1,253 THE 2022 “SHIIINE ON” WEEKENDER, Various Venues at Butlins Resort, Minehead, Friday 11th – Sunday 13th November 2022

 

Wake up folks, it’s time to “Shiiine”! Time to haul my already aching limbs off to Minehead, to immerse myself in the annual 3-day celebration of 80’s/ 90’s UK indie rock and dance, with friends and like-minded folks, for the 6^th time in a row (pandemic-hit 2020 notwithstanding). This one was initially a little tricky to arrange, given that last year’s “Core 4” was reduced to 3 with Ady’s move to Glasgow, but luckily Matt persuaded his old school chum and fellow indie buff Martin to join us. I’d met the man at the recent Dean Wareham gig (gig 1,238) and found a knowledgeable and enthusiastic fellow aficionado, who would hopefully fit right in with Matt, Rach and myself. So, it’s all systems go for Shiiine On, Take 6!

 Rach and I hit the road at 9.30 after dealing with some school hiccups with the daughter of the house beforehand and en route… we thought for one brief moment that we’d have to turn back, but things got sorted (thanks Grandma and Grandad!) so we made our increasingly sunny way down, queueing up in roadworks on the outskirts of Minehead, but meeting Matt for the usual Tesco breakfast fixings shop and excellent fish and chip seafront lunch. Martin joined us shortly thereafter to join in the traditional chippy nosh, roadworks having hampered his journey from Truro, and we then joined the car queue for entry, eventually being ushered to the far entrance where our welcome packs (plus a keycard each! Hooray!) were waiting for us at the alphabetised gates. Easily the best and most efficient booking-in process of all Shiiine On’s so far; well done Butlins! So, we unpacked and chilled awhile in our second floor (uh, oh, the knees aren’t going to like that at 2 a.m.!) comfort apartmen,t before venturing into the main tented “Skyline Arena” (Martin slightly in awe of this huge main space!) for our festival openers THE K’S, on at 3.45. I’d caught the arse-end of this young rabble’s Victorious Festival set (gig 1,240), and here they warmed up the early comers with a Jam-ish set of earnest push’n’shove mod/Britpop noise. They reminded these old ears of 70’s Mod revivalists Secret Affair – a band whom, due to my punk allegiances, I utterly loathed at the time but have since mellowed on – and in the Skids-like opening riff and “Motown Junk” elongated verse line of “Glass Towns”, and the later, insistent soaring hook and backbeat verse of “Sarajevo”, had a couple of pretty decent numbers to hang their collective hats on. Not bad for starters! 

Off to the Inn On The Green, the small pub venue at the back of the main complex, for a drink outside whilst THE DIRT were making a horrendous fuzzed-up messy noise onstage. The shouty aggressiveness of Idles meets tuneless Sleaford Mods drum machine beats. Yuck! Thankfully they abated, and we had some more tuneful fayre to enjoy, in the shape of 90’s female-fronted indie pop pipistrels SALAD. Spangly-clad vocalist Marijne’s vocals were initially very quiet and little-girl-lost-in-the-mix for starters, but improved for the lilting, discordant “Granite Statue” and a fine, angular “Motorbike To Heaven”. I wasn’t so sure about Marijne’s slightly inappropriate coquettish act, and the “Your Ma” banter with the crowd felt a bit embarrassing, but they won out when they concentrated on the music; “Diminished Clothes” was a creepy grungy beat, and “the one you’ve been waiting for,” closer “Drink The Elixir” was upbeat and pacey, with a tough ascending hook, Marijne’s occasionally weak vocals totally hitting the mark for this one. Fine finish to a better than expected set overall, and nice afterwards to have a fun and quite revealing chat with one of my 80’s guitar heroes, Julian Cope’s former wingman and now Salad drummer Donald “Donneye” Ross Skinner, about the arch-Drude himself!

Salad were running late, so I hit the arena midway through EMF’s early evening set. Our paths had crossed often and always reluctantly on my part in the past, but I must admit this was as good as I’d seen them; brash, bright and dynamic, with a tough, punchy “Unbelievable” a mid-set Skyline anthem, echoed back by the big early evening crowd, and final number “EMF” really rather good in-your-face indie dance, delivered enthusiastically by the perennially youthful James Atkin. Could have done without the Mondays cover and the beat-heavy destruction of “I’m A Believer”, though… STEREO MC’S were next up, but I’ve never been a fan of their languid sneery dance, finding it just monotone and dull, so I headed back to the Apartment to chill, opting for Masterchef on the TV rather than the MCs and subsequent headliners Happy Mondays. You know me, if the Salford Village Idiot Ryder is onstage wasting everybody’s time (particularly his undoubtedly talented but doubtless infinitely patient bandmate Rowetta!), I’m nowhere to be seen!

 I was joined back there by the crew, then Matt, Martin and I headed back in at 10 as the Mondays massive dispersed. To Reds then, the large downstairs room hosting the rest of this evening’s entertainment for us, kicking off with potentially intriguing opener ANDY BELL SPACE STATION. Bell, now once again a mainstay of reformed and rejuvenated 90’s fuzzed-up shoegaze heroes Ride (oh, how I’d love for them to play here!), was flying solo tonight, delivering largely instrumental guitar workouts accompanied by backing tapes which varied from psychedelic backwards Byrdsian space rock to Stereolab metronomic electronica. Don’t get me wrong, there was some haunting, atmospheric stuff on show, overlaid by some virtuoso picking from Bell, morphing through various tempo and mood changes, but (and call me a bluff old traditionalist if you will), I like some tunes and song structures, and this felt like a freeform workout to highlight Bell’s undoubted technical brilliance, so I was left in admiration, but largely emotionally unmoved. Section a few bits off, put in a verse and singalong hook, and we’ll talk again…! Still, we had some tuneage up next from KINGMAKER 4AD, who delivered a considerably better set than their workmanlike Inn On The Green effort on Saturday afternoon in 2018, and ultimately (and surprisingly) won Band Of The Day honours from me. Sadly shorn of their charismatic original vocalist Loz Hardy, and with the 2 guitarists/ vocalists joining the original bass/drums battery admittedly struggling to fill his considerable boots (particularly the younger, tousle-haired bloke, whose thin, reedy voice regularly got overpowered in the mix), they nonetheless played a fine, hooky selection of Kingmaker’s finest poppy, slightly fraggly sub-Wonder Stuff moments. “Really Scrape The Sky” was a drum-dominated early anthem, “Two Headed” a languid lurch, and the excellent “When Lucy’s Down” robust, bouncy and hard-driving (and sung by the right vocalist!). A splendid if taciturn set closed out with a snarling and disturbingly prescient “10 Years Asleep” which could have easily been written about the last decade of Tory rule – don’t pretend to care when you don’t care! 

This bumped us to the other side of midnight and another potential highlight, which unfortunately didn’t really materialise; THE FRANK AND WALTERS, again dressed in matching orange shirts, opened up with 40 minutes-worth of unfamiliar material, a couple of early numbers being darker and harder edged than their usual jaunty and quirky Irish singalong stuff and nonsense, but the rest just frankly (sic) dull… Vocalist Paul Linehan actually apologised for playing slow new songs (“it’s that time of night”) but that didn’t stop them rolling out one soporific slug after another, the band’s between-song banter being much more entertaining at this stage! Finally, they threw us tiring punters a bone with a still low-key “Fashion Crisis Hits New York”, thankfully topped with an insanely jolly “After All” and a bouncy, ramshackly set highlight “Walter’s Trip”, before a racey “Michael” rounded off a frustrating set. At this point (1.30 a.m.!) we were done, so we headed out of Reds, running into the fine gentlemen from Abstraction Engine (Swindon’s finest band; well, at least since Raze Rebuild split up… sorry lads!) then took a detour to a packed Centre Stage to see if Rachel had made it out as planned to see James tribute act LAID. Unfortunately, we wandered in during a yodelling version of possibly my least favourite James track ever, the pseudo stadium bluster of “Born Of Frustration” so didn’t stick around for long, and we headed back to find my dear lady wife already tucked up, having not made it out at all! 

