Should've gone before now. Don't think it works when it's not 'their' crowd. Kills off any anticipation folk have as a band come on stage. Said the same here after Hyde Park - New Order came on with Elegia, and the atmosphere dropped, then the Specials came on with 'Do The Dog' and had the audience bouncing from the first note.

This proper killed it in Ibiza too - really 'up for it' crowd who'd been warmed up nicely by the Whip ... and then they open with Elegia. You could literally feel the temperature get colder!

I want to see a picture of Gillian in her hat.She was dressed as a female character from The Prisoner? Don't know who the female character was as not that familiar with the characters as the show was before my time really and never caught up with it.

Edited by user 17 September 2012 06:52:22(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Thankyou - my software stopped recording during Blue Monday for some reason

Was listening through the Radiodeck app on my phone, suddenly remembered about 5 songs in can also record what i'm listening to with that app. Recorded from Isolation onwards. Great to have the recording straight to my phone but a bit pissed off i don't have the whole gig.


The snippets of The Prisoner dialogue here and there remind of the Sheffield Roxy gig in 87 when they had snippets of Star Trek dialogue during The Ostrich.

Edited by user 17 September 2012 12:35:31(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Rover attack, pre encore. Bet that would have been ace




and The Prisoner theme intro. And hey you can spot Gillian in her cape and hat

Edited by user 18 September 2012 06:48:42(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

While I'm here, a quick match report from No6:

Journey down, arrival, processing and camping were great. It was a very civilised festival in all aspects, very polite security, barstaff and other helpers. Even though I went to the wrong cabin and was a day early for my wristbands, everyone was so helpful and polite, which is a total contrast to the gobby, cynical b’stard you usually have to argue with at festivals; even when asking for something that you are perfectly entitled to. I bet this does wonders for how much people enjoy themselves and appreciate the bands and the rest of the festival and I think of this as I read the glowing reviews (my own included) of the whole weekend. The music sounds crap if you feel like you’ve had to argue your way in, queue for hours, been subjected to an aggressive search, had wristbands inspected, queued for hours for shit beer and generally been bossed around in the rain.

It was also a cool festival for meeting people you know, and bumping into members of your group who you'd become separated from. Just the right size for mingling.

The festival contained a good mix between interesting ‘happenings’ like the male voice choir, Prisoner recreations and performance artists who lined the little streets and more traditional festival stuff like music and burgers and slopping around in mud (more of which later). The food and drink were excellent, no problem getting served at any of the bars, no problem finding your way around (until you’d spent a while in the excellent spicy rum bar and then it was impossible to find your way around).

First New Ordery thing was a Q&A thing with Steve Morris. They didn’t actually invite questions from the audience; probably because before it started someone asked Steve what the hardest animal you could knock out with a baseball bat. Steve’s answer was a turtle and, touchingly, he was good enough to demonstrate how he would complete this task. His timing was perfect, naturally. Like a psycho metronome. Steve talked about Hooky and his new book and the possible future direction the band would follow. Cummings told some good anecdotes about photographing the band over the years and why he refuses to fly United (he doesn’t, that’s why). Steve was asked about new material and seemed clear that there would be nothing new from NO, which contrasts with the interviews printed elsewhere over the weekend. However, he did say that he’s always in the studio anyway; ‘music is something that you have to do’, and also said that you never know what may happen, even refusing to rule out working with Hooky again in response to the specific question of what he'd say if Hooky rang to invite him. Spending several years on a NO album wasn't on the radar, he said, but never say never. Asked about how he is treated by bands which are influenced by JD he said that they tend to ignore him rather than bother him at festivals. He also mentioned Joy Revision, who he had assumed were a JD tribute band but are in fact not. Someone should put him right there.

Elsewhere over the weekend, there was a really good Q&A with Tim Burgess, who spoke about his own book and the creation of his new album which is out soon. I met him beforehand, courtesy of Alex, and filled in the missing parts of his badge collection, which he seemed genuinely excited about. Seems like a nice fella, very nervous before his performance, throughout his interview bit and the book reading (he read the last chapter) but settled down and did a really beautiful set with his guitarist Mark Collins and a string quartet. I don’t think they were expecting to be called back for an encore, but they obliged and ended with a beautifully fucked-up acoustic version of The Only One I Know; a song that has been really close to my heart for many years. Had I been badly hung-over and sentiment-prone, it might have brought a little tear to my eye. A real festival moment right there in the Town Hall. Nice one Tim.

By this time, the heavens had opened and the dry and warm weekend had turned to a muddy slop. It was also bitterly cold, which is why Burgess had been moved inside from the planned location at the central Piazzia. This was good news for us as the sound was much clearer in there, but the audience much smaller and lots of people left outside. I did suggest to Tim that it might be a nice idea for him to repeat the performance a few times so that everyone could see it, but he pretended not to hear me.

The rain eased in the evening, but the ever-sloppier terrain and a hangover the size of which can only be earned in a bizarre period of rum-drinking and carrying-on the previous evening with my mate Billy and his mate Bez (yes, that Bez) made the wait for New Order somewhat arduous. The rest of the day was spent sliding around, dodging showers and eating a most agreeable lamb burger until New Order came on stage at half nine.

