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

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.