Day 1 in the books then, and Day 2 started with our welcoming Martin to another Shiiine On Tradition; the “Big Man Big Fry Up Breakfast”, named in honour of our former Shiiine On companion Rich, who initiated said Saturday tradition at our first Shiiine On in 2016. Thus fortified, we headed off for some pool party fun at Splash Waterworld, unfortunately walking in just as the Indie disco (Smiths, Strokes et al) turned into hi-NRG dance crap! Bah! Didn’t stay too long, then… back to the apartment to prep for today’s musical festivities, opting for shorts and my light kneestrap, as my dodgy knee was continuing to play up. Good thing this whole weekend was dry, mainly sunny and unseasonably warm! Over to Reds then for the intended CANDY OPERA set at 2, only to find the place (and Centre Stage) had been evacuated due to a fire alarm! This seemed to take a puzzlingly long time to sort, so Rach (who’d joined me by now) and I grabbed deckchairs at the back of the Skyline Arena and waited. Unfortunately, by the time the venues reopened, the crowd had largely dissipated, so it was an embarrassingly empty Reds that we made our way back into for Candy Opera’s late-running set at 2.30. Some wag down the front (OK, me…!) quipped that there were more people onstage than off (!), and certainly they were likely to have played to a bigger crowd at their impromptu set at the Hairy Dog on Thursday night! Nonetheless, they played to the hardy souls there, rather than the hordes who weren’t, with a clear and classy set of their soulful 80’s tinged pop. “# Text Delete” was a galloping, Woodentopsy opener, “Tell Me When The Lights Turn Green” was proper old school 60’s Motown blue-eyed soul, and the relatively harder-edged and expansive “Start All Over Again” recalled Prefab Sprout or my 80’s favourites The Big Dish. Lamenting the lack of people (although more were arriving for the subsequent Spairs), vocalist Paul Malone quipped, “we’re doing something different for this room – we’re playing our own songs!” The penultimate “These Days Are Ours” was the anthemic highlight of a set which oozed songcraft and quality, a shame so few were there to see it.

 Rach had nipped off to see a bit of Space (who by all accounts were excellent; not my thing, but still) and I hung around outside within earshot of Spairs subsequent Reds set. This lot, the new project of Neds Atomic Dustbin’s Jonn Penny, sounded as dull as ditchwater, however, so I headed into the Skyline Arena and ran into Matt and Martin as DEJA VEGA were starting their mid-afternoon set. Having served their Shiiine On apprenticeship on the smaller stages, this band of young bucks were finally on the big one, kicking up an impressively palpable noise for a 3-piece, their fast and furious metronomic proto-punky numbers attracting an increasingly large crowd. An early “Mr. Powder” was a 100mph approximation of The Doors’ “LA Woman” and my set highlight, and whilst much of the rest of their material was short on actual hooky tuneage and settled into an urgent droney yet one-dimensional swampy blast (the vocalist’s “Neu” t-shirt being quite a telling pointer to their influences here), they at least did it with power, passion and purpose, so fair play to them, although the last, lengthy and tempo changing number was again a bit of a self-indulgent trial of endurance.

 

Therapy? Setlist not mine - photo courtesy of fellow Shiiiner Vicky Bradfield-Mullenger. Thanks Vicky!

Rach joined us, so we had a much-needed sit down in Hotshots sports bar before SLEEPER, on at 20 to 5. A 6-piece this time backing up svelte-looking and iridescently be-skirted vocalist Louise Wener, with the welcome addition of Desperate Journalist’s excellent “live” guitarist Charley Stone, their strident flippant Britpop sounded balanced and clear from the outset; an early “What Do I Do Now” was slightly understated but featured fine keyboard embellishments underpinning Wener’s breathy vocals, a mid-set “Spooks” was slow-burn and snarky, and “Vegas” louche and languid. However, things really got going after Wener announced, “life is shit, so let’s go back to 1995,” a bullish and buoyant “Inbetweener” getting the crowd bouncing before the coruscating synth pulse of Blondie’s “Atomic” really took flight, rattling along apace and including a singalong middle 8 vignette of “Love Will Tear Us Apart”! After that, the knockabout Britpop of set closer “Sale Of The Century” was a little anticlimactic, but this was good stuff from Lou and co. And more to follow, as Shiiine On newbies and Irish grunting rock pigs THERAPY?, next up at 6, cranked it up a few notches; 3 black-clad desperadoes, wandering onstage to a spaghetti Western soundtrack as if emerging from a gunfight in the Navajo Desert, they set their stall out early to, as vocalist Andy Cairns so eloquently put it, “make some huge fucking noise for you!” with the rambunctious, fist pumping terrace chant of an early “Stories” an apt agenda setter. The wiry sinuous growling opening riff of Joy Division’s “Isolation” was an early highlight, and the titanic choral hook to “Face The Strange” saw me lose my missus to the mosh. Oh yes. I stayed on the periphery, house right, next to the gimp…! Ah yes, the gimp… a Shiiiner, dressed head to toe in black lycra with a mask featuring eye- and mouthholes only, eventually got hoisted onto his mate’s shoulders, wherein a security chap told him not only to get down, but take the mask off as well. Boo! Back to your cage in the basement for you, fella…! 

