Tag: Idles

Electric Fields Festival – Part 2

This week I shall continue the tale of our attendance at the 2018 Electric Fields Festival in Drumnlarig Castle in Dumfries and Galloway. It was a three-day event, but we decided to head up there for Days 2 and 3 which were the Friday and the Saturday thereby missing Orielles, Ride and James amongst others on the Thursday’s roster.

I now had an extra hour on my journey with the initial leg from Manchester to Preston where I picked up Jez Catlow and Uncle George en route. We then decamped at the Booths Café in Fulwood and nursed a cappuccino whilst awaiting John Dewhurst finishing work. We all then dived into John’s transit van with the additions of his brother’s Paul and Tony who were also in attendance.

Now, fate and timing had dealt us a kind hand due to the fact that Paul’s sister-in-law Bernie had recently opened up a bed and breakfast in Dumfries located centrally near the train station. She generously offered to provide lodgings and fed and watered us for the weekend, a lovely lady she was!   

The Electric Fields ‘Red Stripe’ posse. Image Credit Tony Dewhurst.

On arrival, we had a skelp around some of the town’s hostelries before jumping into a cab down to the festival entrance point. We slid down the hill and it was a green tinged and pretty location, and the weather was thankfully behaving itself.

They had pronounced themselves as being encompassed within the boutique festival category, and the set up reminded me of the Connect Festival I attended at Inverary Castle back in 2007. They also had the huge bonus of a real ale tent which provided a welcome alternative to the frothy Tennents Lager!

It was quite a small site, and the acts played across two areas, the Main Stage and BBC Introducing Stage. I have struggled to find a day bill listing so am going to rely on my memory as to who I think played each day.

First up were Out Lines who are on Mogwai’s Rock Action label and are a collaboration of Kathryn Joseph, producer Marcus Mackay and Twilight Sad’s James Graham and they had recorded their one and only album ‘Conflats’ the year before.

There was then some psych-pop from Hallo Maud, MC rapping from Lady Leshurr, indie rock from Soccer Mommy and ex Coventry University students Feet, hip hop from Edinburgh’s Young Fathers and a perennial festival appearance from The Coral.

I witnessed a decent country folk set from Tracyanne & Danny who were a collaborative project consisting of Tracyanne Campbell from Camera Obscura and Danny Coughlan from Crybaby. There was a fun performance from the old troubadours Idlewild who I was witnessing for the seventh time and then Teenage Fanclub who fitted into the day like your old Arran sweater!

The most enjoyable set of the day was from Public Service Broadcasting. They were in fine form and the best I have seen them, and they had just recently expanded their sound to include sporadic blasts of joyous brass which only enhanced the sonics of their performance. There were then some predictable taxi shenanigans, but we eventually made it back to our digs.   

On the Saturday we attended a couple of pubs on the other side of the river to make it easier for a tax pick up. In one hostelry there were a posse of disgruntled Queen of the South fans, Dumfries football team, who had left the nearby ground in disgust when they were 4-0 down to Ayr at half time!

Idles on stage. Image Credit www.pinterest.com

I saw a portion of the Horrors set and some rock/dance crossover sounds from Makeness which consists of a UK based producer called Kyle Molleson. The latter has recently had his biggest tour so far with a support slot with Unknown Mortal Orchestra. I also caught a noisy performance from Brighton band Black Honey and a couple of tracks from Noel Gallagher & the High Flying Birds on the Main Stage.  

My favourite three acts of the day were on the BBC Introducing Stage with first up being Baxter Dury. He has chiselled out of a music career for himself and moved away from being famous just for the fact that he was Ian’s son. Next on were Sunflower Bean, a three-piece from New York who I thoroughly enjoyed with their swirly sounds, reminding me of Fleetwood Mac and The Orielles.

 The undeniable highlight was Idles who are a proper throwback band with their socially conscious ethos, passion and glorious intensity. They pour everything into each performance and must be absolutely exhausted afterwards. The only downside was that we had already booked a cab for a specific time which resulted in only catching two thirds of their show, and I never yet seen them again!  

