Gig Report: The Lancashire Hot Pots

Date: Saturday 4 December 2010
Venue: Manchester Club Academy
Face Value: £12
Support Act: someone who didn't show up
Gig buddies: The Husband, Rock Goddess and Sheffield

Never heard of the Lancashire Hot Pots? Ah, you're not the only one. They were a complete mystery to me too. But since I hardly ever turn down a gig (remember, I went to see Kate Nash) I accepted the recommendation of The Rock Goddess on this one. We agreed that pre-gig food and booze were in order so we headed to Zouk where I stuffed an Arabian steak in my cake-hole. Delicious. Over to Kro Bar which is the standard pre-gig venue before I remembered that I am indeed a student and as such should be using my student card for all my friends to get cheap drinks. So... on to the venue. And the cheap booze.

The support act didn't turn up, so instead this guy entertained us. He made some remark about Australia doing badly in the cricket so I tuned out and went back to the bar for more cheap drinks. (£7 for a round of 4 drinks!!)

The Lancashire Hot Pots came on and rocked the place with their Northern folk take on modern classics. No idea what I mean? Okay think Oasis' 'Wonderwall' but make it a song about a Shop Mobility Scooter.
Can't imagine it? Well, the crowd went wild. They also rattled through popular tunes such as 'The Girl from Bargain Booze', 'Bitter, Lager, Cider, Ale, Stout' and of course 'Chippy Tea' which The Rock Goddess herself favours...

The merchandise on offer was quality to!And I LOVE a band that will hang about and sign your CDs! But soon it was time to go home. So we all piled into a black cab.At some point in the evening, Rock Goddess decided we should experience the sheer joy of waking up to the smell of fresh bread.

And we ended the night as good friends do - crashed out on the sofa listening to tunes.

Nice one, cockers.

Big Chill: More Random Than a Rubik's Cube, and less fun

OK, the title is not entirely fair. I did have fun at The Big Chill. However, I have some small issues with it this year. And I'm not alone. The backlash on the internet seems to support the feeling that a lot of the 'chill' is gone. So here's a litte walk through this year's festival....

Stage. Good size but no screens either side. Generally not a problem for the smaller acts because you can get close enough to see, but for the larger ones - not so much. Food - less variety than years past, but still enough to keep you interested for a weekend. In fact, some of it looked really tasty. Crepe anyone?
Or a coffee in the large bedouin tent on the hill?

Bars - not as many as I would expect, given you can't take any of your own booze in. This one - an open air creation was fun though.

Of course, the entertainment was pretty good. You could catch a film, horizontally while they played the soundtrack to you (yep, that's the musicians to the left of the screen.)
And everyone likes these.. such fun!

And dodgems. Always a hoot to drink drive legally.

I said random, right? Well then. Random it is. A giant scottie dog. Sure.And dance open air dance parties in the Enchanted Garden. Nice.Glowing orbs playing atmospheric music. That's plenty of random right there.

I thought for a little while that this was the most random thing. I'm still not sure why this is here.Not random enough? No? Shit, you're hard to please. How about a giant Ziggurat of Flavour? [you: What the fuck is that?]

Glad you asked.

It's a pyramid installation filled with breathable fair trade fruit that you climb internally then exit via a slide. Yeah, alrighty. No drugs involved here then. Alright, I seem to be banging on about stuff that I didn't appreciate or understand. But the festival did have some merits. As you'll remember from the Glastonbury posts, I'm a big fan of the Leave No Trace ethos. And it's a message that you can't fail to notice here.The festival is also set in the Malvern Hills, in the grounds of Eastnor Castle, which is pretty cool.

And if you get up early enough, the place is very chilled. This was breakfast on Friday morning before The Husband arrived. I've heard of getting up at sparrow's fart, but duck's trumps?

And of course, when it gets a bit much, you can grab a hammock and relax. Which I did. If for no other reason than for the photo. You're welcome.

In fact, I'll do anything for a photo. Here's the obligatory tent shot, with my festival hat.

The Husband arrived and made the festival much better. Not only did he praise me for my mad tent skillz, but he brought champagne. And pink champagne at that!