There I am - green tshirt, arms raised, just underneath the drummer's armpit!

Before an absorbing “Diane”, Cairns announced his drummer was staying over tonight, “so what should he get fucked up on, gin or Buckfast?” To cheers, he announced, “overwhelming support for Bucky!” “Teethgrinder” was a frantic, acerbic tempo changing hurtle, then a rollicking “Potato Junkie” saw Cairns lead the crowd in the “James Joyce is fucking my sister!” hook. But the best was saved for last; a superb triad of the backbeat riffery of “Die Laughing” (dedicated by Cairns to the sadly recently lost Taylor Hawkins), a rampaging “Nowhere” (preceded by an ironic couplet of The Beatles’ “Nowhere Man”), then an even more savage “Screamager”, rounding off an excellent and well chosen set full of utter bangers. 

We all needed a break after that, so repaired to the apartment, as the subsequent Reef held no interest for us! Back in the Arena for headliners ASH, though, on at 8.45 in front of a hefty crowd. The 17^th time of asking for me for these Downpatrick purveyors of spritely punky indiepop, I was predicting, as ever, that they’d play my favourite Ash number, “A Life Less Ordinary”, second number in. However, they threw me a curveball by kicking off with it! So I was in and up for jumping around to the boys’ set from the outset, yet, despite a knee-bucklingly bouncy early “Goldfinger”, it took the surf-punk harmonies of a rampant “Angel Intercepter” for a proper mosh to emerge. And I was in it from the outset, “carrying my bat” to the end, an enthusiastic, boisterous, occasionally physical yet inclusive and caring (at one point everybody stopping to find a mosher’s glasses that had been inadvertently knocked off) body of folks intent on rocking out and having a great time – and at one point joined by Ash bassist Mark Hamilton during a manic “Kung Fu”, which I didn’t actually notice at the time, as I was at the far end of the mosh forming a circle pit! 

Following a surf-tastic “Walking Barefoot” and superb, soaring “Girl From Mars”, vocalist Tim Wheeler introduced Therapy?’s Andy Cairns onstage with a few words of tribute to their support during Ash’s early years. Then, the incredible… Cairns played the unmistakable opening riff to Stiff Little Fingers’ 70’s Irish protest punk classic “Alternative Ulster” and I just grabbed the bloke nearest to me in the mosh and screamed, “Yessssss!!!!!” in his face, before launching myself in for an utterly incendiary, searing version of this iconic number. Simply one of THE great Shiiine On moments, so much so, in fact, that for me their subsequent brilliant, soaring run-through of The Undertones equally fabled “Teenage Kicks” felt a little anticlimactic. Wow. Just… wow. A blistering “Burn Baby Burn” rounded off The Set Of The Weekend by some considerable distance, topped with my grabbing a rare mainstage setlist as evidence to what I’d just witnessed! 

