Summertyne 2009

The Summer Festivals are coming thick and fast and the Tyneside Americana Festival under the Summertyne banner is another great one.This year must be the best one yet with a superb turn out and an incredible line up. Some goigs are paid and some are free and it's a combination of live acts and films shown both inside and outside of the Sage.

Because of the clashes , the fact that there was hardly an inch of free space outside , the hot sun and all that , I ended up catching just a couple of the acts .

Two Fingers of Firewater and Eliza Gilkyson produced some excellent country sounds , but unfortunately I missed out on the headlining Hot Club of Cowtown , due a major sun induced headache.

However Ryan Shaw was a major revelation , the band starting with a reasonable funk / soul instrumental workout , before Ryan appeared with a stunning rendition of the Jimmy Cliff song "Many Rivers To Cross" , this was followed by one of their own song featuring gorgeous backing vocals from the band. If you want to download the album you can download it here. Here's them in 2006 doing "We Got Love":




Had to cut the gig short to catch Baby Gramps inside for his fourth set of the day!! I've seen Baby Gramps before and theres a lot of debate as to whether he's real or animatronic!!. Let me put you right, the guy is a total gentleman as I found out talking to him after the gig . The gig itself featured a new pirate song , and a hell of a lot of audience participation. A Baby Gramps gig is an experience you will never forget, this him with the Akron Family doing "Cape Cod Girls" on Letterman:



Bands Featured :

Memory of a Free Festival - MOTFEST Sunday 2009

The Mouth of Tyne Festival has been going for a number of years now (see the website here)and still maintains the essence of a decent free festival , no wristbands , no fenced off areas, decent music and you can get a decent drink either at the Iron Horse Saloon in the Priory on at one of the many pubs along Front Street such as Hugo's and The Turks.

The rain kept off and early in the afternoon with visited the trad jazz stage. I'm not really a fan of this sort of music but the bands fit the event and it's enjoyable to lie on the grass, drink beer , and soak in the atmosphere. We caught the Hot Five Jazzmakers from Canada and the Yerba Buena Jazz Band from Switzerland , both were excellent. Any bands available are on the carousel at the bottom of this post.

Next up were the excellent Soznak in Front Street . They should have been on the main stage. If you've never heard them think Baghdaddies with African instead of Middle Eastern influences. And the video is the rather wonderful "Weekily":


Unfortunately , we had to leave them early to see the wonderful Teddy Thompson who even covered Abba's Super Trouper , has the most amazing voice and held the crowd spellbound for an hour. The guy is a genius , just like his dad.

Amazingly the headliners Dodgy were even better , being greeted by bright sunshine and steaming through hits and album tracks delighting the crowd. Someone got "Staying Out For The Summer / Good Vibrations" here:


The problem was that the Baghdaddies were in South Shields when Dodgy were on so here's them doing "Not Drowning But Raving":



Here's some stuff from the afformentioned bands on Amazon: