Gnollfest - Neath, The Gnoll - 28th August 2011

This is not a review of the entire festival to be honest, it's a video diary (without video) of my weekend which included a visit to the grassy Gnoll. No one got shot in this day but a few should have.....

My weekend began with a relatively early start up to Birmingham. I was up with the birds despite copious amounts of the vino the previous night, that's me, professional see! Having dealt with an incredible amount of traffic and heavy bursts of rain I picked up Gary aka (The Demon) along with softly spoken Kev, the UK's biggest W.A.S.P. fan from New Street Station and we headed off to sunny Birkenhead for the first show of the Autumn run of gigs for Dressed To Kill. If you live north and you're not familiar with the Revolver, are you into rock music?? Why haven't you been to this club? It's a mecca of rock 'n' roll so please support it..... Needless to say, the people were great, the show was great. Despite hitting the stage at 11.30pm, wwwaaaayyyy past my bedtime, we all stayed upright and destroyed the venue in true Kiss fashion...... Late loading out meant leaving at 4am to arrive in Brum at 6am to unload gear into lock up and then off home, sleep driving for most of the way, though I did open one eye to witness the sun rise.

Somehow managing to arrive outside my house at 8.30am, I crept in only to find, on my lovely red sofa, my missus with.. dun dun da.....Ace bleedin' Finchum, minus his drum stix! I managed to wake up for a brief moment to realise his lovely other half Chrissy was also there, and after a very brief slurred conversation, and after showing Ace my TD 12 kit, I was off to bed for ten minutes sleep before heading off to sunny Gnoll land.

Feeling a little more refreshed and having said my farewells to Ace and Chrissy earlier, we head down to Neath to catch the day's activities, getting in was the first obstacle although quickly sorted by Tessa (don't stand in her way on such things) and we were on the inside of the gate and we were even given 'band' passes, so yep, I could get right up on that stage and cause havoc if I was so inclined!

A quick recky around the joint and, fairplay, it all seemed a pretty well put together affair and there were a few milling around; nice big marquee which had good sound, stage and lighting. The band at the time were Psycho Kiss and had a bird singing who was really belting it out, a wacky drummer, following the tradition of wacky drummers (all drummers must be seen to be wacky). They gave a reasonable showing and the smallish crowd was appreciative, so a good start.

Nice to see the Uber Crue out in force in the guise of Dom Daley. A catch up chat and then I head off to the bar, only to soak up the atmosphere and it had nothing to do with the fact they sold liquid gold. The band at the time playing in the bar being Jeff's Tuxedo, who turned out to be Judge Tuxedo. The former name is better so I will refer to them as that from now on.....Featuring the next Tailz bass player, she was actually rather good with her Fender precision but possibly too good, very Zappa esque.

Back to the big tent to watch the local heroes (local to me) The Guns. Why these haven't 'cracked it' is a big question - well, why haven't they? What element are they missing to take it up a notch? They put on a reasonable show of it and I thought warmed the gathering crowd pretty well. It seems every local festival I attend has them playing so maybe perseverance will see 'em through.

At this point my good buddies Marseille turn up as, of course, they are playing later in the day. You really couldn't meet a nicer bunch of guys, and of course they have Neil 'The Cannon' Buchanan in the ranks and as I walked around the field with them in a vain attempt to find their dressing room, or any dressing room, it was funny to see the reaction of the crowd when the Canon walks past; The Guns watched him side of stage like 8 year olds meeting Mickey Mouse. Rather amusing to watch. Marseille played a cracking set and had a really great response from the sizeable crowd, they must have been pleased with the effort involved in getting to deepest Wales. Joined by Kev from the legendary Tysondog guesting on bass, they were as great as ever. Tessa had some nice chips, which everyone agreed were quite the best chips anyone had had for a long time and we headed back to the merch/beer tent. It was great to see people clambering to have their Marseille CDs and posters signed by the band. It's like the good old days!

Unfortunately at this point we had to leave our dear friends and head off to my own gig at the slowly becoming legendary Patriots Club and Clubhouse in Crumlin. My other band Hangfire are topping the Sunday night of a three night festival, all in aid of charity. I was told on arrival they've had six hundred people attend over the three days which is awesome for a really small venue, but they don't 'arf make you welcome. We caught a bit of the legendary S.E.X, what a great band, and it's like stepping back in time to the Bogiez days seeing them again! Hangfire play a storming set to wrap up the festival to a very appreciative crowd, leaving me extremely tired but thankful to be a part of a great band with a great bunch of handsome, talented guys.....Put me to bed boys, put me to bed.......

[Photos by Tessa Blakout]