Mainstage festivities over, we repaired to the Centre Stage upstairs room, managing to grab 4 chairs to plonk our tired butts on. Battered and sweat soaked, I rehydrated and grabbed much needed breath as SACK played onstage; I was unfamiliar with their innocuous yet tuneful indie rock, and they were the wrong band at the wrong time for me to pay them any attention, I’m afraid! I did look up when the vocalist (who in my dazed state reminded me of “Young Ones”-era Alexei Sayle, cut-off sta-prest and all) brought on a “Thank You Shiiine On” banner, but that was it! Still recovering from Ash, I was actually a little caught out when HOUSE OF LOVE eased into their set at 11.40 with the chiming guitar hook of a pounding “Road”, but by “Christine” I was back on the dancefloor, enjoying the impressive building crescendo to this 80’s indie classic. Like their Roundhouse set in 2018 (gig 1,110), however, the performance felt understated, unobtrusive even, and, lacking the virtuoso picking of former guitarist Terry Bickers, this wasn’t a great HOL line-up. Also, a few too many numbers from their very low-key and frankly a bit rubbish new album “State Of Grace” inveigled their way into the set, so this felt like somewhat of a soporific plod, evidenced by a classic heckle from The Bloke Behind Me; “c’mon Guy, pick it up, we’re all going to sleep!” Thankfully, as if on cue, a ringing rendition of “Shine On” was excellent and delivered with hitherto absent conviction, “Destroy The Heart” was a galloping delight, and “I Don’t Know Why I Love You” urgent, yearning and the set highlight. An eerie, understated “Love In A Car” which nonetheless built to a pounding, powerful crescendo, rounded off a proper Curate’s Egg of a set which at least finished strongly. 

Back to our seats then, as DERMO, the perennially youthful former lead singer of 80’s Manc baggy Second Division outfit Northside, sang his former charges’ easy, lazy druggy anthems to a backing tape. I actually liked the plaintive and melodic “Rising Star” but found his nasal tones a bit grating after a full hour’s set. But at least that meant we’d made it to 1.45 a.m., and STEVE LAMACQ’s Indie Disco. I swayed about for awhile, but found the selections a bit mainstream for my obscure tastes (how obscure? Well, I’d been rocking World Of Twist and Parachute Men tshirts so far at Shiiine On, does that help?), and, still aching from Ash, I turned in at 2.30. My crew gave it another hour, then Day 2 was in the books as well! 

Sunday Day 3 dawned warm and sunny, as a particularly swift and thoroughly convivial Shiiine On entered its last lap. A later lazy morning this time (no surprise given last night’s late one!), then all in and out of showers before a wander along the surprisingly sun-kissed Minehead sea front over to The Old Ship Aground at the harbour, where a most excellent Carvery roast dinner awaited. Superb! Well set up for the day, we then wandered back to the apartment, whence my Gigolo Aunts tshirt got some attention from a fellow Shiiiner! Turned out said punter, Heidi (hi, if you’re reading this!) was not only a Bostonian but a neighbour of my lovely friend Angie (host of my gig 1,165, her 50^th Birthday Bash at Q Division of course…). Cue lots of chatting about Boston bands and mutual friends, as my crew just left me to it…! After catching up and a brief post-lunch chill, we were back in for my only real upsetting timing clash of the weekend; ECHOBELLY in the Centre Stage at 3, or MARTIN CARR AND WHAT FUTURE in the arena at 3.15? We all headed up to a well-attended Centre Stage for Echobelly for starters, but they were late starting after a fiddly soundcheck and opened with a dour little beast of a song. So, remembering their 2016 Shiiine set (when for me they were the only disappointment of a stacked bill), and also figuring my very good Boston buddy Corin Ashley might just kill me if I missed our mutual friend Mr. Carr, Matt and I headed off to a very sparsely attended Skyline Arena. Immediately this decision was vindicated, thanks to a quite superb second number, the bristling buoyant powerpop of “St. Peter In Chains” which featured a delicious underlying keyboard refrain. Great for starters, but standards were maintained with a mid-paced, more pastoral but no less hooky “Mary Jane”, recalling 60’s psych troubadours Love. 

Frankly, Martin’s set was a revelation. I’d enjoyed his 2018 House Of Love Roundhouse support slot (gig 1,110, again) whilst remembering it being a little more reliant on shimmering guitar atmospherics than the naggingly hooky psychedelia-influenced indiepop of his former charges Boo Radleys, but this set was all about the songs. “Mainstream” was a proper Laurel Canyon 70’s singer/ songwriter ballad suiting Martin’s higher, lilting vocals, “Damocles” a stomping and slightly menacing psych workout with nonetheless tight 2 part harmonies from Martin and his wild haired, hefty bass compadre, and “Stand Up And Fight”, a strident fist-punching call to arms. Martin also treated us to a couple of Boo Radleys numbers from their meandering masterpiece “Giant Steps”; a quite lovely solo Beatles-esque “Thinking Of Ways”, then the widescreen sky-scraping harmonies of a brilliantly shimmering “Lazarus” (preceded by Martin announcing, “I wrote this one 30 years ago, surprising as I’m only 26!”), which closed out less of a set, more of a classy songwriting clinic, Martin also shouting “Fuck The Tories!” before departing. Nice! 

