Boo, commenting is broke so I can’t add snidey comments to Chris’s post there. I’ll just have to post my own ramblings instead. Got a couple of hours to spare til I have to go catch a plane. so, aye, Gig on the Green. I think the general consensus was that it was pish. Generally speaking. There were some good bands playing and I like it being in the town and the weather was perfect but all the general festivalness of it and the smallness just made it a bit of a disappointment. Main whine would be that the New Bands stage was hidden away, not publicised and finished hours earlier than the other stages. Oh yeah, and 90% of the new bands were rubbish too. The Silver Pill were indeed quite good, especially for their amusing mud diving, security baiting friends. I’d have liked to see RAAR as well but it was rather a lot of fun just watching them arse about backstage. Which is more than can be said for Trail of Dead: swotty Conrad Keely was sat translating French novels in the sunshine. And after making us break their fiendishly tricky guest list code to get there in the first place! They had tales of Axl Rose and Slipknot and the making of their very good new video though. Trail of Dead were ace by the way. Small kids going mental, much crowd jumping, rock styling, security guard tussling and happy upbeat songs about killing people. Who else did I see? Death Cab For Cutie were lovely and cuddly kitten emo jumper good, The Streets were kinda fun in a ‘look, it’s not a guitar band’ way but they weren’t anywhere near as good as Jason Reece seemed to think they were. Spiritualized were exactly as expected. No surprises but satisfactory despite the booming of the Prodigy seeping into the tent. And Slipknot were weak ass. Very disappointing but their crazed hyper-enthused fans almost made up for it.

Sunday was both less and more fun. The Bellrays I thought were just okay. Without her they’d be nothing and, idiotic though it sounds, I’ve never been that keen on people who can sing well. I liked the White Stripes better, doing a similar retro thing but with more pop and the kind of style branding that should have won someone an award by now. I left to see Guided By Voices only to discover they’d swapped sets with…..Leaves! So I made a hasty retreat back to the main stage. Would have liked to see the Reindeer Section but not more than seeing Jane’s Addiction who were total rawk frenzy. Perry Farrel set about proving his A+ loon credentials, wearing a huge feathered hat and prancing and posing all over the stage. They were funny as hell and preaching streams of nonsense. I got bored after that, having no wish to see Stereo MCs or Feeder and only a vague wish to see Pulp. I might have liked to see how The Strokes were getting on but then I’d have seen them live four times which is three times too many.

So, to sum up: I hate festivals but I like Trail of Dead.

Posted: 08|27|02 at 12:57 pm. Filed under: events, live reviews.
Comments and pings are currently closed.