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ventaI'm going to post about Whitby before I post about holidaying in Northumberland, because there's a greater danger I'll forget who the bands were. Also, this LJ is chronically non-chronological these days. I mean, the dairy-free custard tarts were weeks ago now and I still haven't written about them...
Having been in Northumberland, I got to Whitby early on Thursday evening and can report that the new Wetherspoons is large, soulless, rammed to the gunwhales, and staffed by people without much clue.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
damerell and I moderately successfully consumed food and beer before I scooted back to Whitehall Landings to let davefish and keris into our flat.
Friday I pottered gently about, shopping, with Keris. I didn't buy much, but was talked into some military-style badges bymaviscruet. I don't have an appropriate jacket to fix them to, but Mavis promised that I will find one. (Oddly, someone gave Davefish a rather nice jacket over the weekend. And he left it behind when he headed home. And, er, Davefish and I are about the same size. It might be covered in First Tea Company badges when he next sees it.) At tea-time, in a jolly spirit of adventuresomeness, Davefish brought us battered hake and panga with our chips. The panda panga was a new one on me, and possibly an experiment I won't be repeating - it was a very watery fish, and tasted like the inside of a potting shed.
Poor timing meant we missed almost all of Bad Pollyanna in the Spa - though I think my review is as last time: perfectly decent female-fronted rock band. The really strange thing was that, when we arrived, there was no one in the foyer. No one! Everyone was in the main hall, watching the band. This is unheard of. Earlier birds tell me that everyone was in the hall, being excited, before the band came on. This was possibly down to the unusually youthful and excitable nature of Friday's audience - the front rows were packed with teeny-tiny screaming emo kiddies bouncing up and down. On Saturday it was back to the usual procedure of aged goths cynically raising an eyebrow from the bar when a band came on.
I enjoyed Ashestoangels immensely, though probably for all the wrong reasons. A four-piece (singer, guitar, bass, drums) with a combined age of about 43, they are enthusiastic and shouty gothy-punky-pop. The bassist has got the moves and the cheekbones, but doesn't seem to be able to play bass while running around the stage. In fact, I'm not completely convinced he can play it while standing still. However, after far too many experiences of watching lacklustre, lifeless wailing in the Spa I'll take boundless enthusiasm - even if it's not hugely competent enthusiasm. They were good fun.
Fearless Vampire Killers are a five-piece with a combined age of about 43. Two frontmen alternate guitar and lead vocal duties, most of the others also sing, and all of them seemed to be able to play their instruments - actually rather well. They were very tight and a bit theatrical and sounded great. Oh, and they checked the 'comedy cover' box with their version of Phil Collins' Easy Lover. Weirdly, when I commented later in the weekend toulfilias that I'd liked them, he looked utterly bewildered and said "but you don't look like a lesbian". I have no idea of his logic. (When I asked what lesbians looked like, the answer was "female", so I've had him killed.)
Anyway, I enjoyed Fearless Vampire Killers and bought a CD. Recorded, they're not quite as good as I'd hoped, but if you fancied giving them a whirl there are listenables on their website.
For some reason I had William Control mentally filed as dreary soul-sucking droning so was expecting to hate them. I was thus surprised when I got two blokes doing electronic-with-guitar - relative to expectations they were clearly the best band of the night :) Not brilliant - the sound was too samey for every song, and the frontman was overly fond of wearing a tiepin and saying fuck and thinking we'd be impressed (perhaps it works on teenagers) - but definitely worth listening to.
Saturday saw me leaping out of bed to help out at the bring-and-buy stall, which seemed strangely quiet and less madly stuffed with clothes than usual. I bought a skirt which looks a bit like a lampshade, andsnow_leopard thinks I should make a lightbulb hat to go with it. Having lunched upon a huge pile of black pudding in the Elsinore, Keris and Elaine made me try hula-hooping. I was not particularly good at it. Still, it was kind of fun, and interesting to watch them, and I managed to do it without breaking anything in Elaine's flat. (The original plan was to hoop on the beach, but the weather had other ideas. The jury is still out as to whether the hooping or the extremely intemperate dancing when Sexbat was DJing in the Spa was the cause of the extraordinarily crippled stomach muscles I had by Sunday.)
Saturday's evening festivities opened with Methodcell, who seem to be sort of karaoke EBM and have the smiliest singer in the world. They sound a bit disposable, but they're fun and probably worth watching for the smiliness alone.
