Today is a bit of a write-off as I got home around half past two this morning having been up since about nine on Saturday. Once in I had a cup of tea and a couple of burgers that Mandi had bought for me (meaning that apart from breakfast I only ate burgers yesterday), wrote the review for the paper and sent that in, took Jack for a walk and then ran out of steam and went to bed. It had been my intention to record The Sunday Alternative podcast but I just didn’t have the energy. Bizarrely I woke up at the usual time for a Sunday, around noon when I was woken up by the general sound of the house; Jack running around, Mandi’s hairdryer, the radio on in the bedroom, that sort of hustle and bustle. I felt like I needed longer in bed but decided to record the podcast before it was too late. In a typical stroke of Sod’s Law, what could have been the most hot-off-the-press podcast ever (the first time I have recorded TSA on the day of release) ended up online hours later than usual thanks to a technical wobble on the archive website.

The festival was due to open at midday yesterday with Kane Ashmore opening the outdoor stage, but he couldn’t make it so the first singer didn’t go on until half past. This was just as well really as Craig came round to pick me up and we had a cup of tea first so we arrived late. I hadn’t intended to spend too long at one particular stage as I felt as if I should try and be everywhere, I even made myself a list of priority sets but that soon went out of the window thanks to the sunshine. The line up on the outdoor stage was made up of an amazing array of talented musicians, however as the day wore on I found myself feeling a bit fatigued by the conveyer belt of singer/guitarists and went inside in search of something different. Don’t get me wrong (and I can feel I’m going to get some shit thrown my way for daring to suggest this), each performer is great in his or her own right, I could listen to Anwyn Williams all day as I could Leah Sinead or Jamie Moon, but one after the other was a bit much. Josh Kemp was there to offer something different with his loop-pedaling trademark charm, another wonderful talent. Sam Jones played with his band, and they were followed by 94 Gunships, a band I have wanted to see live for ages but somehow never managed. Will Jeffery, their singer, is someone I have seen on a few occasions and I’m always impressed with his voice, one of the best blues voices in Nottingham, and his band are something to definitely seek out. The Most Ugly Child closed the outdoor stage in spectacular fashion, there’s a band who will be huge one day, one of the few bands that stand out in Nottingham simply by being different.

I appreciate how much work must have gone into this sort of venture, I’m Not From London and Audacious Face teamed up to put on the day as a charity event. Something that was nice to see was that anyone who had an EP available (and let’s face it, everyone in Nottingham has an EP out) sold copies for the charity. Something I criticised the acts for last year at the Rosie May Memorial (Nottingham’s Live Aid) was that at a charity gig there was too much plugging going on, so it was refreshing to see them making a contribution in this manner. Organising something this size isn’t going to come without its hiccups though, and inevitably the running order went a little bit off-road. This meant that by watching a whole set you missed the beginning of the next one, but apart from that all went smoothly in the organisation. This is more than can be said for the sound upstairs. Band of Jackals, a band I absolutely love, sounded wrong and apparently couldn’t hear themselves in the monitors for most of the set, and if that happens you’re pretty much knackered. That’s not to say they didn’t put on a great show because they did, I just feel they deserved better from the sound engineers, a group of people having the worst day of their professional lives. It was this issue that also dampened my enjoyment of an all too rare appearance from Practical Lovers. I haven’t mentioned the downstairs stage (the Leftlion stage) much, but I only saw two bands there all day; Seamonster Eyes and Cheshire and the Cat, who opened. April Towers had a bad start to their set when a major sound issue (I don’t know what as I walked in a few minutes late) and announced that they were going to sacrifice their set so not to mess things up for the other bands, this earned them a supportive round of applause. Something must have gone their way though as when I returned from a cash point machine and cigarette run they were performing.

As the night wore on the festival started to feel like an endurance test, Craig had already gone home earlier and Gary and Teegan left after The Most Ugly Child finished things off outside and asked if I wanted a lift home. I had to stay for two reasons; I was writing about it for the paper, although Gary’s advice to make up the last bit was tempting. The second reason was that Captain Dangerous were headlining the upstairs stage (can’t remember what it was called now) and I didn’t want to miss their show. The sound issues hadn’t improved by their allocated time slot of a quarter to one this morning, which is why the band were standing on stage for half an hour requesting various different instruments to come through the monitors. Miles and Adam kept apologising for the hold up, and the audience stayed around not knowing how long this shit was going to go on. As they broke into their first song the cheer they got must have made it all worthwhile. I’m guessing they shortened their set as a lot of songs seemed to have been omitted, although if this was for curfew reasons then surely the venue should have taken responsibility and let them play on. After all, they are the best band this city has got.

(A big thank you to all the musicians who took the time to tell me that they agreed with my comments regarding the Nottingham music scene. It means a lot that you did that, you know who you are).

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