Cats:for:peru gig #005

What up.  So we played Runaway Girl the other night.  We arrived 7pm sharp as advised and paid £2.50 each to park.  After sitting around drinking expensive drinks, seeing Kinny lose to Bolly at pool and Sky Sports missing Derby's goal against Newcastle, we finally soundchecked at 8.45pm.  Soundcheck wasn't too smart either but when we finally got round to playing, I think we had a good time and the place was quite full.

Setlist
1.  Last man in europe
2.  A34
3.  Cutting the bridges in half
4.  The Nobodies
5.  I:am:the:orgasm
6.  Love in a lift

We were due to play Manifesto instead of The Nobodies but Ukulele technical problems prevented this.  All in all this was a good gig and was good to play the new song live before we recorded it.  

Cats:for:peru gig #004

Apologies Blogface, I appear to have forgotten to write about this gig!  We played Grapes again after being invited but all round good chap Chris Murphy.  After Electric Picnic, I lost my voice and it began to get worse and the preceeding week went on.  I tried various remedies and come the gig, I was still not 100% fit.  We carried on regardless though and all wasn't as bad as it could have been...

Setlist
1.  The nobodies
2.  Last man in europe
3.  Tripwires and flashing lights
4.  Bring in the experts
5.  I:am:the:orgasm

We dropped crowd pleaser Cutting the Bridges in Half as I just felt I wouldn't be up to it.  Despite everything, we went down really well again and we were all quite happy with the gig.  Headliners Chris Murphy and Boxer Genius were excellent - his band are extremely tight and talented and complemented Chris' traditional song writing well and giving it a modern touch.

Electric Picnic

Friday:

I woke up at 2.30am and Julie woke at 3.10am. A little obligitary rush and we got a taxi, then train, then plane, then bus, then coach to the festival. We pitched our tent, got some food and headed for the main arena. People call Electric Picnic a "mini-glastonbury" and they appeared to be right.

The first place we headed for was the Body and Soul area - a great little intimate place with the "chill out" stage, wishing wells, campfires, etc. Julie headed straight for the hammocks and then we watching a young lady for a couple of songs on the Chill out stage. After that we found a blackboard and I wrote Cats:for:peru's web address on. More about this place later.

As camping wasn't permitted the Thursday night, the music didn't start until around 5pm on the main stage with The Ukulele Orchestra of Great Britain. A brilliant way to start the festival in the semi-sunshine. They played covers of Psycho Killer, Life on Mars, Teenage Dirtbag, Shaft and many others. Good harmless fun and good for a sing along. 7/10

Next up were Hot Chip. This was the 4th time I'd seen the band in a year and once again they didn't disappoint. 5 men all armed with synths and a guitar, and they can make you dance like nothing else. I think perhaps they were a little lost on the main stage though. Having seen them before in a relatively small Leadmill, they're much more a "club" band. 8/10

I then ran across to the Electric Arena to see the Manics. I watched around a 3rd of their set (the middle third) and thankfully caught sole Holy Bible track Faster which was stonking. The rest was a little MOR and what we've come to expect of the Manics of late - James Dean Bradfield still puts on a hell of a show though. 7/10

The main reason for missing the end of the set was to join Julie for Bjork on the main stage. She entered the stage with her backing musicians including Wonderbrass. She stormed through a set of songs off her new album Volta and mostly her "hits". Bjork really knows how to work a crowd without being cheesy and cliche and her tunes can carry her set alone. The visuals were a complete added bonus. Highlights were difficult to pick but with songs like Joga, Army of me, Declare Independence, Hyperballad you can't really go wrong. Probably the set of the festival. 9.5/10

Since we had been awake now a full 19/20 hours, we were far too tired to see any of Modest Mouse, Mr Scruff or LCD Soundsystem which was a massive shame.

We went back to our tent and tried to sleep. Trust our luck to be next door to a bunch of wankers. Some choice quotes for you:

"I NEED CLASS A'S!"
"I fucking went to meet fucking John and fucking Simon and fucking, yeah, grand"
"Last year we partied hard, we had soooo much sex and drugs!"

Please shut the fuck up.

Saturday: We arose early and took a walk to the main arena. We needed hats man. Hair was greasy already and hats would solve this. So we bought woolly hats. We went back to the Body and Soul area and returned to the blackboard to find my web address was underneath lots and lots of scribbles. And those scribbles were under the large lettering of the word "GAY". Excellent. We watched an Irish man called Liam O'Maoniani who played piano, guitar, recorder and sang. A nice chilled set for the morning and had great in between-song banter to go with it. 6/10

We then headed to a near empty Electric Arena and caught the back end of Shy Child's set. They are a two piece with a wicked drummer and a vocal/keyboardist (slung over his shoulder like a guitar). Obviously part of the "nu-rave" movement, this duo were actually not too bad although the vocals were a tad annoying - he sounding a little deaf and dumb come to think of it. 6.5/10

Next up were funksters !!!. Sporting around 8 members, they crashed onto the stage played the opening two tracks from new album 'Myth Takes'. As per, !!! got me dancing like a fool (but not as foolishly as vocalist Nick). Other sometimes-vocalist John appeared to be missing which didn't bother me too much until his replacement entered the stage. An overly-charismatic woman entered to take the parts of John and it kind of ruined it for me. She was very "pop" in her stylings - her dancing style and her shout outs of "come ooooon Dublin!" (I mean come on, we weren't even in Dublin!). She was only around for a couple of tunes so it didn't spoil it too much for me, but I've definitely seen them do better. 8/10

A small gap in anyone good being on and then over to the main stage to catch a couple of Easy Star Allstars tunes. They're known for releasing two covers-in-the-style-of-reggae albums - Dub Side of the Moon and Radiodread. They did sound like fun but we had to run across to the next band.

