London Jazz Festival - Highlights

Naturally7 & Marcus Miller, hip-hop jazz fusion & intricate polyphonic free-jazz...and that's just some of the highlights from the fraction of the London Jazz Festival I managed to make it to in November last year. So that you don't shoot yourselves (or me) I won't review the lot, but here's some of the most fantastic stuff I simply have to share.

Look these people up. Find out when they (or similar artists) are playing live next. Listen to new, innovative music and realise jazz is alive; it didn't die with Davis & Coltrane.

Naturally7
If you haven't heard Naturally7 yet then, firstly - welcome to this blog, and secondly - you'll want to check out this infamous video. Every show starts with the thrilling "every sound you are about to hear is produced by the human voice alone"...but it would be fantastic even if that weren't true.

They're a vocal-play group from New York City, that started off singing in Church together and still show their evangelical roots in their shows; whilst also being complete rock-star showmen. Everything was perfectly choreographed, fantastically tight and still left room for improvisation and humour.

After a medley of Rapper's Delight; Saturday Night; Billy Jean and; Startin' Something there was quite literally a full five minutes' applause which the band couldn't stop (I'm sure we missed a song thanks to that). It wasn't all covers, but the overriding memory I'll take from that gig is hearing The Sound Of Silence in 7 part vocal harmony...amazing.

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Sorry, I went on a bit there, I'll try and trim it for the rest...

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_{Louise Golbey - the nicest person on the UK jazz scene}

Jay Phelps - find this man playing live, go and listen to him. A gorgeous sound from an old and battered trumpet, simply and elegantly composed.

Rebirth of the cool - an East London youth project. 2 DJ's, 2 rappers, 3 singers/choral backers and a jazz quartet from Trinity College playing together. I can't even begin to describe how fantastic this was; but this is a distinct, new sound I've heard fragments of elsewhere that I'm looking forward to hearing more of.

Louise Golbey - a soul/jazz singer with just the right mixture of poppy joyfulness, musical intellect and technical skills to make it in both the jazz and pop worlds, I see great things for this girl. A fantastic voice and superb backing band - all that's wanting is a bit more confidence and maturity before we hear her on Radio 1. Go listen.

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There's more, much more, that I'd love to talk about. Buy me a drink sometime and I will - for now though, I'll leave you with a show where I thought I'd see one of my favourite musicians, and ended up finding a new favourite instead.

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Marcus Miller (feat. Christian Scott)
The gig itself was actually just billed as 'Marcus Miller' (one of my favourite bassists), playing from the Tutu - the last album he wrote for Miles Davis.

"Miles never looked back, never played the old stuff", Marcus told us, "so the only way I thought I could do this tribute is if we got a whole bunch of new young musicians together to play it".

The support act (Gary Husband's Drive - also worth looking up) finished. Marcus walked on stage, and played an impossibly technical - but also beautiful - bass solo. A world-class drummer joined him, and a tenor sax player ran on to play a fantastically passionate and elaborate solo for at least a minute.

Christian Scott swaggered onto the stage.

There really is no other word for it, this was the most laid back entrance I've ever seen a musician make - of any standard and on any stage. The rest of the band looked at him, he waited. And waited. And played two notes. And paused.

The standing ovation was so loud I have no idea what happened on stage for the next minute or so. This is the best trumpet player I have ever heard, including any old recording. He's 24 years old and he's going to be massive - keep your eyes out.

Go See Some Jazz

As anyone within range of my various streams of communication will know by now, this week is London Jazz Festival - and it's fantastic. Unlike a traditional jazz festival, this is spread out all over the city and instead of catering to any kind of elitist crowd is happy to move between hip-hop, classic vocal tracks, poppy piano and experimentalism; in addition of course to the more standard contemporary jazz which is played at a superb standard by a range of up-and-coming stars and established legends.

