The Dawn Chorus / The Retrospective Soundtrack Players - Blogging all over the World

Eastney Cellars, Portsmouth
Wednesday 24th September 2008

Frank Hamilton
The Dawn Chorus
Leigh Mary Stokes
Luke Ferre

Yep, not bad, cellars was pretty rammed which is good for a Wednesday night. I'm getting very angry with losing my voice on stage but apparently no-one noticed out front so that's fine. At about 5pm I was at the polar opposite of being in the mood to play a gig, but by showtime i was pretty much up for it and we were pretty good.

Southsea Fest @ Little Johnny Russell's
Saturday 13th September 2008

The Dawn Chorus
plus
The B of the Bang
The Marvellous Mechanical Band
Ornament Birds
and millions more

Southsea Fest was awesome. Spread over about 8 venues all within spitting distance of eachother, we played at LJRs at about half 1 in the afternoon. We were meant to play at 4 but Paul had to go to the football. However, coming early meant that we got to see the Marvellous Mechanical Band and I had the most fun I'd had in ages. They opened with a lounge-style cover of Whole Lotta Love but the keyboard player couldn't play the riff as he was wearing a horse head mask. They have a 30 second long song called 'When You're Young and in Love'. They handed out percussion to the audience. All of these are amazing things. I can't wait to see them again. We played five loud and fast songs which was very fun indeed. Whenever we've played all-dayers before we've played the lighter country stuff, but i think you actually need to do the opposite and grab people's attention more earlier in the day. After we played I watched Ornament Birds who were insanely young yet very good, then nipped over the road to the Wine Vaults to see Kurt Cooder for the first time in yonks, and he was in top form. Unfortunately I then had to go home as I was having a carpet fitted but by all accounts the rest of the day was just as good as the start. Awesome stuff, bring on next year.

Friday 12th September 2008
Bournemouth Railway Social Club

Looking Through Glass
The Dawn Chorus
Michael Wookey

Where to start with this one? Where to start....

Theis show was meant to be at the Gander, but they haven't been paying their electricity bills so it got moved to the Railway Social Club. The only two words really needed to describe the night are these: Phoenix Nights. The hall was pretty big and for ours and Michael Wookey's sets there was an enormous gap between the stage and the locals getting pissed up at the bar. I forgot to mention, this show was compered by The Rock and Roll Town Crier. Who was exactly as advertised. He had a bell and everything. Crazy stuff. Michael Wookey was excellent. Our set was one of those angry ones but good fun nonetheless. When we had one song left to do this pissed bloke who'd been waving 20 quid at us got up and called out the winner of the raffle (that's what the 20 quid was for). You literally can't make this stuff up.

Sunday 7th September 2008
Southampton Joiners

The Dawn Chorus
Alex Cornish
The Metropolise
Karmatribe

The end of a tiring but very enjoyable weekend. We thought it might be a damp squib being Sunday and all, but it was actually very enjoyable. Alex Cornish was incredible, what a beautiful voice. His band were all lovely guys too. We rolled out some oldies and others we don't play too often: Not having fun, Little Pinpricks and Last Day of April, namely.

Now some sleep before more gigs next weekend.
X

Lexapalooza @ Nambucca, London
Saturday 6th September 2008

The Dawn Chorus, buried somewhere amongst...
Frank Turner
Chris T-T
Dave McPherson
Beans on Toast
...and many others

We were asked to do this by Frank Turner, who was curating and headlining the event. We've been in touch with him since we supported him in Portsmouth a few months ago (see old blog) and he gave us an incredibly kind introduction, calling us his new favourite band which was incredibly flattering. By all accounts he's a big fan. Neil's girlfriend Simone was quite spooked to be stood between the ex-drummer from Reuben - her favourite band - and Frank singing all the words to our songs. A very welcome shot in the arm. I had to leave before Frank himself played which I was really gutted about, but my Sister was home from Scotland and I don't get to see her that often so I split. Hopefully we will get to play with FT again soon so that I can make up for it. An awesome gig for an awesome cause.

Friday 5th September 2008
Boscombe Community Fayre

A washout, quite literally. I really felt for the organisers, they were well and truly shafted by the weather. It had been relentlessly pissing it down all day and most of the day before, we even phoned the organiser to make sure it was still on. The set up was pretty good, 4 or 5 Marquees hosting either musicor poetry, dance, food, beer etc, but the weather not only made the site grim to walk around in, but also seemed to keep the punters away.

We were due to play at 8pm but Neil noticed at about 7pm that there were no lights in the main stage where we were playing. I was quite excited at the prospect of playing completely in the dark, but unfortunately some disco lights were rustled up from somewhere or other. We played ok but I never really got into it. The crowd seemed to consist of some schoolgirls doing the hokey cokey, a couple of pissed up women making lewd comments at Neil and Paul, and a few other brave souls who came out despite the weather. We're very grateful that they did.

Thursday 28th August 2008
Golden Plectrum Awards
Portsmouth Wedgewood Rooms

The Dawn Chorus
The Rebs
The Racketeers
The B of the Bang
The Autons
Wyldside
Belligerence
Venice Ahoy

Last year we went to this awards ceremony as punters. It was OK but there were too many bands to hold the audience's attention and the awards went to some bizarre recipients. A year later...

To be fair, the acts on the night were better this year, but although I enjoyed The Autons, The B of the Bang and Venice Ahoy very much, there were still too many bands playing. We played at about 11 and after 8 acts I think people just lost interest really. All the awards had been dished out so a lot of people left. Still, Ben got to play at the Wedge for the first time so all was not lost. And myself and Neil also played with the B of the Bang on 'Last Night on Earth', though we were a little disappointed not to win an award for dreariest alt.folk collaboration.

Moving on...