Right, so we were in a great mood for the festival and random stuff aside, we were having a great time. And then it kinda went down the proverbial long drop toilet. Incidentally, said toilets look like this:They stink pretty bad, and you can see (if you look down, I try not to) about a metric tonne of human waste in all its technicolour glory. Suddenly those crepes don't seem as appetising.

But that wasn't the worst part of this event that has been taken over by the ever-commercially focussed Festival Republic. Hell no.

The single worst turn of fate The Big Chill has taken has been to employ the humourless and ironically least chilled people on the planet to act as security. I have had less issues getting through airport security.

Not only can you not take ANY liquid in (and this includes water which was confiscated from me) but you cannot take in cameras that have a removable lens. The conditions of entry state no recording equipment. Fine. No artist wants a shaky bootleg copy of their gig for sale and I appreciate that, but seriously, a camera is not allowed when every person on that freaking site has a camera on their phone? But yes, they adamantly refused us entry on account of my husband's rather large equipment. (snigger). We protested in earnest that we genuinely weren't professional. They held firm, saying the rules are that you can't take the equipment in for professional use (we're NOT professional you knob-ends!!) and that the line was drawn at removable lenses. We complained that we read the conditions and we abided by them. Nowhere did it say anything about removable lenses. They still refused on the authority of some faceless voice at the other end of a walkie talkie. We had nowhere safe to store the equipment so they said we would have to put it in a locker.

For the next 30 minutes, we were marched by security around the site in the rain to find the lockers. And just to be a childish twat about the whole situation, I took photos.

Like I said, 30 minutes went by. We walked. And walked. It pissed it down. Eventually our security guide (seen below on the right) found the lockers. We were going to be charged £15 a day to rent one. I say were because the lockers were no bigger than a Rubik's Cube and thus couldn't fit the offending lens. The security lady who led our march (who was actually pretty nice) phoned her supervisor to get advice. I figure she was pretty sick of the situation, especially since I pointed out every person we walked past that also had a removable lens. I maintain that I was just making chit chat and not being churlish about our predicament.
And so she let us go. And then we found the whole thing very funny. But we were still pissed that we were now wet through and had lost valuable festival time.The Husband is laughing at the ridiculousness of the situation below - the security guard is on her phone.

Right, so back to the festival. What else pissed me off, royally? Ah, the bubbles. The freaking bubbles people felt the need to blow everywhere. I'm not talking about these impressive large ones (below) I'm talking about the view obscuring massess of little ones when I'm watching an act.

For some reason the many youths randomly shouted 'Alan' at the top of their lungs across the campsite. At ALL HOURS of the night. Funny the first time. Fucking irritating by the 40th.

OK, so it wasn't all shit. So to end on a high note, here's what really rocked. Firstly, the cleaner state of the camping in general compared to Glastonbury. That was pleasing. There are still pockets of students fouling up the place because they need their mums to remind them not to live like a homeless person. But whatev.
And generally the music was alright. Sure, there's not as many well known bands as Glasto, but you can find pockets of good choons, such as at the Busker Stage. And some of the random stuff was really fab. The Husband powered a living room for a short while until he worked out how pointless and tiring it really was.

And who doesn't love a lesbian wedding? They really did get married.

Of course, you can always take part in the randomness yourself. That is, if you want to get naked with several thousand others, get painted head to toe in a vibrant colour and give your time to Spencer Tunick's latest art installation....

But mostly what I liked was the space. Ah, bliss.

My favourite parts of the entire festival though without a shadow of a doubt were twofold.

1. Mr Scruff's Tent. Here you get the nicest cups of tea and hot chocolate and the yummiest cakes, bar none.

And the old-school DJ chucks out some banging tunes.

2. Cracking acts. By far the best bits were Magic Numbers in all their free flowing hair glory. These folk are ace.

And (I've saved the best to last) Paloma Faith. Best set of the weekend. I only got a few shots before those fucking bubble blowing wankers obscured my view though.
Here's hoping Big Chill returns to its former glory next year. Sadly, I'm not going to buy tickets until I'm convinced I won't get hassle on the gates for lenses or fesh water.