Personally, it's the former I've been a lot more excited about seeing - I know Sonny Rollins is great but I've heard so many of his albums, collaborations and live tracks already that I'm not going to get much new out of it. A 12-piece jazz/hip-hop youth collective last night, on the other hand, presented me with an entirely new sound; one that I've never come across before (presuming it even exists) and am really looking forward to hearing develop over the coming decade.

I'll post up some reviews of the more special shows I've seen shortly, but if you're near London (or prepared to travel) then there's fantastic gigs on right up until the evening of Sunday 22^nd November (when I'm hearing Marcus Miller play from Tutu - the album he wrote for/with Miles Davis). Get in touch if you want some recommendations/company.

You don't need to know a lot about jazz to come, it's not that kind of crowd - and I've rarely brought a newbie friend along that hasn't enjoyed some part of the show. Give it a try :)

Music in the street

I headed out to Spitalfields Markets for Spitalfields Stew recently, a free, al-fresco jazz festival and generally fantastic idea. The sun was shining, the market was packed with people and there was a great crowd sprawled all around the stage. Also I had a picnic, I love picnics.


_{I never got a turnout this good for my jazz gigs...}

The Billy Jenkins Blues Collective were up first and I highly recommend the show if you can see them anywhere - suburban blues with a load of energy, and featuring (slightly unusually) a violinist, fantastic.

Ordesa played second - I've seen these chaps before but they were fantastic. Kenny Wheeler (nearly 80 years old, but you can't tell) on trumpet, playing with just a guitarist and saxophonist. Beautiful, simple music played perfectly.

Finally there was a 5 piece improvisation (two bass, two drums and Jan Kopinski leading on saxophone), which whilst slightly too wild and abstract for half the folks who came out for a day in the sun with some pretty music, was still a bit disappointing for me. I guess I listen to too much Ornette Coleman...


_{I'm behind his left ass-cheek}

After all this, we wandered over to Brick Lane (where all the oh-so-so-so-so trendy kids hang out) and saw Ben Walker singing his fantastic Twitter Song (and a beautiful ditty composed for Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall). Check him out sometime when you can.


_{Seriously, two hats. I'll never be that trendy.}

Good times in London abound! :)
Xx

Kids in America

Tomorrow I'm off home to Cardiff...and on Tuesday I fly out to the US of A to spend Christmas and New Year with Lucie. We're going to be hanging around her home-for-the-year in North Carolina for Christmas proper before riding on over to do some touristy things in Washington D.C.

From there we're off to New York, where we'll spend New Year's eve in Times Square. The night before that though, we're heading over to the legendary Smoke Jazz Club to see the New York All Star Sextet play, and enjoy the whole experience. Can't wait.

Any further suggestions for places to go or things to see are much welcomed. Get in touch :)

Xx

More Jazz Recommendations

People often come up to me and say "I think I'd like jazz, but I don't really know where to get started or what to listen to - it's not like other music where you can just put on the radio. Can you recommend some stuff?". I'm not fooled, I know they're just desperate to be seen talking to me, to find out if my hair colour really is natural, to stare into my eyes...

..I digress.

1. Ramsey Lewis - Sassy Stew
Ramsey Lewis is a pianist probably most famous for his hit, The In Crowd - a perfect example of what a traditional jazz trio should sound like.

Sassy Stew, on the other hand, is more of a jazz funk track - a bit more Herbie Hancock than Bill Evans. The drums are great, the bassline and changes gorgeous and the alto sax hits notes that are barely even audible to anyone other than children and dogs. What I love best about this though, is that it's a pure jazz funk track, but the pianist's playing a real piano all the way through - rather than the keyboards that dominate the genre.

Well worth a listen.

2. Cal Tjader - Mambo Mindoro
Latin jazz is always popular. We've had club hits from Azymuth, Mas Que Nada has been on a million adverts and covered by some awful pop band. Recently, Bebel Gilberto has been letting down her father and her namesake (both Latin jazz greats) with some chart music.

Mambo Mindoro featuring percussionist Cal Tjader on the vibraphone is a great, and much less well known example of the genre. It's also highly worth a listen if, like me, you cringe at the mere word 'vibraphone' - mostly thanks to how awful it sounds within the music of the Modern Jazz Quartet. Trust me, he does it well.

