...until sated and spent, they collapsed in their tent, and extinguished the hurricane lamps...
Taking advantage of some downtime at work to write-up the past weekend's fun and frolics at Tallington where Blyth Power held the annual mini-festival-ette-cum-cricket-match.
evangeline2670 and I did Ufford way back when....(1995 or thereabouts) but this was our first Tallington as forces had always conspired to prevent us going since the event was moved from Ufford to Tallington.
So, with rucksacks loaded heavy, we toddled off to the station around midday on Friday for a sucession of trains to get us to Stamford at just after 3pm, where we collected by John T (bass player in the first band on the bill) and driven the few miles to the Whistle Stop pub/camp site.
There we met up with _elric_ and aimlessdesire and pitched our tent next to theirs up toward the far end of the field, right alongside the main north-south railway line between London and Edinburgh. They were camped with a bunch of familiar faces (familiar from other festivals and gigs)including the (in)famous Aston, who I'd heard about, but never actually met before. We quickly had the tent up in the searing sun and took a wander down to the pub to get a beer to quench the thirst and cough up the £5 for our pitch.
First band on the stage (aka the porch of the 'Outback Bar' at the rear of the pub) were The Lying Scotsman with our lift-provider John on bass for a nice gentle set of folky songs... well, at least it was gently folky until Eastfield's Jessie Adam's was invited onto the stage for a few Eastfield songs!
I think we missed the next band/performer (either eating or getting beer or both) but we were back at the stage for Cracktown (from Hull in the NE of England) who did a raucus and hilarious selection of punk-country songs, best of which was undoubtedly the very un-PC and side-splittingly funny song 'Nazi Girlfriend' Sadly they didn't bring any CDs with them.... but I shall be keeping an eye on their MySpace site for news of them.
I think Mark Astronaut cancelled?? (Cracktown's set was extended to fill the gap) so next up was Chris Butler who's lyrics are damn good (very political and full of biting satire)... shame his delivery of them is so.... tame/boring/sleep inducing >.>
Final band of the first evening is The Charlies, comprising Steven Cooper and Joseph Porter of Blyth Power (vocs/git and drums respectively) and Trina and Bambi (vocs and bass) of Eastfield for a set of Steven's hilarious songs - excellent way to finish the day bouncing around to their poppy-punk! Was also fun to see Joseph at the receiving end of some good natured verbal banter... without a mic he had no way of answering back! Liked the Charlies so much so I bought their recently finished CD.
Then it was back to the tent and, after much breaking of wind and banter, we retired to (air)bed
Hmmm.... for some reason I barely slept a wink >.< Not sure what kept me awake... the sucession of trains, the bounciness of the airbed or what *shrugs*
Anyways.... Saturday dawned sunny and hot and after a tasty and nutricious (/sarcasm) Poy Noodle breakfast we heard the first band (Funspongue) start up... but they sounded far too loud for a Saturday morning, so we only drifted back down to the stage once they'd finished to catch Daddy Those Men Scare Me... but I must have been otherwise distracted during their set as I don't remember a thing about it! (ah... just remembered - Evie and I went to the garage for icecreams and stuff!) The New York Scumhaters were next up with a lively and excellent rendition of various punk standards intermixed with their own material. They were followed by Rachel Pantechnicon... a transvestite poet... quirky and fun!
There followed a break for the cricket match... I took the opportunity to cadge a lift to the local supermarket to stock up on bottled beer (not that there was anything wrong with the pub's offerings, but it's nice to be able to just grab a bottle in the tent instead of having to walk all the way down to the pub!) Made a pasta dinner and just chilled for a few hours. (I think we missed a few bands at this point)
With the cricket over (the band lost... again) we got down to the stage, took shelter from the sun under the trees and watched most of Pog's set (fun folky-pop) followed by a blinding set from Eastfield (trainspotter-punk ^___^) and an excellent selection of tunes from folk's bouncy, ever youthful (and ex-Blyth guitarist) Wob - he even played a few bars of Blyth's 'Inside the Horse' in a (sadly failed) attempt to appease a wee girl who demanded to her 'the horsey song'
Then onto the evening's finale, a 'heavy metal' set from Blyth Power - they started late as Wob's band used their own drum-kit, rather than share Blyth's as everyone else did, and there were some sound problems, though these were quickly sorted out. The set was superb, mostly old songs, some being played for the first time in years. Much happy bouncing ensued! (With the knee holding up very nicely thanks ^___^)
Aston had procured a couple of boxes of sponge cake and printed off a load of Britney Spear's masks, which were handed round early on in Blyth's set and donned by the recipients (it's some kind of tradition to feature Ms Spears in some way at Tallington... he's already thought up next year's wheeze!) - the look on Joseph and Annie's faces when confronted by 30-odd Britneys staring at them from the front of the crowd! This was matched only by the appearance of some... knickers... 3 pairs thereof... with a melted Snickers bar smeared into the gusset of each >.<
This was in turn followed by a hail of the cakes towards Joseph, most hitting him or his drumkit. The 'Grange Hill' contingent of kids right down the front quickly instigated a cake war while the band played merrily on.
