overlap

Free gigs are bit of a lottery at the best of times. Free gigs in the outdoors in a summer characterised by floods and the sort of weekly rainfall to quench entire deserts are even more so. I went off earlyish in the afternon to make sure I caught some of Beth Rowley. A ten minute run through Nobody's Fault But Mine is perhaps not the snappiest way to make plenty of momentum in the early part of a set, but it does showcase her voice well. I stayed through Little Dreamer, and headed off during So Sublime - that's the other thing about city centre free gigs, the draw of the shops! With a shopping bag full of stuff I headed back to dump it in the car and go back over to the gig, but before I got to the car, it started raining again. And rained, and rained some more, so I took the easy option of going home while the next couple of bands were on, to pick up a better coat and some essential supplies... Where the gig and fairground area was enclosed by railings and awash with hi-vis clad stewards, part of their function was to prevent people smuggling in alcohol. Given alcohol of many kinds was on sale, it seemed rather a pointless exercise in any case. I found a suitable spot to stand just before Glasvegas came on, and despite the horrific name they were the one band I'd have gone in to see regardless. Ever since I heard It's My Own Cheating Heart That Makes Me Cry, I've been mesmerised by its rolling dynamism, so I was hoping to be blown away but prepared for disappointment. They only did thirty minutes of a slated fifty minute set, and maybe that one song obliterates everything else, because it ended up being a tiny bit flat when it could have been greater, but I'll try and catch them doing their own show soon. Young Knives are the sort of band I'd be really pleased to find a bullied child of mine grew up to be in. They evoke that kind of classroom outsider image, obviously knowingly, but I particularly like their humour and the fact they seem to be having their own little world of fun on stage where the audience are invited too, as opposed to just beating the audience into submission. Turn Tail is the song that's still in my mind. The rain mostly held off, giving us a light sprinkling for a few minutes now and then, but that brings us back to the particular source of loveliness I'd brought in with me through the hi-vis cordon. Plenty of people were furtively swigging booze from hip flasks and other receptacles, but there's very little better to do in early August than watch a band perform in light rain while pulling your coat a little tighter and sipping hot chocolate from the flask in your pocket. Rock n roll crazee, oh yes! I last saw Ash a few years ago, and I tend to think of them as a great singles band. Burn Baby Burn is a corker, Girl From Mars the crowd-pleaser towards the end of the set, and Oh Yeah, Shining Light, Kung Fu and some other stuff I don't know pop up in between. Worth the seeing, but I'm probably not inclined to travel a long way to see them again soon. My best action picture of Tim Wheeler of Ash - not bad from the distance. More, inevitably... * Angel Interceptor is probably my favourite Ash song, and they didn't play it. Bah!

Labels: Ash, Beth Rowley, gigs, Glasvegas, Young Knives