paint"
Lowlights:
No decent cider, no cider at all on sunday evening
Not being able to get in to see Heatseekers
Apparently Julian Cope called 10 minutes before he was due on stage to say he "couldn't get a lift".
Will everyone please stop
being too cool to mention Battles.
I fucking LOVED
Battles - but then to be honest I always do.
Fuck Buttons, Efterklang, Heatseekers, Errors, Cutting Pink with Knives (WHY ARE YOU LEAVING US?!?!?) and Harmonia were all AWESOME.
And more but my brain is dead.
Cutting Pink are (were) overrated
Rolo Tomassi, Oxbow, The Courtesy Group, Guapo, Harvey Milk, Max Tundra and the Kipple videos were fcuking superb though.
By Sunday was getting a little tired with the number of bands trying to find the right bass frequency to loosen my bowels and being reduced to drinking strongbow as they'd run out of draught everything else...
whaaaat
heatseekers was easy to see if you just went round the side of the bar where photographers took photos. barely any people there and the most perfect view.
they were awesomeness.
Hello!
It was good. I spent the entire weekend walking around like a zombie (two festivals in a week is too much {getting old?}) but watched some great stuff!
Harvey Milk were amazing. Pity they didn't play longer. Dalek were great as well. Orthodox played Black Sabbath and it was crushing. The Asva drummer is a dude. I was really impressed with Rolo Tomassi as well. Harmonia was a great way to end it after watching heavy all day. Nice to be able to walk straight to the front for it too!
There is some awful stuff on the jukebox at the Old Crown. Twenty seconds was spent talking about dis usernames. Fuck!
I think the only thing that sucked outright was Thrones. Bit gutted about that. At least practice and sort out your equipment before you play a big gig Joe you lamer.
Wooden Shjips
were excellent too. Loads of new stuff (as far as I know) and it was all tip top quality like
Why has no one mentioned Red Sparowes
they were amazing on the sunday, although I'm quite curious in regards to who they got to replace Josh Graham.
Ooo yes
Red Sparowes were wicked also... I watched them eat their breakfast this morning, they looked very sweet.
creepy
Yep, thats me!
I was eating breakfast too... I wasn't staring or nuffink*
*ish.
I also saw Alex Tucker drinking juice and eating a piece of toast. True story.
For further exciting updates on 'bands and their breakfasts' please see www.lucyjohnston.co.uk / myspace.com/lucyjohnston
Thankyouplease
I meant
http://www.myspace.com/lucyjohnstonphotography
They'll be no updates, I need sleep...bye
.
Amazing.
Highlights: gravetemple, Earth, Kikuri, Dalek, Cath and Phil Tyler and Harvey Milk and Oxbow
Lovely to see Usa_nails, joey mahone, bleak, doctornovocalcords etc etc etc
Also amazing were the green curries in the food section, and the exploitation movie shop which nearly caused me to buy a Japanese porn film
I was sad to not see Saint Julian tho :(
I saw you!
I kept thinking you were from DiS but I didn't want to ask.
where?
you shoulda said hi!
and I'm kind of shy
obvs
Without sounding like a stalker
several times at the outside arena and once in the vintage clothes store, I would have said hi but I got the feeling it might have been a little weird.
i really wish you had said hi!
what do you look like?
A skinny black dude with glasses and lugging around an oversized brown satchel
most of the time I was either wearing a blue checked hoody or a black jacket.
THE WHOLE FESTIVAL WAS THAT!
PIX PLZ!
Which festival were you at?
Heh
(doesn't want to give up veil of anonymity)
you walked like, right past me in that vintage clothes store.
clue is here
www.myspace.com/vega7
wow! you live in bradford!
let's hang out!
and sorry i don't remember seeing you
i feel guilty now
it's cool
I'm actually living elsewheres at the moment since I only really go to bradford for university but I'll be back there in september.
ahh
i will have left yorkshire then!
booo
yorkshires great, I'll make sure to hi next time if I see you at a different event.
Good times
Highlights:
Rolo Tomassi
Cath & Phil Tyler - "bringing you all the hits from 1832", haha.
Efterklang
Fuck Buttons - fantastic, loads better than last time. They played 2 new songs as well and I can't wait to hear them on record.
Battles - top-notch performance as always.
Errors - really enjoyed it but why did the soundman have to put the drums & bass up so high? Kind of spoilt it a bit for me as it's not really what this band are about. Toes was immense despite that.
Earth
Red Sparowes
ZX Spectrum Orchestra - really fun, maybe not as good as Modified Toy Orchestra last year though. The world needs more geek-based entertainment.