3. Victor Wooten & Carter Beauford - Zenergy
This is not only a fascinating video - watching top-class musicians at work, but it's also a great track, easy to listen to whilst being extremely technically impressive. If the names Wooten & Beauford aren't enough to get you to listen, then note that Béla Fleck is playing banjo in this track too. Yes banjo. Yes, it works, yes he's that good. Just go listen already:



4. Lianne Carroll - Fever/This City Never Sleeps
It would be remiss of me to only mention past greats, and to just link you to freely available tracks that the artists possibly get pennies a year from. There's a decent jazz scene in any town, and if you're willing to make the effort to travel (central London's the only real UK hotspot) you can hear some unbelievably good performers.

Lianne Carroll is a pianist and vocalist playing around London and the UK, and is amazingly passionate and talented. For a preview of the recommended track, and a chance to buy your own copy, head over to her Amazon album page.

Better yet, go see a gig.

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That's all for now. Enjoy.

I was planning to also recommend you go and see the Tie-Dye Quartet at The Yardbird tonight, 8.30pm, free entry, but that would be a bit tacky, so I won't.
Xx

Alex Harmon

Whenever I go along to open mic nights, there's often a performer or two I really quite like, but for some reason as I walk out of the door, it never quite sticks. I don't look them up again, don't recommend them to others...it's just a part of the night.

I always mean to change that attitude and, in that spirit, here's a chap that was playing at Einstein's this Tuesday.

Alex Harmon

Only three songs up there, but I do like them. Not entirely sure about the recorded versions though, I think he might have been a bit better off just putting a tape recorded in front of a microphone at one of his gigs. Still, have a listen.

Videos of Tie-Dye Quartet at The Yardbird

As promised, courtesy of YouTube, here's some videos from parts of our second set:

Chameleon


Spanish Guitar Jam


Fever


Ina's Jam


Wade In The Water


Silver Rain


The tracks are also up for free download on Last.fm. Or, at least, they will be shortly. Try back tomorrow if you can't find them now.

Tie-Dye Quartet at The Yardbird

Last night was our exciting (and nicely paid, wink wink) gig at The Yardbird jazz club in Birmingham city centre - and it went pretty well if I do say so myself. The place wasn't packed, being bonfire night, but there was still a respectable audience and we played two 50 minute sets or so, with an encore when some folks started shouting.

Pics below, videos to follow once they're done uploading to YouTube.







Excuse the quality, our usual photographer was on a date :)

Gigs In November

It's a good month for music. Early in the month you can find Manu Delago playing various gigs in London - and I'm off to see him at The Rainbow in Birmingham on the 8th. See his site for show dates.

On the 20th I'm finally going to see my favourite musician of all time, Herbie Hancock, playing at Symphony Hall in Birmingham, with a brilliant line-up at his side. Tickets for that one are sold out now I'm afraid.

Tie-Dye Quartet have a very nice gig at The Yardbird in Birmingham on the 5th - I expect you all to be there. Free entry, 8 'till late. We're also playing a Ball in a lovely hotel and possibly the odd show in some nice restaurants.

Alas, the month isn't perfect though. McFly at the NEC on the 13th has sold out :(

Tie-Dye Quartet Pictures

The wonderful Chris Lush not only took photos of Tie-Dye Quartet for our album artwork, but also comes along to the occasional gig and photographs us. Here's a few shots from our show on Thursday - be sure to click on each image to get sent through to the full quality pictures, the previews really don't do them justice.


<sub>Our good looking drummer, Pete Ford


Presumably this was a tricky passage...


Guitar solo!


Can't forget the trumpet


There was a very good crowd on the night


Seriously, people were queueing up outside the door, one in - one out</sub>

I'll also see if I can dig up some audio from one of the people who was either filming our set, or just watching the entire thing through a digital camera lens. Presumably the former.

