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Woods, Think Tank, Newcastle

  • Published in Live

Arriving at a packed Times Square in Newcastle, we worm our way through the hustle and bustle of middle-aged women and hen parties on their way to see the ever-popular Lady Boys of Bangkok. We arrive at Think Tank shortly after local lads Them Things had taken to the stage with their quintessential North East sound.

With their jangly indie pop, much like the now defunct Vinyl Jacket and the all- conquering Little Comets, Them Things add their own twist to it; the overall sound slightly heavier than the former yet its composition still feels relatively similar. We’re left feeling slightly short changed though as in our opinion there is nothing original with Them Things and the lead singer's antics and quips throughout the set also leave a lot to be desired, seeming somewhat childish.

That aside, following a short break we’re waiting eagerly in anticipation of Woods and one thing instantly hits us as they take to the stage is that the band are a member down. Despite this the guys soldier on, their beautiful brand of American folk rock fills the early part of the set. The whole crowd swooning in awe as they burst into ‘Cali in a Cup,’ one of the softer moments of the set that sees the crowd singing back every word.

Jeremy’s beautiful delivery of the sweet words transport us to a place much more exciting than a dark and miserable Friday evening in Newcastle. Continuing in this rich vein of form a couple more folk tracks follow before ‘Size Meets The Sound’ is belted out in something of an uncharacteristically visceral fashion. Guitars swirl and the band perform a brilliantly spaced out version of this awesome track, their ability to shock and surprise is second to none.

However, despite having our interest piqued and our excitement levels soaring, soon after there seems to problems with the set as the band are informed they’ve only one song left. To their shock and surprise they continue and manage to squeeze in two more. Their set was truly brilliant and we’re not angry about the set being cut short, more upset and annoyed.

At present there is many unanswered questions as to why this happened was there some miscommunication between the promoter and the venue? Who knows, but we cannot take away from Woods how great tonight was and despite being a man down. we couldn’t have asked for more.

From a personal point of view we hope Woods grace us with their presence again in Newcastle, as the crowd were just as annoyed and bemused as they seemed to be.  

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Liverpool International Festival Of Psychedelia - Day Two

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Day two of this year’s Liverpool Psychfest kicked off in fine style with Newcastle’s The Glass Moths laying it on thick with their organ drenched, extended workouts. You have to make the effort to get in early to see the opening acts at these things, at least when you’re already in situ, and the rewards for the early birds were here today across all three rooms. Temple Songs tore it up in the Camp with their set very much being at the frantic, manic end of the psych spectrum whilst Rennes’ Sudden Death Of Stars were first on stage in daylight in the Furnace (a criminally early slot for a band this good) and wowed the lucky souls who’d made time for them with their sitar-infused, tambourine-heavy output.

Local quartet Strange Collective were next up at the Blade Factory, with their guitarist having just high-tailed it over from a wedding. Bringing to mind the Beta Band at times they plough a nicely fuzzed-up furrow when they get into their stride. Traams were then briefly witnessed back at the Furnace, leading to one of the weekend’s regrets that we’d not seen more of their thrillingly intense 30 minutes. By now most people had made it out of bed so upon heading back round the corner it was only possible to take in the fact that Cantaloupe had attracted a substantially larger crowd than saw them at Threadfest in May so things look to be going well for them. Islet rounded off the pre-dinner session for us back in the Camp (Nueva Costa were unfortunately a bit too weedy for us and a great amount of the other punters it seemed). Starting off by wandering through the crowd with handheld glockenspiels it was clear that the bigger venue afforded them the scope their ideas required to a better degree than witnessed at Long Division in the middle of the month.

Post-scoff our first stop was back at the Blade Factory but Cheval Sombre came across as being rather too much low-key acoustica for the moment so the visit was brief. Likewise Orval Carlos Sibelius, deemed “too Britpop” by Mr. Allen, got little of our attention in the same hall a couple of hours later. Far more up our street in the same space was Theo Verney, who can pretty fairly be hailed as a UK Ty Segall. As expected after seeing the band’s Long Division performance (albeit with I think a different bassist) they were ideally suited to the smaller and far more intimate confines of the Blade Factory, inspiring crowd surfing and general energetic movement amongst the front few rows of the audience. Big things should deservedly come the band’s way. September Girls were the final act we took an interest in at the Blade Factory but again we were at the tail end and so could see no more than the tops of their heads. Sound-wise though they were as expected from multiple listens to Cursing The Sea and far better than the moronic “Calendar Girls” comment made by some passing fool.

The larger two halls panned out for us largely as one LOUD and one quiet for the nighttime sessions. The Furnace hosted returnees The Lucid Dream whose thundering crescendo of sound & strobes provided one of the undoubted highlights of the two days but then things calmed right down with the harmonious sounds of Grumbling Fur, a solo-filled but rather straightforward set from Sleepy Sun who were hard to hear at the rear of the hall and were not the same exciting prospect as when last seen in Edinburgh a couple of years ago. Quilt, however, with their balance of male & female vocals were another highlight in a night that produced a few of those. Their light undimmed after a month on the road in Europe they were another oddly under-viewed act but pulled off a deeply affecting performance. Closing out our involvement with the Furnace came Woods, whose set featured all the songs you could have hoped for from Bend Beyond as well as a good dollop from current album With Light And With Love and their back catalogue.

The Camp therefore was clearly then the place to be if you wanted to endanger your hearing tonight. Lay Llamas enjoyed some of the best visuals of the day as their set wove, Live At Pompeii-like, from mesmerising to cacophonous. The backdrop technology failed for a short period during Anthroprophh’s set but by this point it was all about your ears as the pounding backbeat and extreme solos took on a physical form to churn your guts. Teeth Of The Sea took things further off down the track towards techno whilst simultaneously making excellent use of brass and maintaining the guitar solo quotient on a classic flying v. By this time the projections were of quite a menacing nature and the sound was flattening out the heads on the pints.

Gnod, augmented by Dave W. of White Hills, added further mayhem & madness to the already volume-laden atmosphere. Like watching Kim Fowley fronting space rock escapees from an off-world cult, the disparate Mancunian bunch elevated things to a whole new level of freakery. Who knows what they actually played – such things as discernible songs were no longer important by this point.

White Hills themselves were the final act of the night for me (so I’ve not a clue about the kerfuffle that apparently went off around the Goat show) and they topped off the entire event to perfection. Energetic, appreciative of the audience, waffle-free and fantastically overdriven the trio thrashed and fuzzed their way through to 01:30 as if their lives depended on it. The crowd were far to polite at the end to clamour for further songs (aware maybe for a change of event time constraints) but if any act that appeared here during the day’s 14 hours deserved an encore it was these guys. 

Our full set of photographs from this year's event can be viewed on Flickr.

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