photos, links, thoughts
Glasgow to Nottingham, longest drive of the week. What’s the sensible plan? Break it in two. What’s the not so sensible plan? Get the distances wrong when you look across a valley and go “That’ll only take 5 minutes to walk over to…”
Walking over to the Sycamore Gap in Hadrian’s Wall though, as used in Robin Hood: Prince Of Thieves as part of Sherwood.
Had to leave Conor’s early because the square was being used for re-shoots of Married Single Other for ITV. Bizarre.Headed from Leeds up to Brimham Rocks (you know the score by now: free, unusual, interesting), and then stopped at Bamburgh Castle on Welli’s recommendation as well. Bit odd driving past Torness Nuclear Power Station and realising there’s a caravanning and camping site opposite. Up the east coast, and over to Glasgow for the gig at the 13th Note. Which was a good gig and a good venue, but where I completely neglected to do anything other than drink soft drinks and wander around outside instead of getting my camera out.
Late night eating curry and chatting at Sam’s, so it was a late start off to Leeds for the gig at A Nation Of Shopkeepers with Mob Rules. Nice place really. Also, awesome kitten.
I’ve just fucking realised – I never got my fucking chips at A Nation Of Shopkeepers. Place is fucking shit. Conor’s food was some tasty tofu, but fuck… That’s some chips I won’t see again. Bastards.
Stayed in Cardiff with T, K and their cats after the Newport gig. Lovely people, and made a move earlyish to stop at Big Pit on the way to Birmingham. Again, free thing, pretty unique, recommend it for bands. Then up to the Birmingham gig, with The Horror, The Shitty Limits and Big City Plan. Awesome curry at Sam’s after.
Stopped off at Avebury stone circle on the way from Wallingford to Newport. Heartily recommend it for bands on tour compared to Stonehenge. Free, you can get up to the stones, and it’s less commercialised feeling. It was also the inspiration for Children Of The Stones – a damn scary 70s kids TV show (clip after the break).
Ellis was organising a weeks worth of shows in the UK for Logic Problem, to coincide with the end of their European tour. They weren’t needing to carry backline, so I booked a week off work and said I’d drive for the week. Figured it would be a laugh. Agreed to go and pick them up on Friday 3rd July in Europe to get stuff back across the channel.
So I left work to get the Dover – Dunkirk ferry at 8pm. I don’t tend to have the best luck with ferrys, and this was born out here – missed the 8pm and had to get the 10pm. This meant I got to Dunkirk at just around midnight UK time. Lucky for the hitchhiker I picked up in Dover who was going to a protest/festival near Brugges though. Stopped for a few minutes to stare at the insanely bright flaming tower over Dunkirk, and then set off. Dropped him in Brugges, and then drove down to Maasbree in Holland. The show they’d had the night before was at a place called Kiet De Jaegers. Literally a small outbuilding at an old family farm with a marquee attached in the middle of nowhere. I could only see the aftermath, but from that and what they said, it must have been nuts.
Anyhow, got one hours sleep in the back of the car, loaded up and drove back to the Channel. The band crossed on foot, and I used my return from Dunkirk with the car. Trip up to Cambridge for DS’s Independents Day all dayer. Good bands, good gig, unfortunately absolutely and utterly shattered. Daniel is stoked on meeting members of Snuff, Blocko, Aston Boss Tuneage, etc, etc. Slept in a park for a bit, slept on a floor for a bit, slept sitting in the back of the merch area for a bit – you get the idea. Somehow manage to drive back to Louis’s in Wallingford to sleep in the end.
So, who’s got an iPhone? Enjoying all those apps? Better enjoy the ones you have, because there’s certain ones that Apple has decided you are not allowed to have.
Saturday night’s disco party, and packing up on Sunday pretty much took it out of us. People were leaving as there was nowhere to stay that night, and we weren’t overly up for seeing any of the bands that night. Few hours of food and prevarication led to us deciding to mission it to Antwerp to catch up with The Shitty Limits and see if we could find somewhere to sleep there that night.
Thankfully, we did! Thanks to An.
After taking quite a few photos on Friday, the late night left me pretty damn knackered on Saturday. Lacking in vim and vigour. Lots of good bands, just not that much in the way of pictures from me.
So following on from Wednesday night’s stay at the hostel in Dorking, we made the drive down to Dover and caught the ferry over to Calais. The main characteristic of the drive was shitty, shitty, shitty traffic. Belgium and southern Holland seemed to be one big traffic jam. Finally got to Steenwijk about 9 or 10pm, got the tents up and watched a couple of bands before crashing out knackered. Oh, and I drove down to Meppel to pick up the lost Essex hitch-hikers.
Friday came around, and first day of really watching bands. Met up with Logic Problem for the first time, as I knew I was driving them around the UK in a couple of weeks. Good guys and all that. Too many good bands to mention, but special mention must go out to the Ka-Ka-Karaoke band, for always being one of the most violent sets of the weekend.
edit: Somehow I managed to completely forget to upload the photos of Vaguely Racist Fest that me and Luke found in the next town!