Xx

The Apprentice

Last night we played a fun, cozy little gig at the White Swan in Birmingham - a trendy little pub just off Broad Street. We played whatever we wanted, we were surrounded by friends and it was all quite wonderful.

And unpaid.

So, naturally, the next thing to do was to sell-out. I spent a couple of hours with Ju traipsing around restaurants in Birmingham city centre (and we've spent many more hours on the phone) convincing them of the business value of having some live music. She wore a skirt and I did the pitching...lovely combination.

Some positive responses, some maybes and some people to get back to. I love presenting :)

First gig for a while

Last night was the first gig I've played with the Tie-Dye Quartet since recording and...whew. I think the best description for the night would be 'a bit Spinal Tap'.

Our guitarist got held up (after giving a guitar lesson, what are the odds?) and we were almost about to start playing without him when he came through the door. The stage set-up was, to be generous, not the best I've ever seen. Suffice to say that I could only hear the drums, as could the drummer. Lots of head gestures were in order. Oh, also my bass string snapped during the third song and we had to have a quick improv guitar & drums jam whilst I changed it in record time.

Still though, no matter how badly we thought we performed, everyone genuinely seemed to think it sounded great - even the other musicians in the audience. We even got offered a gig at someone's Ball in a fancy hotel, and sold a few albums once we were done playing. Clearly the acoustics were fantastic eh?

We're going to be practising hard now for some of the more important (and/or paid) gigs we've got coming up - this was just a free show at the University bar. If people thought last night was good, then I don't see how we can fail :)

I'll get some pics up once our official photographer has finished Photoshopping them to make us look good. I might even put a short video or audio file up too if I can find one which doesn't make me wince too badly.

You should go and see Daisy Palmer live. Now.

Last night, the Rising Sun Arts Centre played host to jazz saxophonist Lol Coxhill and a few friends, namely:

Daisy Palmer - Drums
Alexander Hawkins - Piano
Dominic Lash - Bass

I'd gone along because I'd heard great things about Lol Coxhill and wanted to check him out for myself but ended up almost phasing him out and listening to the trio of youngsters providing the backing for most of the set.

Alexander Hawkins led the trio with a mixture of laid back jazz rhythms and sweeping, trilling melodies and solos. The image in my head after listening to him for a while was of a cross somewhere between Duke Ellington and Claude Debussy. A bit too 'show-offy' at times for what I was listening for, but hey - if you can play that well...

Dominic Lash had some great, subtle and well placed improvisations around his driving basslines and really lent to the mood of the piecs - great to listen to. Except now I really want a double bass again...

The highlight of the night for me though was drummer Daisy Palmer. She had such flair and passion through the whole night and played an absolutely wonderful gig. Her technical skill was also great fun to watch - there were times I could hear noises coming from the kit but had no idea how they related to what she was doing with her various limbs.


_{Daisy Palmer, playing with Bizali}

Daisy also plays in a band by the name of Bizali and having listened to some of their stuff on the linked site, I'll certainly find an excuse to go and see one of their gigs sometime soon.

Great gig all around, even if somewhere around 1/4 of the quartet knew what song was playing at any one time :) There's another jazz night at the Rising Sun on the 13th of July - the week before the Real Ale and Jazz Festival. I recommend you check out both.

Keeping busy

With only two weeks left in Reading, I've decided to make sure that I get around and enjoy all that the city has to offer - and all that the folks I've met here can give me in the way of interesting company.

According to my Outlook calendar, the next meeting I have to attend is 'Drinks O'Clock', as today's the last time that all of my team is likely to be around in one place before I leave this place for good.

Having run into one of our trendy London colleagues in the office today, we're now off to a members-only cocktail club, The Player - over in Soho, which should be pretty cool. Expect drunken tweets if the night goes as planned.

Tomorrow I'm off to the Jolly Anglers, a lovely canalside pub for a jam night. I'm a bit worried about carrying guitars back next to a river with beer-legs, but I haven't been to a jam night that wasn't jazz-themed for a while. I really hope some 18 year old goth kid turns up wanting to play black metal.

