The
third gig in barely a couple of months for me with these South Coast surf
power-pop (beach?) boys The Stayawakes as hosts, and, improbably, this one’s a
home tie…! The lads recently announced a 3-date early Summer tour, of which
last Friday’s jaunt down to Southampton’s splendid Hobbit (gig 1,234) was the
first, a midweek date at Camden’s legendary Britpop watering hole The Good
Mixer the second, and an appearance as musical entertainment at Swindon Lydiard
Park’s Cheese and Chilli Festival the third! Say whaaaaat!!! I nearly fell off
my chair when I saw this; after trekking down to their neck of the woods to see
them lay waste to a sleepy Arts Centre in deepest darkest Hampshire, now I’d
get to rock along to their irresistibly hooky powerpop harmonies in my own back
yard? Thanks, I do!
I’d
quizzed them last Friday about this one; a 6 p.m. half hour slot to close Fest
Day 1, so Logan and I planned to cycle over to save on car parking costs.
However, the impending drizzle finally arrived early afternoon, threatening to
throw a quite literal dampener on our plans. Luckily there was a brief break in
the clouds about 3-ish so we headed over then, locking bikes up by the café and
wandering the wrong way around the fenced-off Festival site. D’oh! Stayawakes
drummer Steven, who’d just parked his car around the back, joined us as we
headed in, weaving our way through a maze of virtually deserted stalls selling
all sorts of mainly chilli merch (including sauces ranging from hot to flaming
mad bastard!), to the also quiet eaterie and beer tent-flanked main performance
area in the corner. Clearly the weather had put a lot of folks off attending
today… Nonetheless, we caught up with the boys plus their entourage – they’d
brought their families along, hoping for a nice picnic afternoon in the grounds
of Lydiard House, but the weather had let us all down. Enjoyed a chat with
Steven’s dad anyway, plus a catch-up with Jimmy and Pete punctuated by our having
to scuttle for cover thanks to a particularly nasty dark cloud opening its
contents on us!
The
hardy souls that had toughed it out were then “treated” to a chilli eating
competition, as 10 reckless individuals suffered through rounds of ingesting
various evilly named chillies measuring several hundreds of thousands on the
heat scale, a couple even throwing up in the process. Yuck! Luckily things were
cleared up, and even luckier a seam of white sky appeared between two dark
foreboding clouds, rendering it soggy yet rain-free for The Stayawakes, who
kicked off early at 5.15ish with the rolling drums of “Wendi”. That strident
drumbeat aside, this initially lacked its usual fiery launch, with Andrew late
into the initial vocal line, but then didn’t lose much time building up to its’
usual escape velocity. And actually, for once, the sound was pretty decent as
well… whilst the sound systems for their other 2 gigs have struggled to cope
with The Stayawakes’ rampant volume assault from the off, this one, despite
basically being a couple of speakers in a field serving a temporary open
fronted (and backed) gazebo stage set-up, sounded pretty well balanced with no
instrument dominating any other. In fact, the only sound issue was with the
Stayawakes’ penchant for swapping lead vocalists between numbers, the soundman
making multiple trips to the front with his laptop to turn up various mics! And
of course, the boys, once again in their matching pink polka shirts, gave it
their energetic all, ricocheting around the stage like pastel pink balls in a
pinball machine.
An
early “Please Steve Just Drive” was dedicated to The Hart Foundation, the boys
showing an impressive knowledge of vintage WWE (WWF?) by listing obscure
members; then there were the cheese puns… they’d prepared caerphilly (groan)
for the Fest with a selection of (quite literally) cheesy quips, Andrew’s comment
of, “catch our set on the Brie Brie C i-Player,” being probably the best of a
bad bunch! But the rock, as ever, rocked… an infectiously hooky mid-set “Pink
Wave” was my set highlight this time, although the descending riffery of “Inevitable
Truth” (“our ode to Bob Mould,” as Andrew called it) ran it close. “Lovestruck”
as ever was a fist-pumping singalong, and the 2 oldies, the Gigolo Aunts’ “Mrs.
Washington”-alike “Jake” and headlong hurtling finale “Little Explorer” rounded
off a set, wherein The Stayawakes happily brought a bit of South Coast sunshine
to a soggy Swindon field.
Si
(who’d turned up with Kathryn midway through the chilli eating contest) renewed
acquaintances with Jimmy before they headed off; then we hung around awhile as
the Festival literally closed around us (!) before cycling back home after
effusive thanks and farewells, home for kebab tea. So the Festival itself might
have been a damp squib (Day 1, at least...), but nonetheless there were musical fireworks, thanks to
The Stayawakes!
No comments:
Post a Comment