Friday, June 26, 2009

19 June 2009: Southside Festival 2009 - Neuhausen ob Eck, Germany

Thursday 18th June

Arrived in Zweibrucken to beautiful sunshine and a beautiful smiley face of my friend Iris who was picking me up and driving me to Saarbrucken where I was to spend the rest of the day in her garden eating cherries straight from the tree and annoying her cat with a long/thin stick. Later the same day we had a lovely dinner at a rather picturesque local old brewery come restaurant where I was introduced to...[more]

Thursday, June 18, 2009

11 June 2009: Eastfield + Garden Gang + Paul Carter + Chris Butler - Victoria Inn, Derby, England, UK

It was much later than I had anticipated when I arrived at Derby's Victoria Inn and I was dreading missing the first artist but, a bit of good fortune for me, it was much later than anticipated when Chris Butler appeared on the stage at about 20:30 and consequently I managed to catch all of his set.

Less fortunately, Chris's set had to be cut short to fit all of the acts onto the bill. This meant that we only got four tracks. But, oh, what tracks they were.

Chris is a folk-punk-protest singer and his songs are story-telling...[more]

Thursday, June 11, 2009

29 April 2009: The Sizzling Gypsies - The Enterprise, Camden, London, England, UK

Fortunately for the 30-40 foot-tapping music loving audience in the Enterprise last night, 5 males have been drinking gallons of the stuff.

Raucous vocals, drooling riffs and boundless energy were the first impressions I got from The Sizzling Gypsies. Put these traits together with an ability to write and perform huge songs and it seems all the ingredients are in place. Granted, I’ve only known of the band for roughly 48 hours through my friend Kev who has known the members of the band for several years, but having witnessed 30 minutes of material last night it’s easy to get pretty excited....[more]