I’d shouted up to Martin for his list which he generously provided, then I found a small opening in the backstage screen near the gents loo to call over the man himself, who was happy to take a break from packing up for a pic, signature and brief chat. Result! Took a break at the back of the Arena then joined a considerably larger mid-afternoon crowd for BADLY DRAWN BOY’s opening numbers. His solo acoustic guy stuff was low-key, pastoral and a little dull early doors, his lengthy between-song diatribes and banter proving considerably more entertaining but not sufficient impetus for me to stick around, so I joined Rach for a seat at the bar at the back of the Arena for a chat with a couple of her old friends, before wandering into Hotshots just before 6 for a non-musical highlight, my boy George Russell winning a tense and entertaining Brazilian Grand Prix for his first Formula 1 win! Delighted with that (but not as much as a lovely lady from Ipswich whom I sat next to for the race), I popped back into Skyline, passing Martin on the way who was looking to escape (in his words) “the horrible lounge music” of the mainstage SAINT ETIENNE. I dunno, the chuntering rhythm of a louche “Nothing Can Stop Us” sounded pretty decent, and set closer “He’s On The Phone” was a catchy pulsing synthpop tune, with vocalist Sarah Cracknell (who’d sounded a little out of key on some intervening numbers) conducting a call and response with the crowd. Sorry I missed the likes of “Only Love Can Break Your Heart” and “You’re In A Bad Way” (earlier in the set while I was rooting for George), but what I heard wasn’t that bad, actually! 

So, on to Sunday Skyline headliners TEENAGE FANCLUB. Lots of speculation beforehand about what their set might comprise of, particularly given the recent departure of Gerard Love, which seemed to preclude their playing his songs such as “Sparky’s Dream”, “Star Sign” et al. Sauntering on early at 8.40 like a bejumpered group of geography teachers on a lunchbreak, they eased into a clutch of newies, with “Warm Embrace” a pounding Byrdsian countrified rocker and “Endless Arcade”, the title track of their most recent album, an understated, slightly discordant yet lushly harmonic mid-paced groove. It was evident, then, that their setlist was pretty much based on their early 2022 album-promoting tour, with oldies such as an early, languid “About You” and the gorgeously melodic “Your Love Is The Place Where I Come From” sadly few and far between. The chunky Big Star rocker of “What You Do To Me” was a mid-set highlight, but by then a lot of punters had voted with their feet; I don’t recall such a sparse crowd for a Shiiine On Sunday headliner! The elongated grungy laze rocker “The Concept” took us up to the hour, at which point the band took a break (!), returning for an encore triad featuring a cover of The Who’s “The Kids Are Alright” (fine, but why??) and the inevitable hypnotic slacker groove of “Everything Flows” to close proceedings. Don’t get me wrong, I thoroughly enjoyed their set, really liked some of the newer material (particularly a later, more upbeat “I’m In Love”), and yet was frustrated and disappointed at the paucity of more familiar works in the set and felt this a real opportunity missed by The Fannies. 