Davefish mentioned that Rabia Sorda had come over from Mexico, and I idly wondered what a Mexican goth band sounded like. "Like Lee Chaos, rolled in mud" was his reply. And he's pretty much correct. I liked Rabia Sorda - but then I was always a big fan of The Chaos Engine. Guitars, drums, shouting, synths, electronic fuzz and everything louder than everything else. Weirdly, their merch stall only seemed to offer t-shirts, lanyards, and other things that were not CDs. Their website has listenables.
I'm going to sum up both Bella Morte and Diary of Dreams as "fine". They're both gothy, rocky bands with more or less death and they both sound exactly like that. They do it competently. I just wasn't very excited by either of them.
On Sunday I met my parents for lunch in a rather unpromising-sounding restaurant a little way out of town. As it turned out, the Sunday lunch offered by Number 4 was extremely good. Great food, well-presented, and inexpensive. Only don't tell anyone, or next time I want to eat there it'll be full of filthy goths. And after all, a three-course meal and some knackered stomach muscles sounds like a great way to prepare for an evening of jumping up and down at the 80s night, doesn't it? Ah well, I jumped up and down and nothing bad happened :)
And back down the M1 one Monday. So, actually a moderately decent line-up of bands this time. And, er, NMA headlining in April. Bring it on.
Having been in Northumberland, I got to Whitby early on Thursday evening and can report that the new Wetherspoons is large, soulless, rammed to the gunwhales, and staffed by people without much clue.
damerell and I moderately successfully consumed food and beer before I scooted back to Whitehall Landings to let davefish and keris into our flat.Friday I pottered gently about, shopping, with Keris. I didn't buy much, but was talked into some military-style badges by
maviscruet. I don't have an appropriate jacket to fix them to, but Mavis promised that I will find one. (Oddly, someone gave Davefish a rather nice jacket over the weekend. And he left it behind when he headed home. And, er, Davefish and I are about the same size. It might be covered in First Tea Company badges when he next sees it.) At tea-time, in a jolly spirit of adventuresomeness, Davefish brought us battered hake and panga with our chips. The Poor timing meant we missed almost all of Bad Pollyanna in the Spa - though I think my review is as last time: perfectly decent female-fronted rock band. The really strange thing was that, when we arrived, there was no one in the foyer. No one! Everyone was in the main hall, watching the band. This is unheard of. Earlier birds tell me that everyone was in the hall, being excited, before the band came on. This was possibly down to the unusually youthful and excitable nature of Friday's audience - the front rows were packed with teeny-tiny screaming emo kiddies bouncing up and down. On Saturday it was back to the usual procedure of aged goths cynically raising an eyebrow from the bar when a band came on.
I enjoyed Ashestoangels immensely, though probably for all the wrong reasons. A four-piece (singer, guitar, bass, drums) with a combined age of about 43, they are enthusiastic and shouty gothy-punky-pop. The bassist has got the moves and the cheekbones, but doesn't seem to be able to play bass while running around the stage. In fact, I'm not completely convinced he can play it while standing still. However, after far too many experiences of watching lacklustre, lifeless wailing in the Spa I'll take boundless enthusiasm - even if it's not hugely competent enthusiasm. They were good fun.
Fearless Vampire Killers are a five-piece with a combined age of about 43. Two frontmen alternate guitar and lead vocal duties, most of the others also sing, and all of them seemed to be able to play their instruments - actually rather well. They were very tight and a bit theatrical and sounded great. Oh, and they checked the 'comedy cover' box with their version of Phil Collins' Easy Lover. Weirdly, when I commented later in the weekend to
ulfilias that I'd liked them, he looked utterly bewildered and said "but you don't look like a lesbian". I have no idea of his logic. (When I asked what lesbians looked like, the answer was "female", so I've had him killed.)Anyway, I enjoyed Fearless Vampire Killers and bought a CD. Recorded, they're not quite as good as I'd hoped, but if you fancied giving them a whirl there are listenables on their website.
For some reason I had William Control mentally filed as dreary soul-sucking droning so was expecting to hate them. I was thus surprised when I got two blokes doing electronic-with-guitar - relative to expectations they were clearly the best band of the night :) Not brilliant - the sound was too samey for every song, and the frontman was overly fond of wearing a tiepin and saying fuck and thinking we'd be impressed (perhaps it works on teenagers) - but definitely worth listening to.
