Clearly being unaware of some (okay in my case 99%) of the bands on this weekend’s bill was part of the fun for a number of people. Sitting in The Vestry early on Sunday afternoon the conversation immediately behind me centred on the quality of Niall McCamley's moustache and his banter and how Spook School records needed to be obtained forthwith. Having found the band’s existence hard to avoid over the past year or so it’s easy to forget that everyone can’t be aware of each group as they appear. Up until the end of this summer I’d no idea Dundee was home to Make That A Take records or BYAF, it all depends what you’re exposed to through the various types of media.

Logistical issues came to bear on the festival today, requiring some swift rescheduling and the vagaries of the diy tour schedule were highlighted with Lenin Death Mask having to drive for nine hours from the final night of their tour in Newport so as to make their slot. Given the rescheduling and my need to skip out and eat dinner the odd band or two may in fact not have been who I thought they were but you can definitely hear a track by each of the acts who played across the three days on the event’s bandcamp playlist which is attached below.

Showing that a lot of those involved don’t let the grass grow under their feet today also saw a few bands featuring one or more player from the other two days. Fair play, if you’ve an urge to emote in a different style then find some compadres and do it.

Band of the day were Elk Gang, not least for the comedic moment when their drummer was accidentally forced off the vegetarianism wagon with a mouthful of Greggs sausage roll. Days on site without accident – Zero. Copenhagen’s Forever Unclean were also an intense live prospect, whilst Shitgripper added some variety to things with the inclusion of samples and the laying down of hefty instrumentals. The Vestry played host to mainly bands today, with Slowlight being promoted to Buskers to maintain timings there, and for me this didn’t work as well as the solo or dual acts on Saturday. Brendan Dalton's heartfelt work was the most impactful of the day down there with Dave Hughes, Edgarville and The Shithawks not really reaching me at all.

Lenin Death Mask, Robot Doctors, Slowlight and Please, Believe! were variously emo, screamo or generally players of a thin kind of sound and so none of them really grabbed me. Riven with gig fatigue I buggered off before the final acts of the night. The bottom line though is that this was a very well organised international event that must have presented plenty of issues during the planning and preparation yet which went off with only a couple of minor hitches at the very end, at least to my knowledge. All concerned can be rightly proud.

With a newly released album that tells of both morals and belief, along with a collection of well-remembered older material at the ready, Montreal’s Half Moon Run deliver their own musical sermon at a former Holy Church at Trinity, Bristol.

A sell-out show in an intimate and impressive building only begs the question, how long before this group no longer perform for audiences of 600, but instead double that, in larger venues. There is a sense that it wont take much time at all and opener ‘Turn Your Love’, is exactly why the clock is ticking at an impressive rate. Strip lights dot the stage, flicking on and off and entwine themselves between the four band members.

By jumping straight into such a quick first song, the group allow themselves to impressively balance their set throughout the evening with more moderate tracks such as ‘Nerve’ and ‘Unofferable’. All is as it should be and this is without doubt a reflection in the band members’ attitudes on stage. Lead singer Devon Portielje smiles and thanks the cheering Bristol audience for returning after the original shows rescheduling and glances at guitarist Conner Molander, who is also sharing a moment of such gratitude.

Half Moon Run’s live show never seems to seek out an easy route, and without doubt, the thought of giving a performance that doesn't meet expectation is totally out of the question. The band play with passion and sincerity, and honestly look to be enjoying every note that is travelling through the old church.

New additions from recent release Sun Leads Me On, work well in the set alongside favourites from previous album Dark Eyes, but none more so than ‘Full Circle’. An obvious audience pleaser that has the crowd singing every word directly back to the Canadian group.

Realisation hits hard. Half Moon Run are building something thoroughly noteworthy and everyone in the building knows it.

It's snowing in Dundee and my fire lighting skills are proving non-existent as I look down towards the city where, for the past two nights, I've been in the audience for what is possibly the best value for money punk/diy festival in the UK - Book Yer Ane Fest (a second festival in the space of a week which is almost at the decade mark). Take into account that the ticket monies go to the Safe Tay charity and you're looking at an event with even more heart.

That it's got a good team behind it in the organisational, social media and sound engineering areas has been evident from when it first came across our radar & that's only been reinforced since Friday as the main Buskers venue and the downstairs Vestry have had exemplary sound across the board, with the engineer lad upstairs nipping about to sort minor issues practically before they occur (when not also kicking off the stage diving or playing in Maxwell's Dead).

Friday night was a riotous, inflatables-and-balloons, hearts on sleeves and emotional night with a great sense of the familial aspect of the scene being catered to and the love within it. Saturday was no less inclusive but more down to the business of getting the bands on and off again. Sunday I'll cover tomorrow.

