Blog: Indie Tracks: Day Two

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Apparently there was a lot of noise on the campsite overnight - several people reported being kept awake by lairiness, but for some reason i slept EXTREMELY SOUNDLY. I'd been talking about doing a GIG AROUND THE CAMPFIRE after the disco but by the time I got back to the tent i found myself UNACCOUNTABLY WEARY and indeed lay down and went STRAIGHT to sleep. It must have been all the fresh country air.

I got myself some Tomatoes On Toast for breakfast, it was a PURE VEGETABLE HIT that was much required, visited the VERY POSH toilet facilities, and then cleaned my teeth. Sometimes you forget what an UTTERLY MARVELLOUS thing it is to have Properly Clean Teeth, and I walked around for several minutes enjoying them. Mmm, cleanliness!

Then we headed off back to the festival, where there was BEER! We arrived to see A Smile And A Ribbon, who, even with very VERY strong competition, were the INDIEST BAND I saw all weekend. They're a twee sounding female fronted properly groomed indie pop band with a glockenspiel... and they're from SWEDEN. Whilst watching them I thought "Could this even BE more twee?" At almost that exact moment they produced a MELODICA.

Next I saw Friends Of The Bride - I'd just wandered in to have a look and wasn't initially pleased with what I saw: a mod-dressed band from London, swaggering. "I'm not going to like this", I thought, but OH MY WORD how wrong I was, they were INCREDIBLE. Between songs they were LOVELY, obviously having a GRATE time, and FUNNY. The songs themselves were ALL brilliantly funny, and clever, and danceable, and catchy, and UTTERLY GRATE, and the way they played them was FANTASTIC. Alongside The Bobby McGees the night before they were my FAVOURITES, and definitely my Top New Band of the weekend. HOORAH!

I'd intended to go and see Horowitz but what with the watching of Friends Of The Bride I missed half their set, but what I did see was ACE, and then it was on to the TRANE to see Mr P Green COMMANDING the carriage - by this point The Pattisons were on site and THE TIGER had also arrived, and it wasn't long before Mr and Mrs Machine turned up and we were COMPLETE. It was also around this time that I went to do my stint on the merchandising stand, which was surprisingly good fun. It was a nice place to sit and WAVE to people as they came in and out, people wandered over for chats, and all was JOLLITY. The only problem was that the people meant to RELIEVE me didn't turn up - it turns out it was a band who'd done their set and were leaving, INDEED they came to pick up their CA$H while they were supposed to be on the stand! - but I didn't really mind as it was quite relaxing and I managed to get Frankie to watch the stall while i had a WEE.

Talking of which - the only thing that could have been improved about the festival was the TOILETS. Not in the usual way of festival toilets as, what with the site and the clientele, they were amazingly clean and tidy. However, there were only 4 per gender on the whole site, so there were a lot of long queues and a lot of nervous dancing around!

Anyway, we reconvened as a group to discuss SETLISTS and then headed back to do our GIG. Things got off to a difficult start as we couldn't find the chap with the keys to the lock-up and so ended up going on a few minutes late, and doing this:

Billy Jones Is Dead

The Gay Train

My Boss Was In An Indie Band Once

Leave My Brother Alone

Do The Indie Kid

Being Happy Doesn't Make You Stupid

The Lesson Of The Smiths

Easily Impressed

Hey Hey 16K

I'd been a bit worried about this beforehand - I'd been looking forward to this weekend and this gig SO much for SO long, if it turned out rubbish I'd've been heartbroken. We often have problems with sound at Vlads gigs, when the drums get too loud and you can't hear the words, turning us into a mushy mess, and the fact we were playing in a vast tram shed filled me with fear.

I needn't have worried - it was one of THE BEST GIGS WE HAVE EVER DONE: EVER! HOORAH! Anything I say about it will sound like OVEREXCITED SHOWING OFF... but sod it, it was BLOODY ACE. I was amazed when we started and a HUGE crowd of people stood up from wherever they'd been sat round the room and STAMPEDED down to the front, HOORAY! As I said before, pretty much everyone I'd met at a gig over the last five years was at the festival, and ALL of them came to see us, along with a whole load of other people, that was LOVELY, especially when I looked around and saw people singing along with BIG GRINS. The sound was FANTASTIC - those sound guys did a GRATE job, and it was STRANGE to realise that everyone could hear ALL the words, especially when we were doing new ones. There were all sorts of BITS that I really enjoyed too - getting everyone to do the WHOO WHOOs in The Gay Train, PAGING Miss Edie Pattison when we did Leave My Brother Alone ("It's the one you like!"), seeing people do the dance in Do The Indie Kid and watching people leaping around on the bouncy castle throughout, the CHEER when we did The Lesson Of The Smiths, and the HUGE SHOUT in Easily Impressed, it was JUST BLOODY ACE.

There was MUCH talking and it all went by far far too quickly but soon it was done, even tho we did get a RIGHT PROPER encore which, AGANE, brought on a big old singalong. It was SO VERY LOVELY from start to finish, we were all absolutely stunned. As we packed away I gathered Frankie to my side so that I could point out the CROWD that had gathered round the merchansing stand - hey, it's not something we see very option! The sound guy came over and told us we were very obviously the most REHEARSED band of the weekend... which he meant nicely, but as we've not really officially practiced for about TWO YEARS i think it's probably not true!

After that there was more wandering around, more beer, and much HUGGING. Lots of people came over to say well done and HAPPINESS reigned supreme in Castle Validator. We added another TICK to the LIST of Bands Frankie Loves That He's Met Members Of, with him being slightly less dignified meeting a member of The Flatmates than he was meeting a member of The June Brides: there was squealing.

The Pattisons headed off and then the rest of us sat around on the Buffet Train, chatting to each other and various people and watching the sun go down, not really wanting to get up and go home and let this lovely weekend come to and end. We did a circuit of the site, and I made it my mission to find as many lovely people as I could, and HUG them - me missed quite a few as it didn't seem polite to barge into Wintergreens set and GRAB people, but we got quite a few, and it was a VERY happy band of Validators who left in the Tiger Mobile half an hour later.

In conclusion then, it was a lovely lovely LOVELY weekend that managed to surpass even my wildest hopes for how BRILLIANT it was going to be. Can we do it again please?

posted 30/7/2007 by MJ Hibbett

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Comments:

Tomato is a fruit not a vegetable.
posted 1/8/2007 by Francis

Who's talking about the tomato? I meant the TOAST.
posted 1/8/2007 by MJ Hibbett

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