In a busy Nokia Trents Lab tent, 65daysofstatic playing a short put blinding set. I've probably seen the band more times than any other and I would rank this around the middle. Great performance non-the-less, even with the missing 'Retreat Retreat'. 7/10

We then got straight to the front to await Patrick Wolf. He then took to the stage wearing his usual leopard skin top with shorts and tall socks. He played a very very short set dogged with sound problems. His performance was outstanding as per usual but his backing band really grate me. There always seem to be sound issues and a lack of chemistry and around 3 times I caught members playing riffs one or two frets away from where it should be! Patrick, find yourself a new band and sort out your sound engineers! 7.5/10

We headed for the Foggy Notions tent to see Ratatat. Having never been in the tent, it was surprisingly very atmospheric and the lighting was complemented well with the low tent (and thus letting little natural light in). They entered the stage as a three piece - synths, guitar and bass and played to a backing of their instrumentals. The 2 "main" members gave a cracking show - rocking out like it was the main stage and it added to the experience. After a slow start, the set picked up and I really enjoyed it. 8.5/10

It was now decision time - do we see Final Fantasy or Simian Mobile Disco? Since we were in the mood to dance we went with the latter and it turns out we made a bad move. The Bodytonic stage and crowd were a bit too "Ibiza" and it was all a little underwhelming. We headed back to Final Fantasy who was 100 times better but we were right at the back. His use of looping violins was extraordinary though.

We now had an hour to get across to the Electric Arena to get a good place for the festivals biggest draw - Beastie Boys. The tent was already heaving and the atmosphere was great. When the boys took to the stage they didn't disappoint. Mixing up their set, they played some of their pre-label punk songs, their trademark rap songs and their newer instrumentals. All of it was brilliant and their set blew me away. Great rapping and stagemanship. Mixmaster Mike deserves a mention for his turn tabling too - amazing! 9.5/10

Next up were Chemical Brothers but as they were the only band on at that time (and hence no clashes) the main arena was miles too full and it was impossible to get anywhere near. So we left again.

Sunday: The next morning we headed back to the Chill out stage to see a performance from ex Damien Rice sidekick Lisa Hannigan. Of course, another chilled set from her - a great great voice and good musicians. Hunger did end up interrupting her set though so we only saw half of it. 6.5/10

Then was the biggest gap of the weekend of things not worth seeing. We did get to explore the site though and found a few shops and bars that we didn't realise existed.

Then came a clash that caused me and Julie to split (physically, not our relationship) - I went to see Bat for Lashes and she went to see Beastie Boys instrumental set. My venture came off a lot more successfully as Beastie Boys set time and venue changed so she missed it. Bat for Lashes played a very nice set in the Foggy Notions tent playing songs from her great debut album. Part Bjork, part Kate Bush, this group are definitely one for the future. 8/10

Torrential downpour followed and then off to the main stage for Sonic Youth. A surprisingly sparse crowd watched as they played a blistering set, top heavy with songs from Daydream Nation. Sonic Youth ended up surprising me, still edgy and fresh sounding at an older age and having got into them recently, they really lived up to their recordings and delivered a very enjoyable set, especially with 100%. 8.5/10

We headed to the Electric Arena to watch Unkle but the tent was far too full, so we headed back to the main stage to catch some of Iggy and the Stooges from far back. Always worth a laugh but not something I'm too bothered about seeing again any time soon.

The final act of the festival for us was Kieran Hebden aka Four Tet playing with legendary drummer Steve Reid. This duo have toured for a while now merging improvised electronics with beats. Most of the time, it really worked - this unusual pairing had great chemistry and a knowing look at each other when a killer part of the set was happening. A great way to end a great festival. 8/10





Festival highs
Amazing line up
Lots to do - PS3 tent was frequented a lot for example
A lot of emphasis on being eco-friendly
Irish accents
Mostly nice people there; a lot of friendly small talk from staff and festival goers alike

Festival lows
Awful pre-festival organisation
Confusing lay out
Rarely cleaned/restocked toilets
Extortionate food pricing
Drunken idiots

All pictures of this festival can be found on my Facebook right here.

Beneath a Steel Sky

So blogface, I think this is the end. My friend Simon alerted me to the outdoors at which I noticed everything appeared to be tinted yellow. I then looked up to see bizarre red and yellow clouds - worth a picture or two I thought:

Weird yellow to the left...

Zoomed up...

Independence Day..??

Crazy shit...

Crazy black and white bit?!

More Independece Day

Very strange I'm sure you'll agree.

Look out for my extensive review of Electric Picnic later...