Ariesr has covered a few of the bands that I didn't see on Sunday evening so this should dovetail in quite nicely
Day 113:00 Shytot and #1 daughter (14) arrived @ Bellshill Premier Inn
Checked in
McD Chicken Legend Meal (thought legend was appropriate
)
13:45 Arrive @ Strathclyde Park
To do list:
Buy beer tokens
Buy beer
Find a space
Set up for day
The ChristiansNot bad – this was their first retro type gig. They went through all of their singles and generally performed quite well. There was a reasonable crowd but the atmosphere was a little lacking and the whole set was quite a quiet affair.
Some woman from Real Radio then tried to warm up the crowd … she should stick to radio!
This carried on all day before and after each performance
Peter Andre Unfortunately I lost all my pics of Peter
. He was pretty sh!t IMHO. Did several covers (Rhythm of the Night, Can you Feel It) in the style of a bad Karaoke singer – bad choice of songs. He talked a lot about himself, did one of his songs then a Mash up of Cross My Heart / Killer then some more crap and then Mysterious Girl. Don’t know why this guy was there, at best (bad choice of word) he was late 90s – anyway the accompanying picture and song says it all.
Nik KershawAs with my review of the Here and Now concert 2 years ago – Nik is surprisingly good, he writes good pop songs and performed them all to a warming audience – by the end of his set everybody was jumping around and clapping hands – the party had started.
10 ccAnother good set – Graham Gouldman with Rick Fenn and Paul Burgess were at least some of 10cc some of the time. They were very skilled musicians, very tight and played all 12 of their hit tunes from the 70s
. Finished off with Rubber Bullets and, as with Nik Kershaw, they really got the crowd going.
Bjorn AgainI’m not a huge ABBA fan, but these guys were good. You can’t fail to win (drunk) people over with a range of ABBA tunes and they even managed a bit of rapping to Take A Chance On Me (I think
). Really good festival performance.
Kim WildeUnfortunately Kim’s voice “ain’t what it used to be”. She went through her set but struggled to meet expectations (for me anyway) and she didn’t really gel with the predominantly Scottish audience.
Bangles We left before the Bangles came on – general consensus was that they were “OK”.
Day 2Bucks FizzWe got right up @ the front for the start of day 2 –3 of the original fizzers went through their routine in a very professional way and managed to keep the audience interested – finished up with Making Your Mind Up.
Today’s links were courtesy of the Real Radio football DJ – not much of an improvement on the previous day . Before each set he’d tell us what we had already seen and what was coming up for the rest of the day.
Mari WilsonMari’s problems were two fold –
1. she only really had 1 big hit and 2. her synth player could not make a valuable contribution to the set. Having said that – she still has a great voice, performed well and managed to engage with the ever growing crowd. She sang all of her “hits” including Perhaps - the theme from Coupling.
Blow MonkeysBreaking news was that the Blow Monkeys had reformed with the original line up – new album out and available @ the merchandise stall !! Dr Robert now looks more like Hagrid – they played pretty well, maybe their music is a little bit too slow for me and some of the audience, but it was good to hear Digging Your Scene and It Doesn’t Have To Be This Way played live. They also did Wait which was a hit for Dr Robert and Kim Mayzelle.
Midge UreVery clean, competent performance – exactly the same set as he did @ Here and Now 2 years ago. Some Ultravox, 1 Visage and 1 Midge Ure solo hit. He kept the audience happy for 30 minutes, finished up with Vienna – not bad.
Paul YoungStill has a reasonable voice, but the set was a bit dull. He had some baggage problems and the band were playing borrowed instruments. I guess I’ve heard enough Paul Young over the years, it didn’t float my boat. Lots of others enjoyed it, or else the lager and wine was just kicking in.
At this stage (17:00) we looked at the remaining line up, my sobriety and the 3 hour drive home and decided to bail out.
KajaGooGoo maybe,
Bootleg Beatles – no thanks,
Howard Jones – would like to have seen,
Boney M (1 original) no thanks I have a CD somewhere and
Boy George – no thanks.
SummaryA pretty good 2 days – If I had been paying for 2 tickets + travel + food and drink, then I doubt I would have made the trip. #1 daughter enjoyed the festival experience but couldn’t partake in the alcohol merry making. One issue for many people was that once you were inside you could not go out and re-enter so you were well and truly shafted. With beer @ £3.50 a pint (same price for WKD or bottle of wine) and pretty mediocre food @ £5 - £6 for noodles or fish and chips or a Kebab, I would have to say that the whole thing was a high price with lowish quality. A lot of people had a good time, mainly campers who could bring in their own food and drink (or appeared to be able to). There were other events going on but if you have a good spot for the acts, and there is only 2 of you, you can’t really explore.
There will be a Retrofest 2009, I’d wait and see which acts were performing before spending any money. Definitely better to be in a large group too (no not like Madness or Earth wind and Fire !!!
)
Here's a summary of the 2 days through the medium of pictures and music - ENJOY!
http://www.youtube.com/v/LBjTcE_2RJs