I'm pretty certain they finished well after curfew, but no one seemed to care and there was lots of huge grins on faces as the sweaty crowd drifted back to their tents.
Sunday... having slept okay, I woke about 9am-ish and chilled for a bit before hauling Evie's ass out of bed so we could take the tent down and pack (after another tasty Pot Noodle of course!)
With the tent packed and stowed temporarily in aimlessdesire's car, we watched and listened to the soothing covers from Tin Slapper Mk2, then the full-on punkiness of Verbal Warning - their last song was a cover of 'Leaving on a Jet Plane, punk stylee with the singer wearing an inflatable airliner round his waist!
Next up should have been Red Wedding (Steven Cooper and Jospeh's acoustic duo) but that was knocked on the head as Joseph didn't think his voice would stand 2 sets (3 including last nights!)
So it was swiftly onto the grane finale, an acoustic(ish) set from Blyth to finish the weekend off. Nice mix of songs old and new (including the real 'horsey song' - 'When Armstrong Goes to War') as demanded by the little girl (who also thanked Joseph for being quieter than those 'noisy bands'!!)
And thus it ended. :(
We said our goodbyes, retrieved our rucksacks and were conveyed back to Stamford station by John and did the reverse sucession of trains back home, arriving around the middle of Sunday evening.
Both _elric_ and d00mw0lf have both posted pics on their respective websites ^__^
Now looking forward to Beautiful Days festival in less than 2 weeks ^___^
evangeline2670 and I did Ufford way back when....(1995 or thereabouts) but this was our first Tallington as forces had always conspired to prevent us going since the event was moved from Ufford to Tallington.
So, with rucksacks loaded heavy, we toddled off to the station around midday on Friday for a sucession of trains to get us to Stamford at just after 3pm, where we collected by John T (bass player in the first band on the bill) and driven the few miles to the Whistle Stop pub/camp site.
There we met up with _elric_ and aimlessdesire and pitched our tent next to theirs up toward the far end of the field, right alongside the main north-south railway line between London and Edinburgh. They were camped with a bunch of familiar faces (familiar from other festivals and gigs)including the (in)famous Aston, who I'd heard about, but never actually met before. We quickly had the tent up in the searing sun and took a wander down to the pub to get a beer to quench the thirst and cough up the £5 for our pitch.
First band on the stage (aka the porch of the 'Outback Bar' at the rear of the pub) were The Lying Scotsman with our lift-provider John on bass for a nice gentle set of folky songs... well, at least it was gently folky until Eastfield's Jessie Adam's was invited onto the stage for a few Eastfield songs!
I think we missed the next band/performer (either eating or getting beer or both) but we were back at the stage for Cracktown (from Hull in the NE of England) who did a raucus and hilarious selection of punk-country songs, best of which was undoubtedly the very un-PC and side-splittingly funny song 'Nazi Girlfriend' Sadly they didn't bring any CDs with them.... but I shall be keeping an eye on their MySpace site for news of them.
I think Mark Astronaut cancelled?? (Cracktown's set was extended to fill the gap) so next up was Chris Butler who's lyrics are damn good (very political and full of biting satire)... shame his delivery of them is so.... tame/boring/sleep inducing >.>
Final band of the first evening is The Charlies, comprising Steven Cooper and Joseph Porter of Blyth Power (vocs/git and drums respectively) and Trina and Bambi (vocs and bass) of Eastfield for a set of Steven's hilarious songs - excellent way to finish the day bouncing around to their poppy-punk! Was also fun to see Joseph at the receiving end of some good natured verbal banter... without a mic he had no way of answering back! Liked the Charlies so much so I bought their recently finished CD.
