I Was There

The Next Big Thing? Arbouretum Live at Bath Moles

For over 30 years, Bath’s Moles Club has put bands on at the early stages of their careers including Radiohead, The Cure, Blur, Oasis and The Smiths. On a drab November Wednesday evening, it hosted  Baltimore’s Arbouretum, who along with Wooden Shijps, Six Organs of Admittance and Earth, are currently one of America’s finest pysch-rock-folk bands. Led by sometime Will Oldham/Cass McCombs sideman Dave Heumann, their 2011 album ‘The Gathering’ (Thrill Jockey) was one of the year’s best and featured stunning vintage riffs and mid-paced wig-outs that sounded like an amazing combination of Richard Thomson and Crazy Horse. read more

Tim Minchin & Battle of the Bands Winners Play Eden

Driving, sideways rain couldn’t dent the crowds enthusiasm for Tim Minchin at the Eden Project this weekend – he was edgy, fiercely intelligent, brilliantly funny. read more

Open Air Shakespeare at Yeo Valley

There is something peculiarly English about watching open air theatre in the pouring rain, a gritty, show must go on determination that saw us through a bitterly cold Jubilee and then a modern Shakespeare production at the beautiful Yeo Valley Organic Gardens.

I, Peaseblossom – a slightly mad, very funny take on Midsummer’s Night Dream, played by Bristol Old Vic actor Jimmy Whiteaker – is a clever introduction to Shakespeare. Children who have read the plays will get the madness, those who haven’t will enjoy the ride anyway.

While the audience sat on haybales, sheltered beneath canopies, with the beautiful Blagdon Lake behind and an unbroken view of the Mendip Valley ahead, Whiteaker braved a torrential downpour dressed in a fairy outfit, working his way through a sequence of 5 dreams.

The show combines lines from the famous play with the actor’s improvisation and chat with the audience.  The humour is aimed at older children (it’s not recommended for under 8s)  – my own were even  shocked occasionally which always goes down well.

It is an interactive play, members of the audience were given occasional lines to say, bouquets to chuck, teddies to hold – roles which were just on the right side of challenging, from our perspective anyway.

For the second part I, Caliban based on The Tempest we moved into the Organic Garden Tearooms, where tables were pushed back, a fire was lit and there was tea, home-made cakes and ice cream on offer.

With very few props – an empty crate to stand on, a bottle of wine to swig from and some primitive dolls in a primitive boat – Whiteaker re-enacted the tale of the monster Caliban, drunk and marooned on an island without his mother. Whiteaker was a mesmerising actor, able to show the real power of a one-man performance. The setting, fire, lemon drizzle cake and all, was pretty perfect.

The plays are a co-production from Bristol Old Vic and Company of Angels and have been touring schools in Somerset to give children a taste of this very funny and insightful take on Shakespeare.

The Yeo Valley open air theatre was part of a planned summer of events celebrating Yeo’s relaunch – find out details of organic garden and farm tours here.

Bristol Old Vic and Theatre Orchard will be touring I, Peaseblossom, I Caliban  at The Royal Inn, Portishead on 10 June, Ashton Court Estate on 24 June and CehlveyCourt on 24 June. Find more details here.

Skating at Winchester Cathedral

I suppose there’s nothing like getting yourself into the Christmas spirit early than having a small boy who celebrates his birthday very close to the big day. So to launch ourselves this year we headed off to the skating rink at Winchester Cathedral. read more

’96% of Success is Failure’ says Radiohead

Radiohead’s Ed O’ Brien inspires young musicians in the South West

‘We passed Pilton as we drove down today and I couldn’t resist putting on Pink Floyd‘s ‘Wish You Were Here’. As we passed those mystical fields I thought I’m going to write a letter to Emily and Michael Eavis saying simply ‘thank you.’ Thank you for putting this wonderful thing on where people come and reconnect with each other for four days of the year. There’s nowhere like it, I love it. This year we played just to get free tickets.’ read more

Punk’s Not Dead….In Exeter!

‘What if punk rock never happened’ asks The King Blues‘ frontman Itch at the Lemon Grove last night as he bought his unique Punk and Poetry show to the West Country. Well if Punk had never happened Exeter would have been a quieter city last night that’s for sure. Three of the hottest new punk inspired bands on the planet brought their national tour to an explosive end on a dark, wet, midweek evening in the West; that didn’t put off the faithful though. Packing the venue to the rafters early for local heroes Crowns they proved that this scene is going from strength to strength. Buoyed by Zane Lowe’s recent conversion to their cause the Launceston foue piece set the crowd in motion with their Pogues meets The Clash inspired sea shanties and odes to drinking. This young group are definitely ones to watch, by the end of their set they had the crowd spontaneously moshing and jigging in a good natured imitation of a pub brawl.

The bar was set high for Brooklyn’s punks of the moment Cerebral Ballzy and they didn’t disappoint, front man Honor Titus (best name in punk) strode about like Joey Ramone meets Jimi Hendrix with a general air of nonchalant genius. The band tore through their set, intermittently breaking to chat up girls, abuse the crowd, and throw beer at them. The only disappointment was that they didn’t play their timely version of The Stone Roses‘ ‘I wanna be adored’. This band is so ‘hot’ right now that even Fearne Cotton is playing them on daytime Radio One to their great bemusement!

The room was bursting with anticipation as the diminutive Jonny ‘Itch’ Fox shuffled onstage in his trademark askew baseball cap. He opened with his five minute spoken word recital of the aforementioned ‘What if punk rock never happened’ an inspiring socio-political rant that could not be more appropriate for these times, there was an almost hushed reverence in the room as he came to the powerful crescendo, a call to arms – ‘Shine your light so bright, that all can see, take pride in being whoever you want to be, throw your fist in the air with solidarity.’ Then the party started – joined by his band mates The King Blues took us through a musical history lesson of ska and punk conjuring up  ghosts of The Specials, The Clash, Black Flag and Public Enemy and working the crowd into an absolute frenzy. At one point literally the whole venue was the mosh-pit! They churned out their material much from the recent ‘Save The World, Get The Girl’ album and the soon to be classic anthemic ‘Set The World On Fire’ saw them joined by Crowns for an end of tour punk-singalong.

A very fitting end to an evening that gives faith to the knowledge that the X-Factor does not control all of the music industry.

‘Viva la punk – just one life – anarchy.’

Bon Iver in Bristol

‘Fancy a mellow gig?’ I said to my mate Rex on the phone.

‘Sure’, he said and we found ourselves at the Colston Hall in Bristol on a very wet Friday evening in November. read more

Dodgy At River Cottage

I got a big warm, fuzzy feeling in my tummy when I first heard that the sunny, 90′s rock-popsters, Dodgy were going to perform their new album at River Cottage, Hugh Fearnley-Whittingstall’s place in Dorset. read more

Sometimes Even the Devil Tells the Truth

Tough, uncompromising but gut-wrenchingly funny, Caroline Bannock on Reginald D. Hunter in Salisbury

It’s not often I come out of some cultural event astounded but it’s happened thrice in the last month, which considering I’ve only done 3 things, I’d say on the cultural front at least, things are definitely looking up.

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John Cooper Clarke

In my memory, which I grant can’t be quite as hazy as his, John Cooper Clarke was a giant of a man – at least 7 foot tall in his full backcombed glory. read more