Another weekend, another wristband

As if one in August wan't enough, I've just got back from another music festival, this time the Solway Music Festival, AKA Solfest, that took place in northern Cumbria over the bank holiday weekend. The overall theme of the music was folky stuff, although there was quite a lot of variation, with a handful of rock acts and a dance tent (which I never entered). However, there was a much bigger emphasis placed on the general festival vibe with quirkiness being the order of the day.

Put it this way; on one of the days, whilst there was a hula hooping workshop going on in the middle of the fields, a brass band (I never found out their name) set up shop. They wore alternating purple and lime green suits, the lead singer used a loud hailer and they handed out maracas and tambourines to the audience for percussion. Then towards the end of their set, a group of belly dancers showed up in full regalia and gave an impromptu dance. The real kicker of course is that at this festival, it wouldn't be considered unusual.

There was all sorts of other stuff as well. A healing area where tents offered everything from Thai massages to crystal therapy, an African musical instrument shop with people seemingly drumming permanently outside (public free to join in), a clothes stall where every item was made out of hemp, a wood-fired vegetarian pizza stall, scheduled storytelling sessions and a wood-fired sauna and shower, operated in a tent out of someone's trailer. Overall, stuff straight out of Viz's Modern Parents that made the tent selling bongs and legal highs seem mundane in comparison.

They had a good spectrum of music with a main stage and a beer tent doing the main acts and the 'Drystone Stage' doing some of the more unheard of stuff, which included a lot of local talent. This was a good place to go if you weren't doing anything else because you'd be guaranteed to find something unusual and cool. The Weirside Ceilidh and Bad Acid are the ones that stick in my mind the most.

The bar stage had some interesting stuff, most of which I'd not heard of but some I may have to chase up in the future. Ben's Brother were a guitar band playing something that amounted to a more uplifting version of James Blunt or Coldplay that oozed quality. Uniting the Elements were a girly hard/goth rock band whose quality and showmanship seemed at odds with the fact that they appeared to be unsigned (at least, they were selling CD-Rs afterwards). The Bluehorses were a Welsh Celtic Rock band who played a very progressive set that ranks as one of my favourite bits of the festival. The emo-tinged alt-rock of Johnny Panic proved to be a welcome change at the end of the weekend but you got the impression they were wasted on most of the audience.

On the main stage there were some fantastic acts. Neck did a great Celtic rock set and Show of Hands added to the folk credentials of the festival, even if they were lyrically depressing. The Bikini Beach Band were simply a fun surfer tribute band and great at it. The Ozric Tentacles gave some of their psychedelic progressive rock, marred by some unfortunate power cuts, and the Undertones showed that they still have it where it counts, getting the whole crowd going. Badly Drawn Boy was good but not great (he didn't seem as cheerful as the last time I saw him) but the best act of the weekend for me was the Levellers. My in-laws just kept saying how much of a ripoff of the Waterboys they were, but I didn't care. They got the crowd really fired up and jumping and me and Eimear were right by the fence for it.

Downsides were general inadequacies of the toilets; the portaloos themselves were nice (providing the seats stayed intact) but there weren't enough of them and the gents' piss-pots kept overfilling. Some of the stewards appeared stoned and the sound systems were pretty poor; most bands on the beer stage were continually signalling for the monitors to be turned up and the main stage couldn't be heard well from the mixing desk backwards.

None of it was bad enough to put a downer on things however and a good time was had by all. Would definitely consider going back next year. Maybe have to sort out fancy dress costumes as well, which was the order of the day on the Saturday.

Apology to Mr. Gates

Finally got to the bottom of the weird Vista slowdown bug. Turns out it wasn't Microsoft's fault after all, it was Endnote's (an academic bibliography package that interfaces with Word). Turning off the instant formatting option solved everything. That's my biggest Vista gripe dealt with.

Still, Bill's not off the hook for all the other stuff ranted about previously...

Back from Wacken

Just got back from Wacken Open Air and I have to say it ROCKED. For those that don't know, it is the biggest heavy metal music festival in the world and takes place in a small town in northern Germany. I've just been there for the first time with Eimear, Jon, Leo and Robin. Photos to follow when Eimear finds her camera.