Saturday saw me leaping out of bed to help out at the bring-and-buy stall, which seemed strangely quiet and less madly stuffed with clothes than usual. I bought a skirt which looks a bit like a lampshade, and
snow_leopard thinks I should make a lightbulb hat to go with it. Having lunched upon a huge pile of black pudding in the Elsinore, Keris and Elaine made me try hula-hooping. I was not particularly good at it. Still, it was kind of fun, and interesting to watch them, and I managed to do it without breaking anything in Elaine's flat. (The original plan was to hoop on the beach, but the weather had other ideas. The jury is still out as to whether the hooping or the extremely intemperate dancing when Sexbat was DJing in the Spa was the cause of the extraordinarily crippled stomach muscles I had by Sunday.)Saturday's evening festivities opened with Methodcell, who seem to be sort of karaoke EBM and have the smiliest singer in the world. They sound a bit disposable, but they're fun and probably worth watching for the smiliness alone.
Davefish mentioned that Rabia Sorda had come over from Mexico, and I idly wondered what a Mexican goth band sounded like. "Like Lee Chaos, rolled in mud" was his reply. And he's pretty much correct. I liked Rabia Sorda - but then I was always a big fan of The Chaos Engine. Guitars, drums, shouting, synths, electronic fuzz and everything louder than everything else. Weirdly, their merch stall only seemed to offer t-shirts, lanyards, and other things that were not CDs. Their website has listenables.
I'm going to sum up both Bella Morte and Diary of Dreams as "fine". They're both gothy, rocky bands with more or less death and they both sound exactly like that. They do it competently. I just wasn't very excited by either of them.
On Sunday I met my parents for lunch in a rather unpromising-sounding restaurant a little way out of town. As it turned out, the Sunday lunch offered by Number 4 was extremely good. Great food, well-presented, and inexpensive. Only don't tell anyone, or next time I want to eat there it'll be full of filthy goths. And after all, a three-course meal and some knackered stomach muscles sounds like a great way to prepare for an evening of jumping up and down at the 80s night, doesn't it? Ah well, I jumped up and down and nothing bad happened :)
And back down the M1 one Monday. So, actually a moderately decent line-up of bands this time. And, er, NMA headlining in April. Bring it on.
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no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 11:13 am (UTC)Ooh!
Yum!Erm...no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 11:20 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 11:22 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 11:27 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 05:44 pm (UTC)Perhaps I should have left the lawnmower in it.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 05:44 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 11:38 am (UTC)I ask as when falling asleep on Sunday night (9pm bedtime these days!) I was sure I heard Nellie The Elephant filtering through from the pub opposite.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 11:53 am (UTC)I must remember that Converse are not Nellie-appropriate footwear!
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 12:11 pm (UTC)Maybe next time I should give the New 80s night a chance!
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 12:14 pm (UTC)I'd recommend the new 80s night as a fun night out. It's also free, so if you wombled in for half an hour and decided you'd rather go home to bed you'd not lose anything. (Nicer beer than Laughtons, too!)
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 12:16 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 02:05 pm (UTC)Basically, it's not quite the same, but it's a pretty good night out.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 02:27 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 02:42 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 02:44 pm (UTC)This only being allowed to go out and dance (except at weddings) until after 10pm seems crazy.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 02:46 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 02:54 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 02:43 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 02:53 pm (UTC)With good beer?
Starting at 7pm?
Sounds better and better by the minute! ; )
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 05:39 pm (UTC)Yeah, they must have had a Wasted Youth.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 05:44 pm (UTC)Rabia Sorda did also have the problem that their merch stall packed up before the end of the bands, so by the time I was looking to buy stuff from them they were nowhere to be found.
NMA headlining next time should be great. I wonder what the line up for the 20th celebration will be like. Maybe they could get Garbage along.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 05:50 pm (UTC)Meeting up between Whitbys isn't a terrible idea, either :)
no subject
Date: 2013-11-06 11:46 pm (UTC)Besides my other oblique reference to what might be an extra kudo was probably a mistake on my part. Oblique references can save embarassment.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-07 10:30 am (UTC)May explain the 'retreating to potting-shed' aspect.
no subject
Date: 2013-11-12 12:04 am (UTC)no subject
Date: 2013-11-12 08:18 am (UTC)