Summer's End 2008

Sorry I'm late.
Are we all here? Ah, good.
I've just flown in from Summer's End, and boy, are my arms tired!
No, wait, that's not right. Start again.
Lydney in Gloucestershire. Small village on the edge of Wales.
Several hundred prog fans. One pub. Luckily, everyone too well mannered to riot when they ran out of beer.

But - bands! Yes, that's it!

The drinking, er, music began on Friday night with Season's End. I asked my mate Simon if they were a Marillion tribute band, and he shrugged.
They turned out to be a prog metal band fronted by a young lady with a lovely voice and large bosoms. When she bent over and started head banging, I heard the synchronised sound of hundreds of men all going "oh my goodness" or words to that effect. It was quite startling.
Luckily the band was also quite tight, and my first uneducated thought (ok, my second) was "Hey, they're pretty good!"
They were a good match for Threshold who I first saw last year at Summer's End, and thus grabbed Simon by the throat and said "You must see this band!"
I then let go long enough for him to agree that they were jolly excellent.

I suppose they are "hard rock" now that heavy metal involves lead singers gargling whilst fighting off a pack of wolves (Slayer, I'm looking at you!). Damian, the singer, was singing proper words with a throat that could open up like the Mersey Tunnel. Trousers all over the room vibrated. I got to sleep about half past a nightmare. But we were happy.

First up on Saturday was beer at 12pm. They let us into the hall about 12:30pm ("we're doing very well!") and we got to see Overvibe.
Actually, I got to see Overvibe a bit sooner, as the lead singer Si (looking a bit like the bloke from the Kaiser Chiefs) had forgotten to lock the toilet door, so I walked in on him. We both smiled in a very British way, I left, and no more was said. I enjoyed the music - a bit more confidence on stage to back up their strong songs and all will be well.
Abarax is a band almost entirely made up of one family - and Udo, the keyboard player, bears a startling resemblance to Peter Ustinov. How could they lose? I am always partial to anything a bit Pink Floyd-y
and these guys really hit the spot for me.
Quidam (from the Latin "many quids") had come all the way from Poland. Unfortunately, I had been drinking far too heavily by this time and all I remember is very smooth, melodic prog, and a lot of hair.
Luckily, being thrown out into the cold air sobered me up for Magenta who were on form... even if their equipment was misbehaving. Luckily it only took one song for them to wrestle their equipment to the
ground, and Christina's vocals were soon vibrating as many trousers as Threshold had the night before.

Then we were chucked out again to allow IQ to build their stage set entirely out of match sticks, which they achieved in record time, taking the stage only 1 1/2 hours late.
Since by this time I was drifting in and out of sleep, I was transported in a Little Nemo stylee (cf "Scenes from a Night's Dream" from Then There Were Three) to a magical land with a lovely soundtrack, as great swathes of hand-picked prog from IQ's twenty-plus years of songwriting and playing washed over me (Guiding Light was particularly lovely), only interrupted briefly by several people trying to prod me awake in the manner of my mother on a school morning when I was eight.

But no matter. I had been wondering whether I would enjoy IQ after not having seen them live for *cough cough* years. They didn't disappoint me and I did a lot of smiling.

I was surprised to feel fine on Sunday morning so I immediately began drinking again. Hurrah! (Little did I know that the constant drinking would manifest itself as a hangover two days hence. I am now postulating that there are "alcohol wormholes" that can open up in space and time, but, in line with Einstein's theory of relativity, these wormholes cannot transmit information. Only hangovers.)
We saw Glow first, and for my ADD based brain which thrives on novelty, this was one of the standout bands of the weekend for me. A guitar based electronica/dance band with a generous sprinkling of samples. To be fair, they really had me at "Holy Science" which contained samples of Robert Jahn, parapsychologist and rocket scientist, describing his telekinesis experiments with pachinko machines, all to a strong beat and tuneful guitars.

Thieves Kitchen also interested me greatly, since 1) the singer used at least one different instrument per song (Clarinet, recorder, various percussion thingies) and 2) because their tour T-Shirt listed all the rude sounding place names they could find from around the world, including the sleepy little hamlet of Sexmoan in the Philipines. Although strangely, they had left out the Austrian villages of "f**king", "w**k" and "P*ss".

They were folky, new-age-y prog and I wasn't surprised to find out that they are supporting Whimwise later this month. I said to Simon "They have a theremin" in the same way as Boromir said "They have a cave troll" but he was doing something important and didn't get it.
Abel Ganz were the next band, and I (knowing absolutely nothing about them) was surprised to find that they were Scottish and not German. I enjoyed their set of rocky-type prog, although I only got to see half of it - I was, erm, in the bar again.
We went outside to say hello to Frost* who were wandering around the carpark wearing sunglasses and talking into mobile phones. I thought the FBI had come to Lydney. John Mitchell had a particularly large pair of sunglasses and a wooly hat and looked just like Will Smith in Hancock. Spooky. He had just enough time to play the gig before driving to Cardiff to front the It Bites gig at 9:30pm. It's a wonder the poor man doesn't melt or explode or something.

Frost* were really good, athough considering what a "Who's Who" of prog they are, I can't say I was surprised! Couple of songs from the new album as well - I love the album title "Experiments in Mass Appeal" but thought it a bit odd as a song title. Although Caravan once called a song "The Dog, The Dog, He's at it Again" so I guess
there is precedent.
And so we came to the final beer, er, band of the weekend - the Tangent. I'd seen Guy Manning with his own band in 2006, and really enjoyed it. Everyone had mentioned Beardfish to us (mostly in the context of a "dream ticket" gig of Beardfish, Strangefish and Tinyfish) but the Tangent itself I had not seen. I really enjoyed it.
I bought the new album "Not as Good as the Book" and was amused to find it came with a book I also bought the T-Shirt and The Tangent's Andy Tillison called out "nice T-Shirt" to me before we went in. "Thanks!" I responded wittily.
And so to bed and the trials of British Rail the following morning.
I had a great time. I'd like to thank our dutch friends Bert and Annika for their kindness in helping us driving-impaired people (and for recommending Epica's "The Phantom Agony"), Stephen and Huw for organising it all (arriving on Friday we found Huw up a ladder, fixing the lighting rig!) and all the lovely people that we met and, indeed, will meet again! Goodnight, Lydney, I love you all!!!!!!!!!!


Rob Ramsay.


Edited by Tinyfish - October 10 2008 at 11:35

Excellent write up, Rob!

I must go to this event next year. Never been..

It's a good job I drink cider, I was never in danger of the pub next door running out of drink for me.

Very good review there, certainly better than I could write.