The trip there was a bit taxing; there was an accident on the autobahn near the town that resulted in us being stuck in a traffic queue for a number of hours and us pitching our tent long after dawn. From there on in things got better.

As festival campsites went it was pretty good. There were showers and flushing toilets if you were prepared to part with a few Euros and the campsite not too crowded. The town of Wacken seemed to enjoy all the extra business with extra market stalls and things put out on the street and the local supermarket building a temporary beer market extension. The atmosphere was on the whole pretty relaxed, so long as you don't mind your neighbours playing Rammstein at God-knows-when in the morning. Industrial grade earplugs sorted that one out a treat.

The festival ground itself was great, considering it had been turned to quagmire only days previous by heavy rain. This had been remedied by carpeting it in straw, something that lead to inevitable hijinks. Drink-wise, Becks and mead were the order of the day, preferably drunk from one of the horns for sale in the huge market area. Also for sale included lots of clothes, t-shirts, CDs and a whole plethora of accessories.

But what about the music? Given that it was a northern European festival, there was an emphasis on the black metal subgenre, which wasn't to my personal taste but Jon and Leo loved it, in particular the melodic stuff like Norway's Dimmu Borgir. However, that wasn't the be all and end all; the first band we saw, Rose Tattoo, were a classic Aussie hard rock band, their use of ZZ Top-style slide guitars setting them apart from contemporaries such as Aerosmith and AC/DC.

A lot of my favourite stuff over the course of the festival were those that really got the crowd going and Finnish folk metallers Turisas were experts at that. How many bands can you think of that replace the lead guitar with a fiddle and accordion, dress up in furs and war paint and proceed to sing about getting drunk and charging into battle? Even amongst metalheads, it either works or it doesn't but I for one loved it, as did Eimear and Robin. Also great on the small stages were the American thrash-hardcore outfit Municipal Waste, who by the strike of the first chord turned the crowd into a beer-fuelled, frenzied circle pit that only let up to let people crowd surf on boogie boards and watch an audience member do a beer bong on stage. The German band Heaven Shall Burn would also fit into this category; I'm not normally into death metal but their sheer amount of thrashy intensity and energy was impossible to dislike and made for a great mosh pit. Similarly superb were Electric Eel Shock, a Japanese three-piece playing classic metal and punk that make up for sophistication with sheer insanity and a totally carefree attitude. Just a shame they didn't have their regular drummer, which meant they only had two nutcases on stage.

There were some good listenable bands too. The German band Rage did an orchestra-backed set of progressive and power metal tunes that worked fantastically well. The performance by veteran US thrashers Iced Earth left me wondering why I haven't listened to more of their stuff previously and Italian goth metal band Lacuna Coil also far exceeded my expectations, with their set being much more energetic and varied than the recorded work I had previously listened to. Therion, another goth band, this time from Sweden, also blew me away. It wasn't for the instrumental work; they kind of meandered between styles such as symphonic, power and death metal but never really getting stuck into any of them. What did it for me was their use of operatic soprano backing singers. It sent shivers down me. The best theatrics had to have belonged to the German band Die Apokalyptischen Reiter, whose on stage antics worked well with their accessible brand of death metal. The highlight had to have been pulling a female audience member onstage to sing along with them for one song, then afterwards locking her in a cage with their gimp-suited keyboard player. Also deserving a mention are Faeroean folk metallers Tyr, if only for the sheer amount of testosterone on display. Think 300 with Vikings.

There were some stuff I inevitably didn't get. Brit classic metal veterans Saxon and German power metallers Blind Guardian didn't get me going like I'd hoped but I got the definite impression that they were playing to their existing fanbases (like Robin). The British band Napalm Death I saw just out of the general principle of them being the godfathers of grindcore, but they just reminded me that I don't actually like that style. The exact same could be said of Immortal and the Norwegian black metal genre and Americans Cannibal Corpse and brutal death metal, both of which only got a cursory glance from me despite the fact that they were some of the biggest bands playing.

Overall though, fantastic festival but one that I'm going to take a while to recover from. Later will come the inevitable question of whether I go next year. Given that Iron Maiden are already confirmed, it's a definite maybe.