Friday is a birthday party for one of the other interns - not much to say about that one, it'll just be fairly generic and studenty. I'm sure Facebook pictures will fill you in on the details.


_{Lol Coxhill - can't wait}

On Saturday I'm off to see avant-garde saxophonist Lol Coxhill over at the Rising Sun Arts Centre. It's an eclectic venue (in the truest sense of the word), and I've seen some very good gigs there, and some very bad ones too. Hopefully this will be of the former variety, as I've heard very good things about Lol (got to love the name) but never seen him live.

Sunday, therefore, is for Rock Band and sleeping. Exciting times eh?

Puttin' on the ritz

T'other night, for my sins I was sitting alone, watching television when a brilliant concert came on Channel 4 of all places, the elaborately titled - Rufus! Rufus! Rufus! does Judy! Judy! Judy! - Rufus Wainwright recreating Judy Garland's 1961 Carnegie Hall concert.

Amongst many great hits, he sang one I haven't heard for an age - "Puttin' on the ritz". Here's Rufus' performance on Youtube, if you're interested, but what I found whilst looking for it was even better:


_{Fred Astaire, king of the world. Watch 'till the end - or at least skip to the middle.}

Unbelievably good. I'm off to watch my old Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers films for the rest of the night.

Xx

Axl Rose Jazz Funk Experience

Generally, when a band has a name this cool, they turn out to be quite a disappointment. This time though, despite the low quality recording and the fact that the drums were very possibly played on a Yamaha keyboard, I was very happily impressed.



I wouldn't normally link to a MySpace page, but this one's relatively tasteful (so long as you don't scroll down) and the only way to hear their music that I know of - so go give axl rose jazz funk experience a listen - I particularly recommend 'monkey got the crack' and 'dave vs the angry elephant'.

They're also playing live in Hull of all places soon with a couple of other cool sounding bands. If you're in the area, details are here.

Jamming with the new old guys

So one of the guys who works in my office, John Noakes, was heard to remark a week or so ago that the bass player in his band had recently undergone a triple heart bypass. Naturally I jumped in to voice my concern usurp his position and John threw me a CD with 11 tracks on it, and told me there was a practise the following Monday (aka, tonight).

Here's the 'setlist', as it were:

• Gimme Three Steps, Lynyrd Skynyrd


• Ten Words, Joe Satriani (instrumental)


• Walking By Myself, Gary Moore


• Whisky in the Jar, Thin Lizzy


• Once Bitten, Twice Shy, Ian Hunter (of Mott the Hoople fame)


• Stand By Me, Oasis


• Black Magic Woman, Santana


• Can’t Get Enough, Bad Company


• Waterloo Sunset, Def Leppard


• Hard to Handle, Black Crowes


• Cocaine, Eric Clapton

We played through all these tonight, with me 'lending my jazz influences' (aka, not playing the real bassline and just improvising instead...some would say it was just laziness in not learning the songs properly, but they're no fun) to the pieces.

Had a few jams too, which was sweet - been so long since I've played music with others. Given that the guys were in their 40's/50's (let's hope that that's either right, or that they don't find this post...) I was surprised by how much energy they had, and they really knew their stuff.

I felt a bit...underequipped with my £70 bass and £5 lead, given that everyone else turned up with a sackful of pedals, Gibson guitars and the like. Still though, it's what you do with it that counts eh? Or so say us students who can't afford fancy gear.

Hopefully I'll get a few more sessions with these guys before their regular bass player recovers (such a callous bastard aren't I), and after that I may see about adding some keys to their lineup, though I'm not sure I can keep up with them if I do that - we'll see.

All the best now, off to rest my fingers.

Xx

Reading Festival - Sunday

Sonic Boom Six


_{Sonic Boom!}

Another of the great UK punk bands around at the moment, these guys put on a great show and were a lot better than last time I saw them, possibly something to do with the lead singer not being ill. Really lively tent given that it was early afternoon on a Sunday - highly recommended.