Anyway, we decamped to an already rammed Reds for the last knockings of the weekend, finding a load of big blokes in our way down the front and a crowd seething with anticipation; in fact, probably more here for Wonder Stuff vocalist MILES HUNT’s solo acoustic set than there were at the end of Teenage Fanclub in the Skyline Arena! Miles (with whom I’d talked about Shiiine On after The Wonder Stuff’s June Bristol gig (gig 1,229) and particularly Teenage Fanclub as headliners, his response being, “they should just play all of “Bandwagonesque”!”) showed he totally understood the Shiiine On brief with his opening comments of, “I’ve got a new album out [cue chorus of good-natured boos] but you’ll have to come to one of my solo shows in a pissy village hall to hear that shit!” before breaking into a raucously received “Unbearable”, pausing mid-song to ask, “the leydeez in the house!” for a blood-curdling middle 8 scream. Thence followed a set replete with old school Stuffies bangers; a swirling “Wish Away”, a raucous “Ruby Horse” featuring the crowd filling in the Malc Treece descending guitar hook with “ding ding ding ding” harmonies (“my younger self would hate this!” quipped Miles, “but that young man got me into enough trouble…!”), a beautiful melancholic “Caught In My Shadow” preceded by a lengthy exposition from Miles about The Stuffies early days in Birmingham, the inevitable “Size Of A Cow” (“it’s the song that splits [our] audience, but I’m playing it because I still like it!”) and a noisy singalong “Welcome To the Cheap Seats”, highlights all. There was even a bouncing moshpit by the time closer “Give Give Give Me More More More” came around, closing out a fine, fun and all-inclusive set from a relaxed and comfortable performer who totally gets what this Shiiine On crowd want, and delivers – every time!

The slightly odd scheduling however meant that Milo’s brilliant 45 minutes was followed by an hour’s set from DIESEL PARK WEST, by which time pretty much everyone (including my crew!) had cleared off! So I was on the barrriers front and centre along with a small band of devotees, for Leicester’s finest purveyors of harmonic 60’s Byrdsian jangle, just after 11.20. Opener “Waking Hour” was a dark 60’s psych rocker with a suitably intricate backwards guitar middle-8, yet whilst a couple of other newies skirted around trad bluesy pub rock, the older material shone as ever. “All The Myths On Sunday” (not an afterthought this year!) was a smooth and beautifully understated singalong with that gorgeous descending harmony hook, “Here I Stand” was a plaintive wallow, and “Like Princes Do” a galloping hooky thoroughbred of a song. Like Candy Opera, laconic vocalist Jon Butler and his boys manfully played to the people there rather than the departed Stuffies hordes (“thanks for sticking around – it means you really want to see us!” was his somewhat pointed comment), and the touchingly meandering “Bell Of Hope” and the dynamic Stones-y strut of “When The Hoodoo Comes” rounded off a slightly uneven yet overall fine set with plenty of highlights. A fine way to end Shiiine On musically, at least, although a subsequent highlight was bumping into Miles Hunt himself, holding court just outside Reds, for a pic and brief chat, after he’d noticed my Gigolo Aunts tee and exclaimed, “great shirt!” 

Thus endeth Shiiine On, as I wended my way back to the apartment for a final night’s sleep, before we rustled up one last fry-up breakfast with the remainder of our fridge contents, then bade farewell to our friends Martin and Matt and hit the road for home, back in the ‘don just before 2 after a lunch pitstop for at M4 Leigh Delamere Services for pasties (the Butlins on-site pasty shop having very odd opening times this year, i.e. too early for demand!). On reflection, a slightly odd Shiiine On musically, a few too many 90’s icons either peddling their new projects or new material, with only Martin Carr for me maintaining his quality control with a somewhat unexpected set of great indie powerpop tuneage. The most memorable bands for me were those who “got” Shiiine On, understood that this was a celebration of that 80s/90s Indie era and tailored their sets accordingly – step forward and take a bow Kingmaker, Therapy?, Miles Hunt and especially Band Of The Weekend Ash, who gave us one of THE definitive Shiiine On moments with “Alternative Ulster”. Non musically, just another brilliant weekend of good times, great company, fine food, chat and conversation, Shiiine On being about much, much more than just the music. Fingers crossed we’ll all be back next year to Shiiine some more!

  

SHERIFF’S SHIIINE ON SELECTION

Friday Best – KINGMAKER 4AD

Saturday Best – ASH

Sunday Best – MILES HUNT

Overall – 1. ASH, 2. MILES HUNT, 3. THERAPY?

Best New Band (and I appreciate this one is a bit of a stretch, but I didn’t know any of his solo stuff, so there!) – MARTIN CARR AND WHAT FUTURE?

We Can Be Heroes – New boy MARTIN who “got” Shiiine On, and loved it; repeat offenders MATT and RACHEL; ASH and ANDY CAIRNS for “Alternative Ulster”; MILES HUNT; MARTIN CARR; The blokes who held me up in the ASH moshpit; THE GIMP!