Barney and the rest of the guys wore Prisoner blazers with scarves, Gillian opted for a poncho-style coat, which she poked her arms out of to play her keyboards and in again between songs in a most endearing way, and a witches hat. There were bursts of Prisoner dialogue, which seemed to catch the band unaware each time and several cues were missed to general hilarity.

The music itself was very good. I was very surprised how much I enjoyed Tom Chapman’s input. Surprised how un-Hooky-like he sounds; surprised by the amount of energy he plays with; how bright he sounds and how much improvisation he throws in. He’s no Hooky, but I’m not sure that’s all bad. In fact I think it’s mostly good. Anyway…

I nipped out to the loo during BLT (actually True Faith, but she was desperate), so we watched the last few songs from the back, which I like doing anyway as you get a good view of the crowd going nuts (to about ¾ from the front, which is always good to see) and the lights, which were as good as ever thanks to our friend at the back. We also got a better view of what happened next.

Before the encore, the lights all went down and they played some heavy Prisoner music and dialogue, then the screens showed film of the large bouncing ball rolling along the beach. The smoke got very heavy, then three or four massive smoke bombs started shooting upwards from the front of the stage. Two serious-looking men carried a large plastic ball onto the stage and threw it towards the crowd. Sadly (for them) the smoke bombs were still on maximum flow and the ball was thrown upwards and back towards them, bursting on the way and wrapping them both in torn plastic. A shame really, as it would have looked ace bouncing around the crowd for the last two numbers. But funny.

Anyway, that was nearly it for the gig; you’ll have all seen the Forever Joy Division screens and large picture of Ian Curtis, which seemed nice. There was a lot of love in the room for Joy Division, from the big cheer when Marc Reilly mentioned them in the introduction, through every JD song and all the way to the finale.

That was also it for me; I went back to my tent which promptly collapsed. So did the airbed. Accordingly, a bad back and heavy cold has been added to the list of festival injuries, already including sore legs and hips from slopping in the mud as well as a large and unsightly (not to mention bloody painful) burn on the middle of my bottom lip which I earned by biting into a pie without first checking whether it was scalding hot (it was). There is a photo of me that I hope never sees the light of day. You’ve all seen me do the sort of thing, I’m sure. And wished you hadn’t.

A great weekend, anyway. I’ll certainly be going next year (if I can stay in a hotel).
See you there.
Biginoil x

Edited by user 19 September 2012 07:52:23(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Everyone welcome back the gloriously sardonic BigInOil.

Good work Col.

You are Chris Z and I claim my 40 pounds!

At the entrance of the campsite was a converted double decker bus that sold food. It always had a queue outside it. Opposite this bus was the start of the tents, so presumably the first ones to be pitched as people arrived. The occupants of these tents seemed to be the ones in the worst states; which makes sense as they'd been there the longest.

As I was standing in the queue for my morning rolls, a guy in one of the tents, actually the closest one to the gate, caught my eye. He was sitting in his hiking boots and jeans, smoking, and drinking from a bottle of white wine. His eyes suggested acid or mushrooms, but he could have been on anything I suppose. The tent was a 2-man at most, but I could see another pair of boots at first, then a leg and then the wind blew the tent open a bit more and I could see that there nothing in the tent, no bedding or other possessions, just four men, all in a similar state to the first. One of them had a long beard.

Over the course of the weekend, these men were seen around the area, always at least one of them in the tent, some of them lying down outside the tent, some of them staggering towards the tree next to their tent; sometimes pissing against it, other times just walking painfully into it. They were the crazy tent guys, we counted them each time we passed and we never saw less than four.

On Saturday afternoon I got speaking to the guys who worked the breakfast bus. One of them recognised me from the previous day when I had pretended my name was Wilson, but that’s another story. I asked them about the crazy tent guys; whether they’d seen them do anything crazy.

The guy told me that the previous day, one of the crazy tent guys had staggered into the breakfast bus area, which was surrounded by a low fence, collapsed onto one of the deckchairs and lay there for a couple of hours. He woke up a bit, decided that he wanted a banana and staggered around pestering the staff to sell him one. Initially they refused as they were running low and needed them for the banana splits but, realising that he wasn’t going to leave them alone, probably wasn’t going to shell out for a banana split and could certainly do with the vitamins, they handed him one (see what I didn’t do there?).

As soon as the guy had the fruit in his hand he peeled it, threw the skin away and rammed the whole thing down his throat as far as it would go then reeled around making gasping sounds and motioning for people to give him a light. Someone lent him a lighter, which he used to set fire to his own beard. Doubtless saturated with three days of alcohol, the beard burned quite fiercely and the staff had to slap it out with their hands then throw cold water onto his face to make it stop.

“After that we had no choice,” said the breakfast bus worker, pointing to a nearby tree, “there were kids around and he was upsetting them. We had to ask him to leave.

“He’s over there now, lying under that tree.”

Edited by user 19 September 2012 07:25:32(UTC)  | Reason: Not specified

Reilly :nono:

I would vote but that link doesn't work