Tag: Idlewild

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 41 New Continental – Part 2

Within the New Continental Arts and Events space the owners purchased a new PA and created a small reception area with its own bar and it doubles as the ticket checking area before entry into the gig room which has a capacity of around 250. The driving force behind the booking of the music acts was a local chap called Rico, and they have held a broad spectrum of events including World and Jazz bands and cinema showings.  

My first visit was at an all-day event on a swelteringly hot day on the May Bank Holiday weekend in 2011. Between bands we gravitated outside into the sunshine before returning inside for more tunes. First up was Seamus McCloughlin, a local singer/songwriter who has subsequently become a member of an alternative rock band called The Capital. Next up was Preston band Dirty Swamp led by Mark Whiteside, who is also the driving force behind Evil Blizzard.

They were followed by Australian born Viv Albertine, who was a guitarist in the legendary Slits from 1977 to 1982. She dropped out for a live scene for a long time before reappearing and was promoting her sole studio album ‘The Vermillion Border’ released the following year prior to her penning two autobiographies of her life. She cut a very enigmatic presence.

Viv Albertine. Image Credit flickriver.com

The headliners were the prolific Wave Pictures from London. They have a quirky quintessential English sound complemented by David Tattersall’s wavering vocals and are a staple play on Marc Reilly’s 6 Music show. I recall them referencing the ongoing World Snooker final ongoing at that stage between John Higgins and Judd Trump.  I walked home through the park with a spring in my step after an entertaining afternoon and the realisation of the birth of thankfully another commendable venue in Preston. 

My next appearance was a bonus one as it was on the Sunday where we have just returned from Wickerman Festival 2011 and decided for some inexplicable reason to drag our tired bods out to a gig. We initially caught a Sheffield Steam Punk band in the Dog and Partridge before sallying down to the Conty.

The first act was Best Friends Forever, a wonky bedroom sounding lo-fi band but not without charm and they are coincidentally not unlike the recently mentioned Wave Pictures.

The headliners were Let’s Wrestle, a three-piece band from London. They were promoting their second album ‘Nursing Home’ which was produced by Steve Albini of Big Black fame. They subsequently took a hiatus and disbanded in 2015. They had a plethora of influences in their sound, however for the best descriptor I would have to defer to a BBC’s Collective quote which memorably coined them as ‘the accidental 4am lovechild of eight bottles of £2.99 merlot and a wheelbarrow full of Cutter’s Choice’. This is arguably the best quote I have read since early Idlewild were described as ‘the sound of a flight of stairs falling down a flight of stairs’!    

The band were an engaging presence, but we understandably flagged towards the end of the set as the weekend’s festivities caught up with us and a taxi was called to curtail the evening.

At the tail end of 2012 we went to see the old punk band Eddie and The Hot Rods whose constant member throughout their existence was Barrie Masters prior to his death in 2019. Their famous top ten hit ‘Do Anything You Wanna Do’ released in 1977 still stands up to this day, but their set was a tad limp. They were supported on the night by Dirty Swamp.

In November 2011 there was an unusual event which piqued my interest. They showed a screening of the ‘Anyone Can Play Guitar’, a Jon Spira documentary narrated by Stewart Lee about the Oxford music scene covering the period from 1978 to 2007. The film name was derived from a Radiohead track, and they were naturally a key reference point alongside Oxford counterparts Supergrass. 

Alongside the successes, it also concentrated on other bands who didn’t quite make it, one such band was the Candyskins, who were about at the inception of Britpop. They had limited success but must have driven over a black cat at some stage because they could not have encountered worse luck, including legal disputes over royalties and record companies going bankrupt at inopportune moments. I am just listening to some of their back catalogue as I type this and I am hearing strong shades of Boo Radleys in their sound, which is never a bad thing in my book!

The Candyskins. Image Credit alchetron.com

Another band referenced was one of the shoegaze forerunners Ride and their guitarist Mark Gardener was in residence and after a Q&A performed a short acoustic set. That was followed by a decent set by another Oxford band Rock of Travolta who sat in the instrumental post-rock genre.