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As mentioned, I'm suffering dreadful LJ backlog. One of the things I'm keen to note down for my own future reference is the bands at WGW this year. So...
Anyone interested can watch the "band sampler" released on YouTube before the event here.
I must presumably have done things during the day on Friday - there was no Bring & Buy stall this year, so for once I wasn't behind it. I think there was a fried breakfast. And I think I wandered round the shops with
keris. And... err, I dunno, the rest of it is a bit of a blur until I went home to act as sous-chef and bottle-washer while
mrph cooked (excellent) hake in parsley sauce.
The bands!
Black Volition: I have no idea. Having asked Elaine to lace my waspie up, we struggled with it until we finally realised it was upside down. I am crap at this goth shit. Anyway, then she wanted her (much more impressive) corset (decorated with hot air balloons) lacing up, and one way and another we missed Black Volition altogether.
I've seen Deviant UK a few times at Whitby, and they're usually good value; a bloke who it basically a pantomime dame onstage with a couple of electro-twiddling knobs people. They're good fun and good value. This year was more of the same, only I fear the singer is trying to move into more serious singer territory and be less pantomime. He should stop, right now.
On the plus side, I was delighted to see the return of the comedy cover to WGW setlists, with Deviant's version of Don't Upset the Rhythm (Go Baby Go).
When Visage were announced, my heart sank a bit. WGW was proud that it was a rare attempt to see Visage (if you're saying "who?", the answer is basically "the people who did Fade To Grey") as they've only played a few gigs since the 80s. I can't say that's a selling point to me, and I've not had great experiences of warmed-over 80s bands at WGW.
Visage were pretty much all I feared. They sounded like bad karaoke. People who know my opinions on Oasis will know how much I was enjoying Visage when I saw I was delighted to hear they were joining the comedy covers brigade with She's Electric. Disappointingly, it turned out to be a song of their own with the same name.
The prospect of Heaven 17 ("the people who did Temptation") left me with a similar sinking feeling. They were, however, fantastic - when they closed their set with Temptation it has a massive almost Gospel-style wailing-vocal buildup from the three female singers, and ended up epic.
They did a fairly sensible cover of a Human League song I didn't know, plus a frankly ludicrous, hammed-up version of You've Lost That Loving Feeling (and when one of you is wearing a cloak, you can really ham things up).
Did Saturday start with another fried breakfast? I appear to have forgotten everything already. I know at some point I ended up in Crescent Gardens with Elaine and
battyblingtrash playing with hula-hoops. Various people we knew wandered past and joined in occasionally, regardless of whether they were dressed for the activity (and if you've never seen a bloke in full white-face, dyed-black hair and an undercut trying to hula-hoop while wearing a straightjacket, you simply haven't lived).
Five bands on Saturday...
I remember that my review of Lesbian Bed Death was that they were a perfectly respectable support act, that I enjoyed but wasn't going to dash out and buy. Um. That's basically all I can remember.
I've seen Bad Pollyanna a few times at Whitby, and they're always pretty good. This time they were one of those down-the-bill bands that manage to act like a headliner and just generally carry everyone along with them. Female-fronted, Evanescence-y sort of rock (and a comedy cover of Closer). I went so far as to buy a CD.
I've never got on well with Rhombus, because
damerell once described them as "a band who do silly songs about steam trains". While that is technically true, it leads to a mismatch of expectations: they are never as silly (or as steam-trainy) as I want them to be. They were perfectly straight gothic rock, and they were fine. But no more than fine.
Hugh Cornwell (or, as he is more comprehensibly called, "Hugh Cornwell of the Stranglers") was... there. He was OK, but hardly a patch on the actual Stranglers, even when singing No More Heroes. I did enjoy Skin Deep early on, but eventually wandered off to chat to people instead.
I'm a big fan of Voltaire, but felt he was a little lack-lustre. And he tried to slide in the occasional serious song about having his heart broken. No! Go back to the songs about bats and werewolves and zombies, dammit! He did, eventually. And he was entertaining between songs, and vaguely filthy, and managed a cover of Science Fiction, Double Feature. In fact, he was pretty good, I'd just had high expectations :)
Sunday, of course, featured no bands, but revolved almost entirely around eating, drinking, and going to the 80s night. I got up just about in time to meet my parents for a three-course lunch at our favourite Whitby restaurant (which is closing at the end of the year :( Buggrit.) I swung straight from there down to my new favourite cake shop for cake, gin and tea with
snow_leopard and
sleep_er. We had a nice chat, and some excellent home-made fig gin, and when they headed home I strolled on over to a tea-shop where
maviscruet and some of his friends were having tea and scones. And then it was about time to go home and help Mrph cook sausages and mash for tea.
