Tag: Cast

Lancaster Venues 11 to 13

When attending a gig at Lancaster Library earlier this year we made our first visit to the new Tite and Locke bar on the station platform and noted a poster outlining the upcoming 13th edition of the Lancaster Music festival which piqued our interest. Thus, it came to pass on 14/10/23 that a group of seven made our debut appearance at the event.

It is an excellent well attended free festival taking place over three days over the weekend (Friday through to Sunday). It is a very wide ranging encompassing over 50 venues across the city including events within schools, musuems, theatres, cinemas, busking stops and also in a novel addition, even gigs taking place on a floating mobile stage on a barge on Lancaster Canal! The local legends Lovely Eggs headlined the festival on the Sunday night.

After an initial meeting and whistle wetting in the Tite and Locke at 1pm, we left the station and headed down to the nearby historic Lancaster Castle which I had not visited for a very long time. There was a decent crowd already gathered at this early hour and there were a suite of merchandise and food and drink stalls scattered around and there were festival programmes on sale.

Lancaster Castle. Image Credit melodromestage.co.uk

They had also set up a small outdoor stage within the castle grounds embossed in medieval ‘Game of Thrones’ style and named it the Melodrome Stage and a band called 2nd Leg were performing. They were a vibrant seven-piece combo complete with fiddles, harps and mandolins performing Irish and Scottish jigs and they had evolved from the Irish dance group Absolutely Legless. 

Nearby and standing as a gateway to Castle Hill is the Lancaster Storey Gardens Craic Inn where a stage had been set up in the gardens adjoining the building. The Grade II listed Storey building was constructed in 1887 and funded by local philanthropist Thomas Storey. It was built to commemorate Queen Victoria’s Golden Jubilee and was designed as a creative hub and covers diverse events such as business conferences, films, music and theatrical recitals.

Lancaster Storey building. Image Credit Visit Lancashire

On the outdoor stage we saw the Dundee folk singer Rhuari Campbell play. After playing in many other bands for a few years he was now heading out as a solo artist. There were also bands playing in the grand indoor building setting, but we unfortunately landed between the scheduled sets, so it didn’t allow me to tick this off as visited venue, at least not yet!  

A further short walk away and you arrived at China Street and the established rock venue in town The Pub. The establishment has been around for many years, and I recall visiting as far back as the late 1990’s but had never yet encountered a live act there. On the day they were rotating bands across two stages with Space set up as the headliners.

We landed at Lancaster The Pub Outdoor Stage set up in the beer garden and we shuffled out to there after purchasing an aperitif from the indoor bar. It was extremely busy and reputedly the most well attended venue on the day. On stage were a noisy rock band from Manchester called Luna Market and these kids could play. They were covering 1970’s standards and had a powerful female lead singer and an excellent guitarist, though I think he had played one too many games of ‘Guitar Legend’.

The Pub. Image Credit flickr.com

Whilst I stood there, I had a moment of clarity as I was thinking what more can there be in the world than watching a commendable rock band in an outside space at 3pm on a Saturday afternoon with a cold beer in hand and in attendance with good friends and like-minded punters, sounds like my kind of heaven!   

Wickerman Festivals 10 and 11

In 2011, I was astonished to realise that we had reached the 10th anniversary edition of the Wickerman Festival, because there was initial doubt if it would survive past the first event.

There were the usual old timers on that year’s bill including Echo and the Bunnymen, The Damned, Pigeon Detectives, James, King Kurt, and the Coral. There were two enjoyable ska punk bands, Bombskare form Edinburgh and Spunge from Tewkesbury, and we witnessed Department S playing their famous number ‘Is Vic There?’ track released way back in 1980.

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Department S ‘Is Vic There?’ album cover. Image Credit Discogs.

Also in residence were The Hoosiers, The Moonzie Allstars, The Sundancer, Loose Kites, Rock System, The Hostiles, Katy Carr, Modhan, Discopolis and Homework. There was some ear shattering metal from Glasgow’s Desalvo, dreamy indie from French Wives and 60’s infused sounds from the Noisettes.   

Also playing were Endor Gun, Twin Atlantic, Bioorchestra, The Frues, The Capitols and Jack Townes. The highlight that particular year was a very fine engaging set from Feeder.

I recall there was an article in the local paper, the Dumfries and Galloway Gazette at the time asking for ever present attendees over the last decade, we didn’t put our names forward but the four of us must have been part of a very select crew in that particular club.

Other members of that exclusive crew were a trio of lads who we spotted over the years in various tents and in the Kirkcudbright pubs and we begin chatting with them and gleaned that they travelled up from Mansfield and stayed at Olive’s B&B in the town. They usually travelled without tickets and purchased some on arrival however that particular year the festival for the one time only was surprisingly sold out, thus they lost their ever-present attendance.

One of the newer members of our crew approached them and mentioned Mansfield only for us to discover a huge misconception that we had been wrong all these years and they actually derived from Pontefract! However, despite that geographical anomaly they shall always be known to us as the Mansfield boys!

Wickerman 11 had Skerryvore, Bis, Cast, Levellers, The Cats, The Razorbills, Moon Hey, Parrot, Fat Goth and Anderson McGinty Webster Ward and Fisher on the bill. The daddies of Wickerman, Castle Douglas’s pipe band the Dangleberries made an appearance after 5 years away with Dougie and Wee Dougie still in their extensive line up.

The Sharks, a rock band formed by ex-Free bassist in 1972 were playing alongside the punk contingent of Peter and the Test Tube Babies, The Blockheads and Johnny Robb’s Goldblade. The most woeful act was Newton Faulkner with his faux intimacy even employing a dubious prop of a drink’s cabinet on stage. We muttered ‘ye gods’ before shaking our heads and tromping off in disgust up the Wickerman hill, though there were lots of people singing every word, so what do we know!

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Newton Faulkner! Image Credit viagogo.co.uk

Also, in residence were The Lafontaines, United Fruit, Xavia, Kassidy, Andi Neate, The Darcy Da Silva Band, Duncan Maitland, Chris Bradley, Pronghorn, Janice Graham Band, Aaron Wright, The Mirror Trap, Martin John Henry, Chris Devotion & The Expectations, and the always entertaining Bad Manners.

As ever, there was a strong contingent of Scottish bands represented including Texas, Brown Bear and the Bandits from Ayrshire, the brilliantly titled Fridge Magnets from Aberdeen, and the ever-irrepressible View from Dundee. The post burning finale set was provided by the glitzy Scissor Sisters.