Pack The Wellies

Remember how festival-crazy I was from The Glastonbury experience in June? And how I bought tickets for Big Chill before I'd even unpacked my sleeping bag? Well, it's this weekend. And it though it was reportedly going to be the hottest festival of the year and promised to look something like this... ...it's forecast for rain. And fuckloads of it.

Keep calm and carry on, right?

I'll be forming the solo advance party this time (The Husband has to work) so under the influence of my poor camping skills and a couple of litres of cider, it's my task to put the tent up and sleep the night alone in a camping field with total strangers.

I'll be sure to take photos of my mad camp skillz for your amusement.

Oops, We're Doing It Again...

Say I'm crazy, say I'm nuts, but The Big Chill festival is calling.

I answered. Then I got my credit card out and bought tickets.

In 30 or so days, I'll be lying back and enjoying the vocal stylings of Paloma Faith, Newton Faulkner, Lily Allen, Mr Scruff, Morcheeba, Massive Attack and Thom Yorke - as well as many more. Though not as big as Glasto, it has a lovely vibe and I'm really looking forward to a relaxing weekend in Herefordshire.

The summer of rock continues next month!

Glastonbury, The Finale: Music and Entertainment

Alright, alright, I hear ya - get to the music already. You've parked the car, lugged your gear, pitched the tent, found your mates, got the right clothes on and opened a beer. Now you need entertainment, right?

You're in luck. Glastonbury is the global king of music festivals (sure, I say that knowing that people will bleat on about Roskilde, but this is my blog and I have comment moderation activated so years from now when aliens inherit the earth and they find this drivel, they will take what I say as gospel.)

I digress.
If you are going to try and get the very most out of Glasto, you need to plan a little. Start with the nifty gig guide they give you and circle the acts you want to see the very most. The ones you would cry a little inside if you didn't catch their set.
Make a plan to meet at times in specific places. Use the coloured flags around the stages, mobile reception can be dodgy, text can take a frigging hour to get through. It's frustrating, but there are 175,000 people all trying to text their mates about how great the music is. So, use the flags.See, it works. Accept that other people are messy. It's a bit grotty in general. Trash everywhere, no showers, you get the idea. Other people also make poor decisions (usually with flares as demonstrated below) when egged on by a crowd. Get a little distance.Sometimes you will get a cracking view...Sometimes you won't. If that happens, just close your eyes, listen, and dance a little. Or a lot.Go to stuff you may not have thought you would like. Case in point: Outdoors Man is not a-MUSEd initially...Then the boys set got really shaking......aaaaaanndd we have a new number one fan.Make sure you keep your ear to the ground for special guests, such as Kylie - oooh that foxy little minx will just turn up when you least expect it.And abandon your mates/husband if you have to, to see artists you love and have never witnessed live. But mostly, just enjoy the variety of performers who have come to entertain you.Yes, yes, the music's great, you get it. What else? Glad you asked. Here's a small selection of what I was sober enough to photograph.
A sand sculpture that they progressively stripped back to reveal the muscles and skeleton of this lady.. on Sunday they let kids in to destroy it. Such fun. Of course, after a cider-baby full of Somerset beverages, you can always get involved in a little impromptu street performance yourself. Here's me 'eating fire'. Read: burning the crap out of my tongue and dripping wax on my shoes.

I encouraged Eco Black Belt to get a henna tattoo. Yep, drunk. There is a picture somewhere of the 'tramp stamp' I acquired on my lower back. I never actually saw the tattoo itself as I am disappointingly inflexible.Believe it or not, this is the entrance to a night club in 'UnFairGround'. The aircraft is real, it's fuselage the bar area with exposed wiring and disoriented stewardesses serving drinks. And this was one of the more normal things I could make sense of.Glass sculpture, same area. It moved like a wave and was incredibly hypnotic. If you were on drugs I imagine that's an evening's entertainment right there.Impressively there was a massive 3-4 storey fire show and what can only be described as a constantly rotating acrobat on a bike thing with a massive bag of balloons that was eventually released.At this point my mind was broken and I didn't go in to this one...In fact, we were all a little broken...And that my friends is Glastonbury, 2010. A small slice. A slither. I urge you all to experience at least once in your lives. And follow the handy hints I have tried to impart. And most of all, remember the flags.....take your best mates...

...and just enjoy. Until next year..farewell!