After that excellent preparation for an evening of bouncing up and down, I went to the 80s night. Which was fun, of course, but strangely subdued - I guess the Shambles has been having complaints from its neighbours, and we were firmly instructed to keep the windows shut despite the tiny volume from the sound system. On the plus side, it did make chatting on the dance floor a lot easier...
And that's it. April next year is the 21st anniversary, and is a double-length affair featuring four nights of bands. All you lot who don't do that kind of WGW thing any more, why don't you think about it? It'd be nice to see you :)
Anyone interested can watch the "band sampler" released on YouTube before the event here.
I must presumably have done things during the day on Friday - there was no Bring & Buy stall this year, so for once I wasn't behind it. I think there was a fried breakfast. And I think I wandered round the shops with
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The bands!
Black Volition: I have no idea. Having asked Elaine to lace my waspie up, we struggled with it until we finally realised it was upside down. I am crap at this goth shit. Anyway, then she wanted her (much more impressive) corset (decorated with hot air balloons) lacing up, and one way and another we missed Black Volition altogether.
I've seen Deviant UK a few times at Whitby, and they're usually good value; a bloke who it basically a pantomime dame onstage with a couple of electro-twiddling knobs people. They're good fun and good value. This year was more of the same, only I fear the singer is trying to move into more serious singer territory and be less pantomime. He should stop, right now.
On the plus side, I was delighted to see the return of the comedy cover to WGW setlists, with Deviant's version of Don't Upset the Rhythm (Go Baby Go).
When Visage were announced, my heart sank a bit. WGW was proud that it was a rare attempt to see Visage (if you're saying "who?", the answer is basically "the people who did Fade To Grey") as they've only played a few gigs since the 80s. I can't say that's a selling point to me, and I've not had great experiences of warmed-over 80s bands at WGW.
Visage were pretty much all I feared. They sounded like bad karaoke. People who know my opinions on Oasis will know how much I was enjoying Visage when I saw I was delighted to hear they were joining the comedy covers brigade with She's Electric. Disappointingly, it turned out to be a song of their own with the same name.
The prospect of Heaven 17 ("the people who did Temptation") left me with a similar sinking feeling. They were, however, fantastic - when they closed their set with Temptation it has a massive almost Gospel-style wailing-vocal buildup from the three female singers, and ended up epic.
They did a fairly sensible cover of a Human League song I didn't know, plus a frankly ludicrous, hammed-up version of You've Lost That Loving Feeling (and when one of you is wearing a cloak, you can really ham things up).
Did Saturday start with another fried breakfast? I appear to have forgotten everything already. I know at some point I ended up in Crescent Gardens with Elaine and
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Five bands on Saturday...
I remember that my review of Lesbian Bed Death was that they were a perfectly respectable support act, that I enjoyed but wasn't going to dash out and buy. Um. That's basically all I can remember.
I've seen Bad Pollyanna a few times at Whitby, and they're always pretty good. This time they were one of those down-the-bill bands that manage to act like a headliner and just generally carry everyone along with them. Female-fronted, Evanescence-y sort of rock (and a comedy cover of Closer). I went so far as to buy a CD.
I've never got on well with Rhombus, because
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
Hugh Cornwell (or, as he is more comprehensibly called, "Hugh Cornwell of the Stranglers") was... there. He was OK, but hardly a patch on the actual Stranglers, even when singing No More Heroes. I did enjoy Skin Deep early on, but eventually wandered off to chat to people instead.
I'm a big fan of Voltaire, but felt he was a little lack-lustre. And he tried to slide in the occasional serious song about having his heart broken. No! Go back to the songs about bats and werewolves and zombies, dammit! He did, eventually. And he was entertaining between songs, and vaguely filthy, and managed a cover of Science Fiction, Double Feature. In fact, he was pretty good, I'd just had high expectations :)
Sunday, of course, featured no bands, but revolved almost entirely around eating, drinking, and going to the 80s night. I got up just about in time to meet my parents for a three-course lunch at our favourite Whitby restaurant (which is closing at the end of the year :( Buggrit.) I swung straight from there down to my new favourite cake shop for cake, gin and tea with
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
After that excellent preparation for an evening of bouncing up and down, I went to the 80s night. Which was fun, of course, but strangely subdued - I guess the Shambles has been having complaints from its neighbours, and we were firmly instructed to keep the windows shut despite the tiny volume from the sound system. On the plus side, it did make chatting on the dance floor a lot easier...
And that's it. April next year is the 21st anniversary, and is a double-length affair featuring four nights of bands. All you lot who don't do that kind of WGW thing any more, why don't you think about it? It'd be nice to see you :)