The New Bazaar. Image Credit cdlh.co.uk

The day’s music wasn’t finished though as when we landed back in town, we headed to Dumfries New Bazaar. The pub’s main claim to fame was that it was the location of the formation of the aforementioned Queen of the South and there is a plaque to commemorate that first formal meeting on 26th March 1919. On the night we saw a local band called Nearly Not Guilty which wrapped up nicely the weekend’s entertainment.

Preston Venue 60 The Ferret – Part 1

The Preston Ferret has been a jewel in the crown for catching live music in the city for many years. It is situated on Fylde Road opposite the University of Central Lancashire Student Union building and for around a decade was a sister act to 53 Degrees when that venue was located across the road.

It opened originally as the Mad Ferret in 2006 by taking over the site of Preston’s first steam powered cotton mill, owned by local businessman John Horrocks way back in 1794. The first owner Frazer Boon introduced live music to take place on most nights including a Tuesday open mic session and the busy schedule of over 200 gigs a year, many of them free of charge, remains to this day. In 2013, a new landlord took over and removed the ‘Mad’ from the name and it simply became the Ferret.

The old Horrocks Mills Centenary building located on New Hall Lane. Image Credit flickr.

It survived the troubling Covid years by staging sit down safe distance gigs. Despite that its very existence was thrown in considerable doubt when it was unexpectedly put up for sale in 2022, however a crowd funding initiative was launched and the sale price of £795k was raised to save the pub. I for one was ecstatic at that news as these small venues remain essential to the lifeblood of the music industry, especially in regularly bypassed backwaters like Preston.  

It is an archetypal grungy and extremely noisy venue and that just makes me revel in it even more, and it was a handy 15-minute walk from where I lived at that stage. For many years, it was my most attended venue as I have visited there 42 times for live music, many other times just for a beer with no music witnessed. That total has just recently been matched by Academy 2 in Manchester, so therefore as of today (01/03/2024) it remains my joint most attended ever venue. Many times, when visiting there I have run into other Preston musos, Rachael Beattie and Nick Godkin spring to mind here.

The Mad Ferret days. Image Credit Ents 24.

Idles and the Orielles have graced the stage there, but I will relay two other tales in relation to the venue. In 2011, the promoter booked in a young Ed Sheeran who in between the announcement and the actual gig released his debut single ‘A Team’ which flew up to No 5 in the charts. Now, I do not personally understand the appeal of Mr Sheeran, but fair play to the lad he honoured the date and crashed at the one of the audience’s house and played them a personal set there.

My biggest missed opportunity was Jason Lytle who played shortly after the breakup of his band Grandaddy, of whom who I am a huge fan. For some inexplicable reason I did not attend and sincerely hope I was doing something very worthwhile instead!  

Jason Lytle cogitating on a new tune. Image Credit YouTube.

My first attendance at the venue was in August 2007, a week before I travelled northwards for my one visit to the excellent Connect Festival at Inverary Castle. Uncle George and I met Gill after a PNE match and visited the noodle bar that was located at the Ringway end of Ormskirk Road where I mentioned a gig at the Ferret I had read about the day before in the Lancashire Evening Post.

Thus, we wandered down to investigate and the band in question was Slippage from Seattle from whom the driving force was Alison Maryatt who has also been in Rocket Surgery and recorded as Allison in Wonderland. They were in the grunge vein and were excellent though I have found that sourcing any of the material today from any of those acts is rather challenging as there are only very sparse outputs available. 

Around a year later I saw a band called Pencil In who supported the headliners Ivan Campo. The main act are a folk trio who formed in 2006 when they met at the University of Central Lancashire. They have had several 6 music sessions and their single ‘The Great Procrastinator’ was featured in the soundtrack of the TV series Skins. 

In 2010, I witnessed Victorian Dad, an upbeat folky band from Wigan whose driving force is David Rybka. They supported singer songwriter Daisy Chapman who reminded me of Jonie Mitchell. She has been an on/off member of prog band Crippled Black Phoenix and has toured with Howie Gelb of Giant Sand, who interestingly have just announced their first British tour for 9 years.