Crowds (lack of) - last year we nearly missed Mogwai but no crowd problems at all this time. Such a welcome relief to the usual practice of going to a festival year after year and finding it gets worse and worse (ie. Truck, Glasto).
Lowlights
- No bitter on site whatsoever. What the fuck. Thank god for the Old Crown.
- Some of the barmen being dicks about providing water. Again, what the fuck
- Green Thai Curry being amazing on Saturday, then going back on Sunday and getting a portion literally about 2/3 the size and still charging through the nose.
- Not getting to see all of Earth :(
Best bit though: everyone there is so friendly and there were no dickheads like you get at every other festival. I had loads of great chats with random strangers.
and Grandmaster Gareth..
(and Misty's was it?) soundtracking Nosferatu. Hats off to the organisers.
Nosferatu
was excellent. Soo much better than the bits of Kikuri I caught.
Earth were great
with Trey Spruance too! Not that he made it any better than it already was, but still! I hope they release that last song they played on non expensive non vinyl at some point.
Really enjoyed Errors and Efterklang
I didn't see Battles - I went home to get some dinner with the intention of going back later but decided to go to bed instead.
If anyone bought any tea or cake in the Old Library, I was working behind the counter there some of the time.
am I the only one that wanted to
touch red sparrowes bass player in the naughty place?
*ruins any cred I had though I do have that lack of sex excuse!*
Cope never turned up
I was talking to some security personnell who were bitching about having to wait for him to turn up.
It was really good
Highlights were Asva, Battles (even though they looked really pissed off due to the technical problems), Max Tundra, Harmonia, Fucked up and Oxbow.
I didn't see so many amazing bands/performances as I maybe expected (I thought there was a tad too much harshness/drone) but what I did love was that the atmosphere was great. People were really friendly/considerate and I only noticed one incident of twattishness in the whole weekend. The crowd was far better than even at ATP.
I also liked the theatre stage and artsy stuff, made a nice change.
There should have been a bit more going on after the bands had finished.
Will definitely go again.
Oh I forgot
National Express are utter fucking shit
My favourite things:
1)Harmonia
2)Harvey Milk
3)Oxbow
4)Guapo
5)Nosferatu
6)ZX spectrum orchestra
7)Wooden Shjips
8)Food
9)The largest Merch Area I have ever seen at any festival.
10)'Diver dodging'
Earth were good but I would have enjoyed them more if I could have sat down and still been able to see them as I was knackered.
Also
buying a unicirn Love album for a quid just cause some dude said they were good.
'Diver dodging'
is that avoiding Mike Diver? Now why would you want to do that? :D
Really fun weekend
good work Capsule Girls. Although the booze situation was a real bummer. Coors and Carling? Sadface. Getting interviewed by those two guys for the documentary was funny. I can't wait to see just how badly I mumble and avoid answering their questions at some point in the near future.
Plus Points:
+ Justice Yeldham was amazing, really fucked up sounds.
+ Alexander Tucker being much better than I remember him being previously
+ Harvey Milk were totally boss
+ Oxbow; see above
+ Guapo were ace and they looked smooth as hell too, which I value.
+ Max Tundra was pure gold.
+ Earth were great again
+ Fucked Up were exactly what was needed at that point.
+ Harmonia were a really great note to finish the festival on.
Negative Points:
- The afore mentioned booze problems.
- Not being able to hear any of the vocals for Dalek
- Man those burgers were gross
Magic weekend!
Oh and of course
it was really great to hang out with various guys and girls again. And I also concur with National Express being a total fucking joke. Hopefully they'll go into administration or something soon.
some photos will appear
here
http://www.flickr.com/photos/kukulaka/sets/72157606162834188/
great weekend, again
stuff that was rayt good - cath and phil tyler, wooden shjips, bogulta (these were the drum/guitar duo from friday night, yeah? fucking great!), asva (gimme my hearing back ya cunts), orthodox (sabbath!), transitional, earth, harvey milk, standing next to keiji haino as he ate his tea ....
stuff that was a load of shite - thrones, noxagt, guapo, the courtesy group (although their japanese guitarist was fun when i helped him chase a napkin down the street), efterklang (note that all this 'shite' was happening on saturday when i was failing miserably to shake off an evil red wine hangover) ....
Noxagt were awesome!
I liked Courtesy Group too. I agree about Thrones, he was disappointing, but his awesome turn in HARVEY MOTHERFUCKING MILK totally absolved him.
^
pretty much this
i really couldn't get into the noxagt set
but like i say, i was feeling murky and being hemmed in by sweaty beasts in the factory stage didn't help my enjoyment levels. i was really looking forward to them n'all. agree about the harvey milk absolution - they were fucking immense.
Oxbow and Kikuri
pretty much made the weekend for me.