How Swn was wow, how I shoulda blogged this Swn'er and other festival pun fun (festival #3 of 08)
I have been pretty slack on this for the past week and a bit. This is mainly due to being struck down with what Grace ingeniously called 'Swn Snot'. I think I would go as far as diagnosing myself with full blown Swnitutus brought on by a weekend of excess, too many bands (is there such a thing?) and not nearly enough sleep. But these kinda repercussions are something to be expected really when throwing yourself into 3 days of relentless fun and wrongs when your 27 (at the 'pro' level that which I feel I have now reached). But for as long as the fun:pain ratio continues to fall in favor of fun I shall carry on like a winner for the foreseeable future.
The first round of Swn fun started off early with a trip to Spillers for some of their festival instores. Firstly a short set from local band Fredrick Stanley Star, who I had not seen before but heard plenty of good things about. They were pretty good, although I decided to reserve judgment on them until I saw them play proper in Buffalo’s later.
Then Cate le Bon played. I’m a fan. I have been since first seeing her play at last years Swn. If you haven’t heard of her, she is in Neon Neons live band and sings on their single ‘I Lust You’ but is a massively talented songwriter in her own right. I did a Qik live stream of some of this instore here.
I then went to the new Wagamamas in town while I killed time with Grace waiting for the next round of fun to start. Wagamamas is great, if you like being served by chav girls who don’t really know what they are doing and who scrawl your order down on your placemat because they can’t work out how to put it in the piece of hand held technology that they strut around the place wielding like a gun. On paying for the over priced, somewhat substandard food, I was about to give the girl a tip for her (albeit) lame effort at customer service, when she tried pulling an evil trick on my by telling me my hair looked nice to try and secure some extra ££’s. I knew for a fact it wasn’t (it seldom is), which really pissed on her chips cos I rebelled and gave her a big fat £0 to take home to spend on whatever it is girls like her spend their money on (hairspray & fags?). Do you think this kind of customer complimenting manipulation is included in the training they get? I am pretty sure that the waitress in question didn’t think it up herself.
Anyway, I digress.
The first band on our Swn itinerary involved a jaunt down to Canton to have a look at the Gate venue (which was very nice) and to see my man Gareth play keyboards for ex. Boo Radleys front man Martin Carr. I have to admit, if it wasn’t for the girlfriend duty of being there I would rather have been anywhere but. Someone who shall remain nameless can be quoted as saying “Why would I want to go and see some of my most talented friends failing to save a drowning man”….. harsh but a comedy quote none the less.
We then got stuck in wanky rugby traffic and took ages to dump my wheels and make our way back into town.
Made it into Clwb to see Clinic who, even though I have never really given them a proper listen, were really good. It was about here that I started feeling miserable because my inside were feeling wrong. Hung out in Dempseys, then tafod until I was forced to drag myself arse to bed.
The following day myself, smash and Gareth had to get our heads together to go to the police station for an ID parade (well I say parade, it was a computer screen of people) for an incident that I have yet to blog about. All I can say is police stations are nothing like The Bill and are thoroughly boring places to spend your Saturday afternoons.
The second round of Swn fun started at twat central - Buffalo bar. Why they bother putting bands on here I don’t know. An area which resembles a corridor with a stage at the end does not constitute a venue, no matter much you want it to.
After hooking up with a cru, we abandoned the Fredrick Stanley Star gig in favour of Zail in the makeshift venue for the weekend - Kaz Bar. It was rammed. We managed to be at the front and buzzed for their whole set. Who’da though you could make such a furious and full sounding noise from just a drummer and a guitarist. To be fair, the drummer is so good that I could happily watch him perform the set on his own. I grinned the whole way through.
After nipping out for some air, Noel and myself had to fight our way back to rejoin smash, grace, ben and toni at the front waiting for the mighty Truckers of Husk, much to the annoyance and loud tutting of a lot of the people there (who I surmised must only go to a couple of gigs a year and I rekon most of those are probably in the CIA).
Truckers of Husk nailed a predictably ace set which saw much dancing from us. Most of it was done by smash and grace while I looked on in bemusement. See (thanks to Llinos for this pic:
After mistakenly thinking we were on a regular Saturday night, we found ourselves having a drink downstairs in Dempseys while listening to the likes of the kooks on the jukebox. I cannot tell you how wrong this felt.
After making our escape.. we ended up heading down to Tafod (via a quick look in Kaz bar again) for my mate Anwens Disco Nectar Swn effort, where she had miraculously managed to blag the Dutch electronic legend Legowelt to come and play.
An ace night of dancing ensued to a PUMPIN set from Gwydion Orcop followed by and old skool acid tinged techno set from Mr. Lego Welt. A really ace way to end the saturday night of Swn fun. Nice one Anwen. A job well done.
Managed to get to sleep by about 5ish. By the time I woke on sunday I was in pain. I was beginning to feel the Swn burn. But as they say in the world of fitness, No Pain No Gain... so I figured it was best to be a winner and power through to the end.
Made it into Clwb to see a girl called 'Little Eris' who was doing a half tidy job of electronic tunes off an iMac (I think someone should tell her that there are these new things called 'Laptops' which are far more portable). She got even better when Jamie made his stage debut for the evening and got hold of her Kaoss Pad and joined in. It confirmed my NEED for a kaoss pad mini (which I have since brought – it is ace).
Hung outside with the smokers while drifting in and out of feeling ace, to feeling like I was going to die in quick succession.
Managed to exert enough energy to have a quick dance with Grace, Ash, DC and Claire to the Gonzales tune Will Steen was playing before seeing Agaskodo Teliverek, who made my insides feel ace for the entire set. Jamie made another impromptu cameo appearance on stage and when I made many yells of 'Go on Jamie!' he told the singer that he wanted me to come and stage and tell a joke. I hid. I cannot successfully tell jokes. Especially in front of a room of people while feeling like I was dying. Didn't think it was the best time to make my comedy debut.
Took a run upstairs and saw Right Hand Left Hand – again – who blow me away every time and who seem to get better and better!
Then in one final exertion of one final bit of energy, I managed to pull out of the bag a good ol'dance to the hits of Future of the Left. Jamie kinda made his 3rd appearance of the evening by provoking several cross words from Falco for trying to continually steal his beer.
A great set which finished with Kelson (bass) hanging by his legs from the ceiling while still playing the end of the last song. ACE!
Here is a photo that I have stolen from John Rostron cos it is ace and I wish I had taken it.
A great weekend. I hope Swn keeps happening. Big up the people behind it, your doing a sterling job which is appreciated by many!
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