Simon Amstell



The man known either as "..not as good as Mark Lamaar" or "..the one who made a living from being sarcy to pop stars" was, given his long list of TV credentials, naturally the biggest pull to the alternative tent of the weekend. He's brilliant on various programs, but I was interested to see how he could handle 'real' stand-up, as I've not seen him do it before, and I was happily impressed to find out that he can indeed cope with all comers, as well as being extremely funny with just a microphone as backing and no safety net.

He had quite a different style to the other stand-ups, opting for more of a cohesive story around his entire act, interspersed with many, many interjections from the crowd. People were standing so far back outside the tent that I'm not even sure everyone who turned up to see Amstell actually got to hear anything, so I'm really hoping that next year they decide to get some stand-up on the main stage instead. Think about it - there's half an hour between most bands on the main stage, minimum - and would it really interfere with all the set-up and sound checking if they gave one man a microphone?

Fall-out Boy



So, pretty awful, as you'd expect. It was quite amusing as they tried to counter the bottling they received at last year's festival by bringing one of their friends on stage to hit himself over the head with a glass bottle at the start. It didn't work, but it was quite amusing.

Lostprophets


_{How to take a band photo for Myspace}

Having sat around the comedy tent for a while, and listened a little to a couple of other bands, I went and had a glance at Lostprophets. Whilst the music still wasn't massively to my tastes, I was really impressed by the amount of passion and energy they put into their show. It's great to see a band really going for it, and was quite touching to hear the lead singer say "This is one of the best moments of my life" (and look as though he meant it) after he managed (very impressively) to get pretty much everyone watching the main stage 'dancing' for one of their tracks.

Nine Inch Nails



Again, one of those bands that did put on a good show, but where I wasn't really too interested by the music. Fortunately, not many other people were either, so it was quite easy to simply walk through the crowd near the end of their set to get a good place for...

Smashing Pumpkins


_{So I was going to look for a 'smashed pumpkin' to point out how dumb the band were when they named themselves after 'great' pumpkins. I found this awesome picture instead.}

Now I've never been a massive fan of these guys - mostly because I've never given them much of a chance, but Lu's mad about them so naturally I had to jump into the middle of the crowd to go see them with her. We ended up a few rows back from the front in the middle - so there was a good view and a great crowd atmosphere and I was actually quite impressed by them.

A fair bit of the set was, unfortunately, just atmospheric arsing about with effects and the like, but when they played what I assume were their popular songs, everyone (myself included) had a lot of fun and they did sound pretty good. There was one great track near the end, which Billy Corgan lied and said was on the new album, called 'Death From Above'. It's actually on the single Tarantula as a b-side (or double a-side, whatever), and I highly recommend you check it out, it's beautiful.

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Sorry this one's a bit late, but - hey, I've been busy :)

Reading Festival - Saturday

The Dead 60's


_{Someone dead from the 60's on stage would have had better stage presence. Awful pun I know :(}

I really liked these guys when I saw them last year, but they weren't very impressive first thing in the afternoon on the main stage. Possibly the wrong location, or possibly just a bad set - but they just came off as generic (indie?) rock.

Ed Byrne



I last saw this guy at the Microsoft gig at Wembley, so I was a bit apprehensive he'd be re-using a lot of material from there. He actually started to try, but soon found out that most of his set wouldn't really translate across the audiences, so I was quite impressed to see him move onto new material and start improvising instead. Hilarious and really packed out the comedy tent - must see if he's ever in your area.

Hal Cruttenden



I'll be honest, I saw a bunch of comics over the weekend, and whilst some were great and some were just awful, I never really caught many names. I recognize this man's name as I saw him recently at Jongleurs - and good though his set was, I was a bit disappointed to see him use pretty much identical material at Reading - especially as some of it was completely inappropriate for the crowd of 20 year olds who weren't even born for parts of his satire.

Panic! At The Disco



So, as I noted on one of my older blogs, when I used to be prettyian on Last.fm, instead of tiedyeina on Blogspot, Panic! weren't too popular at last year's festival. As such, I had to stay and watch them this year, in the hopes that the bottling would continue - and I wasn't to be disappointed.

