Tag: Jesus and Mary Chain

Electric Fields Festival – Part 1

Previous subscribers to this blog will know that I was a major fan of the Wickerman Festival and had great fun at the 14 annual shindigs that were held. Since the last gathering in 2015, our gig crew have been hunting for a comparable event and the nearest we have achieved since was the Electric Fields Festival we attended in September 2018. With that historical context I thought this would be appropriate content for my 300th blog and as the words flowed it resulted in additionally being my 301st!

The festival slowly built from an initial friend gathering into a fully fledged event in 2016 and the chosen location was Drumnlarig Castle in Thornhill, Dumfries and Galloway, about a 90-minute drive from Glasgow, Edinburgh and Carlisle. It utilised the bonny grounds of the category A listed castle which was built in the late 16th century which carried the name of the ‘Pink Palace’ due to the finely hewed glinting red sandstone exterior.    

Drumnlarig Castle. Image Credit sobt.co.uk

It is apparently very grand and ornate on the interior with the small matter of its 120 rooms, 4 towers and 17 turrets. It also contains the Buccleuch Collection which houses a rare Rembrandt of ‘An Old Woman Reading’ and renowned 17th century French furniture and silver. They did also have a Leonardo Da Vinci painting that was stolen in 2003 but recovered in 2007 from an address in Glasgow.

There is also an old roman fort in the Southeast corner of the grounds which was featured in the Time Team programme, and it has been used as a filming location for the TV series Outlander. The estate is rarely opened to the public, but they did provide permission for the festival to be held there between 2016 and 2018.

The nearest conurbation to the site is the sleepy village of Thornhill with a vast population of around 1500 inhabitants which lies on the edge of the River Nith. It contains a couple of pubs and the seemingly obligatory Chinese takeaway alongside a small cottage hospital.

Famous ‘Thornhillians’ include the explorer Joseph Thomson who has the eminent Thomson’s gazelle named after him, which are also sometimes referred to as a ‘tommie’. Another is ex-professional golfer Andrew Coltart who is now a respected commentator on Sky Sports.

A ‘Tommie’. Image Credit animalcorner.org

Since 2012 the Thornhill Music Festival has been staged there, with the original event being instigated by the long-standing Scottish blues combo The Lewis Hamilton Band (not the Formula 1 driver!). That particular band are still active and are regularly on the road.

The festival is still on the roster and the 2025 version took place on the May Day Bank Holiday at the Farmer Arms in the village. One of the headliners was The Cherry Pinks who I saw in 2024 when they played the Wickerman Fringe event. The pub coincidentally won the Dumfries and Stewarty CAMRA branch pub of the year for 2025.  

Thornhill Music Festival flyer. Image Credit facebook.com

After three successful years in Drumnlarig, Electric Fields organisers made the ill-fated decision to relocate to SWG3 in Glasgow due to logistical challenges and increasing costs. However then due to complaints from attendees and ticketing issues, the festival folded, and the 2019 version never took place, and it has never been rebooted.

I could not attend the 2017 carnival as we were in the process of relocating to Manchester that very weekend. Nevertheless, in my absence the boys headed up there to make a debut appearance with Jesus and Mary Chain, Car Seat Headrest and Pins amongst others on the bill.

They lodged at ‘Dewhurst Towers’ in Kirkcudbright and utilised the old Wickerman nemesis of Mr Allen’s taxis for the commute to and from the site. The one downside they referenced was that it was a long way to travel as it was forty miles and over an hour each leg of the journey.   

I ensured there were no ‘life events’ disbarring me making a pilgrimage up to the 2018 gathering. Travel lessons were learnt from the previous year and lodgings were sought in the vibrant town of Dumfries.   

In 1306, Greyfriars Kirk in Dumfries was the location of Robert the Bruce, the future King of Scots, slaying his rival John Comyn III of Badenoch and during World War II the Norwegian armed forces in exile brigade was based there. Loreburn Hall, known locally as The Drill Hall has held concerts from Big Country, The Proclaimers and Black Sabbath.

Famous ‘Doonhamers’ include in their ranks Henry Duncan, founder of the world’s first commercial savings bank, J.M Barrie, author of Peter Pan, John Lawrie, Private Fraser in Dad’s Army, musicians Ray Wilson, once lead singer of Genesis and Calvin Harris. The final ex-resident is Kirsty Wark, the excellent broadcaster who undertook the heartbreaking interview of my favourite author Iain Banks shortly before his premature passing.