Then it was back to the tent and, after much breaking of wind and banter, we retired to (air)bed
Hmmm.... for some reason I barely slept a wink >.< Not sure what kept me awake... the sucession of trains, the bounciness of the airbed or what *shrugs*
Anyways.... Saturday dawned sunny and hot and after a tasty and nutricious (/sarcasm) Poy Noodle breakfast we heard the first band (Funspongue) start up... but they sounded far too loud for a Saturday morning, so we only drifted back down to the stage once they'd finished to catch Daddy Those Men Scare Me... but I must have been otherwise distracted during their set as I don't remember a thing about it! (ah... just remembered - Evie and I went to the garage for icecreams and stuff!) The New York Scumhaters were next up with a lively and excellent rendition of various punk standards intermixed with their own material. They were followed by Rachel Pantechnicon... a transvestite poet... quirky and fun!
There followed a break for the cricket match... I took the opportunity to cadge a lift to the local supermarket to stock up on bottled beer (not that there was anything wrong with the pub's offerings, but it's nice to be able to just grab a bottle in the tent instead of having to walk all the way down to the pub!) Made a pasta dinner and just chilled for a few hours. (I think we missed a few bands at this point)
With the cricket over (the band lost... again) we got down to the stage, took shelter from the sun under the trees and watched most of Pog's set (fun folky-pop) followed by a blinding set from Eastfield (trainspotter-punk ^___^) and an excellent selection of tunes from folk's bouncy, ever youthful (and ex-Blyth guitarist) Wob - he even played a few bars of Blyth's 'Inside the Horse' in a (sadly failed) attempt to appease a wee girl who demanded to her 'the horsey song'
Then onto the evening's finale, a 'heavy metal' set from Blyth Power - they started late as Wob's band used their own drum-kit, rather than share Blyth's as everyone else did, and there were some sound problems, though these were quickly sorted out. The set was superb, mostly old songs, some being played for the first time in years. Much happy bouncing ensued! (With the knee holding up very nicely thanks ^___^)
Aston had procured a couple of boxes of sponge cake and printed off a load of Britney Spear's masks, which were handed round early on in Blyth's set and donned by the recipients (it's some kind of tradition to feature Ms Spears in some way at Tallington... he's already thought up next year's wheeze!) - the look on Joseph and Annie's faces when confronted by 30-odd Britneys staring at them from the front of the crowd! This was matched only by the appearance of some... knickers... 3 pairs thereof... with a melted Snickers bar smeared into the gusset of each >.<
This was in turn followed by a hail of the cakes towards Joseph, most hitting him or his drumkit. The 'Grange Hill' contingent of kids right down the front quickly instigated a cake war while the band played merrily on.
I'm pretty certain they finished well after curfew, but no one seemed to care and there was lots of huge grins on faces as the sweaty crowd drifted back to their tents.
Sunday... having slept okay, I woke about 9am-ish and chilled for a bit before hauling Evie's ass out of bed so we could take the tent down and pack (after another tasty Pot Noodle of course!)
With the tent packed and stowed temporarily in aimlessdesire's car, we watched and listened to the soothing covers from Tin Slapper Mk2, then the full-on punkiness of Verbal Warning - their last song was a cover of 'Leaving on a Jet Plane, punk stylee with the singer wearing an inflatable airliner round his waist!
Next up should have been Red Wedding (Steven Cooper and Jospeh's acoustic duo) but that was knocked on the head as Joseph didn't think his voice would stand 2 sets (3 including last nights!)
So it was swiftly onto the grane finale, an acoustic(ish) set from Blyth to finish the weekend off. Nice mix of songs old and new (including the real 'horsey song' - 'When Armstrong Goes to War') as demanded by the little girl (who also thanked Joseph for being quieter than those 'noisy bands'!!)
And thus it ended. :(
We said our goodbyes, retrieved our rucksacks and were conveyed back to Stamford station by John and did the reverse sucession of trains back home, arriving around the middle of Sunday evening.
Both _elric_ and d00mw0lf have both posted pics on their respective websites ^__^
Now looking forward to Beautiful Days festival in less than 2 weeks ^___^