Boxjam V

And so we returned to the scene of the band's very first gig (at the first BJ 4 years ago), and what will probably be my last festival-type gig of the year, Boxjam. All for charity of course, suburb acts including for the first time, the wonderful poet Paul Howard Ellson. We managed to stick around and between us (the whole band) caught Human Condition and Interception, both sounding as superb if not even better than ever, We Are Nomad and Then Alien. All fantastic by all accounts.

Hats off (Fez's off?) to Simon & Tina of Simon J. Newbury Photography fame for doing all the sterling work that must mean many sleepless nights before an event of this size. Another great success and most impotantly, lots of dosh raised for Oxfam and Chrisite's.


Thanks to Liz Wells for the video of a more mellow segment of our set :)

Alternatively, here's a video shot by The Late Selector team, thanks chaps;

June 24th-27th - May Bank Holiday Festivals.

Photo by Dave Myatt, from Monday's Folk N' Ale Festival at The Old Brown Jug.

Saturday Daytime, Crewe Live Festival.
The 1st time The BlueYellows played together since last September and the first time we were all in the same room together in fact since a Pre-Christmas lunch (oh alright piss-up). This was a rehearsal, the first one since a break brought about through the birth of Lovely Casper, Emma's and hubby Pete's new son. I was expecting things to be a bit ropy but we slipped back into it like a duck to a mucky canal. In places we were actually "in the zone" and I forgot all sense of anything sensible, should be good...

Saturday Night, Crewe Live Festival.
Now much as I appreciate being put on for this solo performance, the circumstance here were "a bit ropy", the football was on the TV of the Corner Bar which was the evening's venue and I was to wait for half-time before my shortened set or potentially suffer the wrath of drunk football fans... not fun but "the show must go on" and it was one to put down to experience, you know with the best will in the world of all concerned sometimes you'll have a bit of a crap night, I did get some good feedback through from members of the small audience both then at the gig the following night.

Sunday. Crewe Live Festival gig 2
 An altogether much better experience, not only a listening, attentive audience but lots of friendly familiar faces including Abby and Mat from the superb 1980s style, electro-outfit Human Condition who played later that night. 

Bank Holiday Monday. The Newcastle-Undr-Lyme Jazz and Blues Festival (Subsection The Old Brown Jug Folk N' Foam Festival.
A great day/and night sub-festival organised by Andrew Tranter from the Agit/Folk band currently making waves, Headsticks. Again a lovely, attentive audience, some great acts (including Headsticks themselves) and lovely ale too, only the weather was dodgy at times but... this is a festival in England... onwards and upwards.... Special thanks to Tina Newbury of Simon J. Newbury Photography and Dave Myatt who has been taking great music-scene photos since the 1970s for the photos. Cheers to them and everyone involved in making it a fun weekend.

The Official T-Shirt.

Photo by Dave Myatt.

Boxjam Phoar! (the show must go on and all that...)

The old show-biz adage "the show must go on" was very much to the fore of my mind as we prepared for this years' Boxjam IV, or perhaps "Boxjam Phoarr!" given the immensely talented bands and soloists playing, literally too many to mention without forgetting to leave out some of the best artists I've seen (ok heard) so, sorry in advance.... I'd pretty much been in bed since the Levenshulme festival (see previous post) with a fever and was still very much within it's grip.

Human Condition were on stage as we loaded in and sounding even better than before, I think Abbie's vocal confidence had grown allowing her to take flight over Mat's mega-keyboard sounds. Then we had the chance to really enjoy Benjamin Bloom, a real musical showman and talented pianist (throwing in plenty of classical references into this pop-oriented set) before our set, and Chimps On Death Row in full-on rockster mode after us. Hayley Strangelove introduced us on stage, herself a "must see" musical phenomenon. Our set was so short by our usual standards that it flu by (get it?) and I managed to enjoy a misery-free half hour just running on adrenaline!

Post-Chimps, I ambled  over to the Acoustic stage to see the wonderful George Borowski (allegedly "Guitar George" of "Sultans Of Swing" fame, which was a piss-take of the band seen by writer Mark Knopfler was it not???... but that's another story). Anyroadup... I'd "seen" George on youtube. It doesn't do him any justice at all. The man is a troubadour, a story-teller and something of a home-spun shaman. Go See!

Mahoosive thanks to Simon and Tina newbury of Simon J. Newbury Photography for organising, raising all the dosh for Oxfam and taking the black and white shots here. Hats off to you! x 




Thanks to Abbie from Human Condition (& "A band, A Badger & a Blog") for this pic.

Em giving it some keys. Photo Tina Newbury.

Hayley giving it some stick. Photo Tina Newbury

Me nearly giving it some puke. Photo Tina Newbury.



Simon Zenning the bass. Photo Tina Newbury.

 

"All these things" CD launch

Tim Lee (2nd left) joined us on stage for "No Tobacco". Photo by Liz Wells, thanks Liz x

As I was quoted as saying in the local press “We have so many special friends and loyal supporters in Sandbach that it seems like the obvious place for a really friendly, relaxed, launch show for our record.... We’ve also gone for an afternoon time-slot so that whole families can come along, people who can’t always come to our evening gigs.” (you can read the full article here).

Well our friends and fans did us proud in giving us a great party as did two great acts; Tim Lee of Suzie Does It fame perfromed a great set as did our Mat and Abbie, who aside from giving us by all acounts the best sound we had ever had on stage, also performed a stonking set of 80s electronica classics as Human Condition (see video below). Many thanks to all! xxx



Human Condition made us all dance.