Manchester Venue 156-Peer Hat

In a previous blog I reviewed AATMA, a venue which is literally buried away on an upper floor in a building off Faraday Street behind Stevenson Square in the Northern Quarter. Situated to the ground level and the street side of that very same building is Manchester Peer Hat.  

The pub first appeared into the world in 2017 run by a couple of self-proclaimed unsuccessful musician brothers named Mike and Nick Kenyon. They were both originally in the band Politburo who were likened to Dead Kennedys and played many gigs at the now defunct Roadhouse and Hard Rock Café venues when they were in their pomp. Another co-owner is Dom who also runs the aforementioned AATMA.

Politburo. Image Credit Louder Than War

The hostelry is a bohemian haunt and is a proper throwback to a student style pub back in the day in that it is a welcome and hospitable place and has a fine varied jukebox. The house motto is ‘Omnio sub petasum’, and for those whose Latin is rusty or non-existent like moi, that translates as ‘Everything under the hat’.

Like many low budget places, they really struggled through Covid but thankfully survived that challenging period. They have hosted some unique events, including a HAUNT Manchester ‘Black Christmas’ event and the Manchester Folk Horror Festival in 2018 and 2019. They have also had art exhibitions and in 2018 one included a feature from the Manchester Gothic Arts Group (M:GAG), thankfully not MAGA!

In the middle of the ground floor space, some vertiginous steps take you down to the music venue with a cosy capacity of 120. I do have a fondness for cellar venues and this one is a belter and they also seem to always have good sonic sound down there, all of that resulting in it being worthy of inclusion in my Top 10 Manchester favourite venues.   

The Peer Hat. manchestersfinest.com

They have fairly regular gigs, and they achieved a coup with their first ever event being none other than Thurston Moore, but they had no functioning bar at that stage, so they served him beer out of a bucket of ice! I have attended there six times in total, the majority of these being part of multi venue wristband events such as Dot to Dot or Carefully Planned Festival. On my first visit there as part of the Off the Record Festival in November 2017 I saw a local artist called Billy Bee.

Six months later the band on stage was Jade Assembly, a rock band from Bolton who formed in 2008. They are proud Boltonians and are closely linked to the local football club with songs such as ‘Our Town’ and ‘Burnden Aces’. Their music is still played over the tannoy at Bolton Wanderers matches and they signed their first record deal on the pitch at half time during one of the matches.

The band had a fervent following nicknamed the ‘Jade Army’. After a slew of singles, they released their debut album ‘One Last Time’ in 2023 which coincided with them calling it a day after fifteen years and they appropriately played their last ever two gigs at the local venue, The Ramp in Horwich. 

My next appearance was in November 2018 where we caught an early set from Red Rum Club, who had only formed a couple of years earlier and was also a year before they released their debut album ‘Matador’. They have gradually risen in profile since with their fourth LP ‘Western Approaches’ in 2024 reaching number 8 in the UK charts.

They hail from Bootle in Merseyside and cite their hometown as an influence on their sound with the seafaring, industrial aspect of the area. On the night their El Mariachi style songs were excellent and thoroughly enjoyable, and the thunderous sound combining with a sweaty venue created a communal treat.

Red Rum Club (twice!). Image Credit liverpoolecho.co.uk   

I visited again in May 2019 where I saw Women You Stole, a Manchester band driven by lead singer Hayley Faye. I would class them in the garage rock vein, and they released a fine debut single ‘Shake’ around this time but sadly don’t appear to be still active. They were supported by post-punkers Document who named themselves after the stellar REM album of that name.  

A couple of months later was my only visit there to see a standalone gig. The band on show was my one time thus far watching the excellent Helicon. The band derive from Jesus and Mary Chain East Kilbride territory and were initially formed by brothers John-Paul and Gary Hughes. Their self-titled album was recorded in 2017 at Mogwai’s Castle of Doom Studio on Glasgow and their 2023 album ‘God Intentions’ won the prize of ‘Psych Lovers’ Album of the Year’.  They were superb and the intimate venue played to their strengths.

My most recent visit in April 2022 was to see Priceless Bodies who are now a Manchester based lo-fi duo made up of twin sisters Viv & Bianca Pencz. Their name was drawn from a line by 19th century French poet Rimbaud and their musical influences derived from being disgruntled teens in Vancouver, Canada which was known locally at the time as ‘No Fun City’!