Right from the start the band started playing some awful shite and getting hit - though to be fair to them they did take it quite well. I particularly liked the lead singer's "Hey, this is going better than last time" (after getting through the first song without being hit) and then "At least you didn't get knocked out" after the bassist complained (on mic) about being hit in the head by a full bottle.

There's no great video collages of them being hit up on YouTube yet (if I can find the material I'll happily make it and set it to one of their godawful songs), but the start of this video should give you the idea:



Bloc Party



So I never realised that the lead singer from Bloc Party was actually Lenny Henry until I heard him talking at this year's festival. It explains why he was good with the crowd, and a pretty good singer to boot - though I'm worried as to how much weight Lenny's lost, and how different his face looks nowadays...

Arcade Fire



Best. Band. Of. The. Festival. Of the ones I saw at least. Sir. Timothy McCormick was playing their albums at me on the car journey up to the Peak District, and I wasn't really very impressed, and so only planned to stay for 15 minutes inbetween bands at their set in the Festival. I was so impressed by the passion, massive range of musical ability (and I just loved the renaissance instruments and pipe organ) and stage show they put on that I stayed right till the end. Absolutely superb, I highly recommend going to see them live if you get the chance.

Still don't like the album though...and was the percussionist on some highly potent drugs?

!!!



The band that made themselves completely unfindable online (unless you know that the verbal pronunciation of '!!!' is spelt as 'chkchkchk') were absolutely brilliant live - I can't believe I've never seen them before. I really like their albums, so I thought I'd check them out, not expecting too much from a dance band in terms of a live show, but I was really, really tempted to miss the Chili Peppers just to watch the end of !!!'s set.

Red Hot Chili Peppers


_What?

I think it says something that a very disappointing live performance from these guys still didn't take away from the fact that they were one of the bands I enjoyed most at the Festival. I saw Kiedis screw up a few times, but I never noticed the problem some people at the back later whined about - though it's certainly believable.

The band seemed not to care between songs, just wandering about the stage chatting to one another, but there was enough good material in their back catalogue not to care, once they started playing. A lot of great jams too - with Flea using some of my favourite Herbie Hancock & Paul Chambers bass riffs whilst the guitarist (I can't be bothered Googling his name...) alternated between laid-back, quiet riffs, and trying to impersonate Hendrix (and doing a damn good job of it).

Reading Festival - Friday

The Pipettes



I wasn't sure whether to describe these guys as more like Frankie Valli and The Four Seasons, or like Meatloaf without the lead vocals, but they were very fun, if not a little scary. Good opening to the Festival, but they were no GLC...

The King Blues



I love these guys - they're probably my favourite of the current UK punk scene and always put on a good live show and get the crowd involved. This gig, they also recommended we check out the Space Hijackers (pictured above) - a group of Anarchitects who're currently looking to buy a tank. Any sellers?

Gogol Bordello



A 40 minute set didn't really do Gogol Bordello justice, and neither did the fact that they were playing in mid-afternoon and in the open air. A good show nonetheless, although I didn't get much dancing done as I was a bit far back..

Get Cape Wear Cape Fly/Capdown



It was a tough choice between watching GCWCF or Capdown, but as I've consistently missed the former at previous festivals, and I've seen Capdown a bunch of times, I went to go and see Get Cape. They put on a pretty good show, though I did pop down to see Capdown in time for Ska Wars. Apparently their final tour is coming soon, supported by The King Blues - anyone interested in coming?

Mad Caddies

I'm pretty sure I went to see these guys, though I don't recall them at all. That should probably indicate how much of an impression they made..

Razorlight



Well, I had fun, even if everyone else at the Festival seemed to hate them - though if that's true then I'm interested as to where the very large crowd came from. A pretty good set from what I heared, though we later went off to catch some of Ash. I heard a rumour a couple of times that no-one called for an encore so some audience noise was piped through the speakers instead...but I imagine that's a lie.