As you'd expect it's been a mixed bag of acts on off and, having seen 20 out of 31 performances so far (the worst of which infact came during my afternoon at Tannadice watching Dundee United lose yet again) this would become a far too longwinded piece if I detailed them all. Links where possible will let you hear what you want anyway.

So, at the upper end of the scale and in no particular order were The Spook School, Get It Together, The Exhausts (bring to mind The Stupids), Maxwell's Dead, Uniforms (manfully dealing with some band name theft for their final show), Tim Loud (epically overcoming handcramps to complete 'I Don't Care What Everyone Else Says About You, I Think You're A Cunt') and Make War (getting the better of UK Border Control to make it along). Comfortably in the middle were Shatterhand, Veto, Good Grief, Tim Holehouse, Will Wood, Broken Stories, The Kimberley Steaks, The Murderburgers (who last time I saw them were three wee Scottish guys but now comprise one of those & 2/3s of Rational Anthem. New album out in 2016 on Asian Man Records anyway) and Great Cynics. Those not quite reaching me being PMX, Rational Anthem, Lachance & Cavalcades. Catholic Guilt deserve a mention too for having soap for sale in their merchandise, surely a first.

21 more acts on offer on Sunday so time now to get geared up for those as that fire's not looking any hotter and they like to start performances early around these parts.

Homeboy Jacco Gardner gets of to a rocky start with some technical difficulties. In Dutch he apologises, says he thinks it might take a while, but luckily it is solved reasonably quickly after which he and his band can play their brand of psychedelic pop, which is perhaps the best way to call it. There are loads of psych elements there, but they do make sure to never veer into the crazy, the completely out there. The organ sound especially puts its stamp on the vibe of the band, and with the projections on the screen behind them they try to enhance the vibe.The band recently released their newest album entitled Hypnophobia, which is, apparently, specifically about the moment between dreaming and waking up.

So they play a bit from that album, including single ‘Find Yourself’. The last track segues into a prolonged instrumental outro. Especially there I wish they’d put a little bit more oomph in all that. What I was hoping for is a freak out, passing the turn around to multiple band members, and maybe even get some pandemonium going with some major rhythm from the drums and keyboard and perhaps even some noisiness off of the guitars. That’s not really what they come up with though, giving a rather tame ride-out. Still, the young guns give a decent and enjoyable show, also visibly proud they got to host a stage at the festival.

Ariel Pink has brought the crazy into Utrecht, with his theatrical, artsy brand of punk-pop that includes some nifty hooks and dancey rhythms. And it includes, too, some dinner theater, some crazy fun, and some nsfw background projections. Having seen them live before, this is the most listenable turn I’ve seen them give, though still I am not as impressed with them live as I was with for instance an album recording as Before Today. Going from the amount of people there to witness the band’s live show, though, maybe I’m not in the majority on that one.

How about some heckling? Benny Maupin, a Jazz great, is still finetuning his set-up thirteen minutes over his starting time. When he finishes, he decides to first leave the stage, causing someone to call him out on that. The reasoning being, apparently, that, you know, a 75-year-old man that has played with Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock and assorted company can definitely not take his time to get things inch perfect and to his liking. Though, maybe it was more the fact that you want to hear more than just 45 minutes of fine, old school Jazz music from the Benny Maupin quartet consisting of an up-right bass, keys (both piano and board), drums and, of course, Maupin on an assortment of horns.

So there he goes, playing some smooth Jazz songs, with only the third song on the setlist causing a bit of a lull as that one is decidedly down-tempo, maybe too much so in this setting. He makes up for that by diving into ‘Butterfly’ immediately after, a 1974 track Maupin created with Herbie Hancock. That definitely is returning to quality right there, a quality mostly apparent when Maupin is the main player. Sometimes he takes a step back to let his trio of players do their own thing, but when Maupin picks up the horns, gives us that smooth Jazz sound, then you remember why, to many, that genre is the pinnacle of musicianship. Some of those turns are of a calm beauty that, with whiskey in hand and sitting in that expensive, leather lounge chair, one wishes more nights would end with.

And so does Le Guess Who?, the 2015 edition, which was an interesting one. The lack of personal favorites landed me at classical, experimental, and into the unknown, which provided surprising, beautiful, and interesting moments. A real exploration through the musical landscape, with everything being available and on hand. With that said, being a musical omnivore, the fact that there was so little I would even so much have on my iPod for regular listening in my spare time, and subsequently there being so many real highlights that can really hit the heart or move the body, does beg the question whether a four-day pass would have been a worthwhile expenditure. Last year the balance between the adventure of discovery and things that are within the sphere of the music I love was a bit better for me personally (with St. Vincent, Owen Pallett, Sharon van Etten, amongst others). Still, with things like Destroyer, Majical Cloudz and Kamasi Washington, along with wading through the unknown, the trips to Utrecht were still worth the trouble for me.