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There's, oo, nearly several to report. I went down to Brighton and met Wayne and other Brighton types and went to the Hob, where the beer was dodgy and the toilets barely operational, as is traditional. There were several bands on and the rest of them were poor enough that I didn't even bother finding out who they were in order to avoid them in future, because it's not like they're going to have a future. The reason I'd gone there at all, though, was to see a band called General Bovine And The Justice Force Five, and that was a great idea. They were dressed up, including a large cow head for the front man, and they had a keyboard painted pink and they had a splendid drummer and they had songs that were silly but still proper rock and that's about all I ask for. That was the 5th of September, so after Clutch, though I had to go and look to check, I must admit.
Then when I was on holiday in Mallorca last week we happened to be in a place called Alcudia when they were having their annual festival and I might get round to mentioning some more about that soon but we were staying right in the centre of town, in a hotel above a restaurant right on the main square, which was by far the cheapest and by no means the worst-appointed place we stayed on the whole holiday, and it was a great place to be staying given all the general festival malarkey going on. I'm going to class this as all one gig, because there was just a lot of random music, and it included xeremiers, strolling musicians playing traditional Mallorcan bagpipes and whistle, a parading brass band, a jazz band that were not so much parading as meandering randomly round, a Spanish ska band called Dinamo, and probably some other things that I've forgotten. The winners of that lot were definitely the jazz band; there were five of them, playing trumpet, saxophone, a snare drum and tiny cymbal, an electric guitar with tiny battery amp, and a sousaphone. That's a sousaphone, folks. And it wasn't stuck with the usual boring oompa business that the tuba gets, it got to play bass much more as I know it. My favourite bit was their version of I Wanna Be Like You, in Spanish of course, sung through a megaphone which made the vocal sound suitably 30's-radio-like. Their favourite bit was probably getting given lots of free wine by the wine stalls when they passed that way. They were the highlight of the evening, anyway.
Just after I got back I got an inexplicable text from Jodie from Punch Judy, wondering if I wanted to go and see Nebula at the Underworld. As an event it was like reliving various sections of the past. I was going to try and see Nebula on that day in 2001 when I ended up in Cambridge instead of Brighton, for a start. People I saw at the gig included someone I used to know from the Clutch fan message boards in 2002, someone I tried out for a band with in 2003, and someone I did a bit of drum recording for in 2007, and then there was Jodie being very much herself after not having seen her for six months. I lost her at the end of the gig and I don't know why I didn't work it out earlier; she was round at the stage door getting beer from the rider off of the keyboardist she thought was cute. The beer turned out to be alcohol-free Becks, but it's the principle of the thing. As for the gig, Obiat were still rubbish, no surprises there then, but the second support band made up for it. They claimed to be psych progressive rock, and were certainly from Doncaster; they rocked hard, especially around the beefy drummer and windmilling guitarist, and had songs that did unusual things, and the keyboardist didn't get in the way much, and the singer had a collection of boxes with knobs on that his vocals went through, and though he kept trying to do things like swing his mike around on the end of cable, actually what kept happening was that it came off and ended up in the audience or under the drumkit or the like. Combined with his chatty stage manner and wild hair the effect was a bit Bill Bailey, but that was more endearing than problematic. They were called the Pilgrim Fathers and if you're into that sort of thing at all and you see them on a bill, go and see them. Nebula, after all that, were even better than I was hoping they might be. They announced halfway through that their drummer was new but you could have fooled me. There's not much more to say about them, if you know the band, though, they just played the songs very well. 'Twas good.
Then when I was on holiday in Mallorca last week we happened to be in a place called Alcudia when they were having their annual festival and I might get round to mentioning some more about that soon but we were staying right in the centre of town, in a hotel above a restaurant right on the main square, which was by far the cheapest and by no means the worst-appointed place we stayed on the whole holiday, and it was a great place to be staying given all the general festival malarkey going on. I'm going to class this as all one gig, because there was just a lot of random music, and it included xeremiers, strolling musicians playing traditional Mallorcan bagpipes and whistle, a parading brass band, a jazz band that were not so much parading as meandering randomly round, a Spanish ska band called Dinamo, and probably some other things that I've forgotten. The winners of that lot were definitely the jazz band; there were five of them, playing trumpet, saxophone, a snare drum and tiny cymbal, an electric guitar with tiny battery amp, and a sousaphone. That's a sousaphone, folks. And it wasn't stuck with the usual boring oompa business that the tuba gets, it got to play bass much more as I know it. My favourite bit was their version of I Wanna Be Like You, in Spanish of course, sung through a megaphone which made the vocal sound suitably 30's-radio-like. Their favourite bit was probably getting given lots of free wine by the wine stalls when they passed that way. They were the highlight of the evening, anyway.
Just after I got back I got an inexplicable text from Jodie from Punch Judy, wondering if I wanted to go and see Nebula at the Underworld. As an event it was like reliving various sections of the past. I was going to try and see Nebula on that day in 2001 when I ended up in Cambridge instead of Brighton, for a start. People I saw at the gig included someone I used to know from the Clutch fan message boards in 2002, someone I tried out for a band with in 2003, and someone I did a bit of drum recording for in 2007, and then there was Jodie being very much herself after not having seen her for six months. I lost her at the end of the gig and I don't know why I didn't work it out earlier; she was round at the stage door getting beer from the rider off of the keyboardist she thought was cute. The beer turned out to be alcohol-free Becks, but it's the principle of the thing. As for the gig, Obiat were still rubbish, no surprises there then, but the second support band made up for it. They claimed to be psych progressive rock, and were certainly from Doncaster; they rocked hard, especially around the beefy drummer and windmilling guitarist, and had songs that did unusual things, and the keyboardist didn't get in the way much, and the singer had a collection of boxes with knobs on that his vocals went through, and though he kept trying to do things like swing his mike around on the end of cable, actually what kept happening was that it came off and ended up in the audience or under the drumkit or the like. Combined with his chatty stage manner and wild hair the effect was a bit Bill Bailey, but that was more endearing than problematic. They were called the Pilgrim Fathers and if you're into that sort of thing at all and you see them on a bill, go and see them. Nebula, after all that, were even better than I was hoping they might be. They announced halfway through that their drummer was new but you could have fooled me. There's not much more to say about them, if you know the band, though, they just played the songs very well. 'Twas good.