Sunday 14 July 2013

Mouth of Tyne Festival 2013

The Stage and some ruins
I'm writing this suffering from heat exhaustion and possibly a little sunstroke despite being well covered in the Priory. Details of the progam can be found here. Anyway this year they decided once in you couldnt come back out , so we'd missed ICENI , incidentally named after a tribe in Britannia (or Britain) who inhabited an area corresponding roughly to the modern-day county of Norfolk from the 1st century BC to the 1st century AD.

We heard The Longsands from outside the Priory and the did sound excellent. I'll be checking them out but follow the link to their site where you can cop a listen.

Next up were Kitten and the Hip from Brighton who again sounded fine , and at this point we went into the impressive confines of the Priory and Castle.  Again check out their web site . Mpouth of Tyne Festivals sledom have duff bands on (last one I think was Dean Friedman).

Aswad we next up and the crowd enjoyed them , though I find their songs a little bland , though the finishing pair of "Don't Turn Around" and "Shine" were strong. Official site here.

The  Wonder Stuff  did not disappoint with a mixture of hits and album tracks , "Size Of A Cow" , "Don't Let Me Down" , "Red Berry Joy Town" , "Unbearable" and more , Miles Hunt and crew were most excellent.  Official site here.

Anyway it was another great day , and am looking forward to next years. I may expand with this with a couple of Wonder Stuff videos.

Some Ruins and The Bars and Hog Roast

Smokin' Wigs and Star Trek Dresses


Last night the Star Spangled Chestwigs had a Bar-B-Q at The Doll at The Black Bull , and it was scorching . The band were on top form and the crowd entered into the summer feel though is was red hot in there. Shev , Adas , Bill & Paul gave two storming sets - with great reaction to "Rivers of Babylon" and "Take Me Home Country Roads" by people who had forgotten or not heard the Chestwigs take on them.

Drinking on the Ceiling
Thanks to Maz and Shev the place is a fantastic venue , and was impressed by the table and chaires on the ceiling and the great selection of drinks and remarkably efficient , friendly and tattooed bar staff.

Lot's of great T-Shirts , hair cuts and tattoos on show as well and the crowd were brilliant





 
Shev is out of his tree!
The gig went by like a blur some great dancing , running about , plastic palm trees , Shev's Kilt celebrating his love of all thing celtic !! There was also a young lady with an excellent cock-a-too hair style and Dead Kennedy's jacket on who delivered a heartfelt thank you to all the hard work Maz and Shev have put into the the place






Dixie in her Star Trek Dress
 Special mention has to go to my friend Dixie Foster's Star Trek dress and handbag (the dress all her own work) which had lot's of people stopping to take photographs.



All in all another fantastic Chestwigs gig and looking forward to the next one !



Tuesday 2 July 2013

Slacktonbury - 2014

Strange Bruise
Slack Babbath
Just a short write up and an excuse to extol the virtues of Dave and Julie Campbell in putting on another fine sunday session at the Schooner in Gateshead.

We had some fine rock on vinyl from one of the guest DJs with stuff like The Stones Midnight Rambler and ZZ Tops La Grange spilling out from the speakers , and amazingly even the very young kids were loving it all. Dave sorted "Ratty's" barbecue and whilst I fancied something to eat the burgers and portions were too big for me.

By the way if you come down to the Schooner the food is awesome.

Anyway first up were Strange Bruise opening with "Strange Brew" , then I captured them doing an excellent rendition of "White Room". The crowd appreciated them and it's great to have a Cream tribute band in the area.  Certainly worth catching and a great warm up for the headliners.


I'm showing my ignorance here , I dont know what Slack Babbath opened with but Ozzy Ouseburn made a great entrance , the best I've seen since Big Ray joined The Hipthrusters on Newcastle's Blue Carpet. Anyway you can watch it on the first video below:


I managed to also record Symptom of The Universe and the band played many favourites including Snowblind, Iron Man (introduced as Iron Bloke) and Paranoid. The sound quality was excellent and it was a truly brilliant afternoon for all. Looking forward to more but this was a truly memorable occasion