scaryblog

  Ah - the last proper day.  Which started way too early after a TERRIBLE night's sleep - fortunately my chaise longue was available up the hill and I spent 2 hours resting my eyes on it and felt almost human having done so!  In between the snoozes, I worked out my targets for the day - Beth Orton, Toyah Wilcox & Robert Fripp, Slowdive, Becky Hill, Caroline Polachek and some geezer called Elton. And I wasn't in the mood to move anywhere to find music, so I got what I was given in the form of... John Francis Flynn Ah OK.  Maybe it's time to move on then.  He was trying for the mysterious Celtic sound, but all he achieved was slightly dull. On my slow wander over to the West Holts stage, I caught the last 30 seconds of a Mother Sky song on the Other stage and really liked it, so decided I would stop and catch the rest of their set.  Yup, it was their last song - oh well, time to move along then to go and see... Beth Orton I saw Beth either last time or th...

Continuing my trip back through the 1968 album charts. 25/02/68 : Their Satanic Majesties Request  - The Rolling Stones Our ninth visit with the Stones -  I think it's fair to say that their output has been somewhat variable over the years.  Generally, I've preferred their stuff from around this time, but I believe this isn't viewed as one of their finest efforts. And with good reason - for the most part, it's just a sludgy mess.  "She's A Rainbow" and "2000 Light Years From Home" are OK, but apart from that, there's not, at first listen at least, a lot here to recommend it.  It feels like they were trying to be Beatles-ish with experimenting with unusual rhythms and sounds (and album covers!), but for me it's even less successful than when the lads from Liverpool tried it.  Just no. We're at the dizzy heights of #15 in the charts this week on their eleventh week of a thirteen week run, with it having peaked at #3 in its fourth week (...

Continuing my trip back through the 1968 album charts. 03/03/68 : Days Of Future Passed  - The Moody Blues Our second visit with The Moody Blues this year - last time it was a bit of a mess, but not an unpleasant mess and I have absolutely no reason not to expect exactly the same here. Hmmm - I wouldn't really describe this as a mess because it's much more consistent across the album.  However, it may be consistent but that doesn't mean it's not very strange - it's basically some reasonably unchallenging classical music which, from time to time, is joined by some prog style lyrics.  For most of the album, it just feels incongruous - after the first couple of tracks I had to check that Alexa hadn't just played me a random playlist instead and I couldn't decide what it was they wanted me to make of it all.  Justin Heyward does have a nice voice though and on "Nights In White Satin", the one track where it all works well, it all works very well indee...

After a slightly better night's sleep (it's all relative), I was still up and ready way before there was any music to listen to - yesterday's chaise longue was calling to me, but I knew I was going to start the day at Woodsies which would have involved a 40 minute round trip, so I just found a spot in the shade (it was gonna be a hot one) and planned out my musical targets for the day.  And from my personal preferences, I came up Rick Astley (both by himself and doing his Smiths thang with Blossoms), Sudan Archives, Erika de Casier, Rina Sawayama, Melanie C and Christine and the Queens - and I also had a couple of instructed visits from my daughters for Raye and Aitch (despite me telling them I wasn't going to like Aitch!).  I knew I was setting myself up for failure because Rina and Mel were playing at the same time on opposite sides of the park, but the weather was also going to play a part because by 11am when the music started it was hot, hot, HOT! The Last Dinner P...

Continuing my trip forward in time through the album charts 23/06/23 :   What Ifs & Maybes  - Tom Grennan  Last time we met Tom I was a bit meh about the whole thing - maybe not quite as meh as I might have been expecting, but generally  I wouldn't have gone into this expecting too much.  Except... ...on Saturday night, I got to watch him duetting with Mel C on "When You're Gone".  They'd had no rehearsals and it was impressively rubbish to start with - but they just ploughed on with it, finally getting things sorted and having such a good time in the process that it was just lovely.  And then, whilst I was writing this up, he appeared on Celebrity Gogglebox and seemed like a decent guy.   So I've got a lot more good feelings towards the lad than I would have otherwise had and am almost looking forward to this. And, you know what?  It was OK!  I really liked "Here", a lot of the other tracks were pretty good and none of them we...

  I always go hard on the Friday in terms of walking between the stages to catch the people I want to see - on later days, tiredness kicks in and I accept that sacrifices have to be made, but on the Friday I'm totally "I can do this!".  For those who haven't been, the distances involved can be significant - walking from the Acoustic stage to the Park stage is a good 30 minute hike under optimum conditions and optimum conditions does not involve the presence of other people, so you often need to easily double that.  So planning is required, people! My planning process is to pick the people I really want to see and then see who else makes sense to catch given the locations involved - I'm not saying spreadsheets are involved, but it probably wouldn't hurt things if they were.  Targets for this day were Maisie Peters (under instruction from my eldest), Flo (I reckoned they'd be perfect for the sunshine), Carly Rae Jepson (yeah, just for the one song), Pale Wav...