YAY The Blog is back baby!
When Alistair annouced a few weeks back that he was performing at ATOMfest I just thought "Yeah whatever, another gig I can't get to" but I did have a gander at the Trainline.com site just to see what ridiculous prices they were charging for tickets to York. BOY am I glad I did. With a little bit of shuffling about of single tickets, I found that with the family railcard I could get the 3 of us to York and back for just £27 (With £1 booking fee) SO I canvassed the kids and they thought that a day out at a free music festival with a lot of unsigned bands (and Alistair Griffin) sounded like a good idea.
Its 2 years since I saw Al play live at the Bodega with Tim and Brian. This would be a completely different gig indeed.
The journey was pretty uneventful. I had reserved seats but they put us in the quiet coach so it was indeed very quiet and the train didn't really get that busy either. It passed by quickly and we reached York at around 12.45.
York was absolutely full of people all dressed up like there was some special wedding going on - I found out later that they were all going to York races. so we had to dodge them all as we made our way thru York town centre.
My first major flaw in this plan was that I hadn't actually brought the directions to the pub from the station. I had a look on the map in the station and it seemed to have every "gate" in York on it but "monkgate" which was where we were heading. So thank Apple for the Iphone and Google maps. It took it a few minutes but we soon had the directions and the little blue pin was showing us the way (Just realised that I should have taken a screenshot to share the coolness)
It was such a gorgeous (and sooooo hot) day that we really saw this wondeful city in all its glory.
It worked out that it was practically a straight line from the station to the Tap and Spile pub and we arrived in no time, Even after stopping to take a couple of pictures of York Minster and to listen to the Bellringing marathon.
On the door of the pub the kids were asked for ID. I hadn't really thought about it as I thought I would serve as their ID being their mum. We were let in as long as I promised they wouldn't be buying any alcohol - HMMMM!
I bought us a pint of coke each and we went out to find ourselves seats. I had been feeling pretty relaxed until we walked around the corner and there was stood Alistair - right on the path so that I would have to walk round him - I panicked in those few short seconds - shall I speak shall I just walk by? So sounding quite UNCOOL I said "Hiya" in my silly singy voice. He greeted me back so all was not lost LOL!
There was a table right in the centre so we grabbed that and there we stayed for the next 5 hours!
I'll be honest, I can't remember the names of most of the acts - some of them didn't even say who they were and there were way to many Myspaces to remember. I know that the first band were a duo in cowboy hats who call themselves Glass Bricks they started their set with the theme tune to Family Guy and ended it with "Guy love" from Scrubs. The rest of their set was full of pretty angry songs that they wrote themselves titles such as "You're so fat" and "Lay off the LSD"
Abbi Smith was good. She did this really great cover of Lady Gaga's Paparrazzi which I will upload later. Some of the acts weren't great. There were a few female vocalists that just merged into one, they were all a bit too similar for me and there was a couple that weren't even that good. There was a good duo who said that it was going to be their last gig together as one of them was going to live in the States.
As we were sat there I could feel the effects of the sun. I was starting to wish I had remembered the suncream and looking at the kids they were the same we were all starting to get red. I was also starting to worry about the time. The posters had said 1pm - 6pm but we knew (Or thought) that Al would be on last and time was getting on. Bill said she had heard that another female artist would be on AFTER Alistair.
There was a great band who opened with an instrumental. They really shook the place up as the last few acts before them had been a bit slow and miserable now it was time to rock - made more evident by the random drunk man who got up and started dancing...
Finally Alistair took to the stage. He announced that as he had been there since 10am he was alittle worse for wear but to be honest You just couldn't tell. My only niggle was the fact that we had been sat in the same seats all day with the perfect view until time for Al to come and lots of random people decided to come and stand in front of us. They weren't even interested in what was happening onstage and were talking and laughing thru most of it.
However we still enjoyed it. I looked at the kids and they were singing away to all the songs that Alistair sang so they have been paying attention when I play his music around the house. The set went by way too quickly but this is how it went...
Blown Away
Kipper
One Love (U2)
Blinding Lights
Albion Sky
and The Killers - Mr Brightside.
At the end of his set Al just rushed off the stage because obviously there was 1 act left. We should have rushed off ourselves as we had to get our train home but Bret really wanted to get a couple of autographs including Alistair's. We saw him disappear into the little gazebo that passed as the backstage area. He seemed to be gone for ages and we saw him walk out with Al and they were chatting away. Then I saw Bret point at me and wondered what the hell they were talking about!!
As soon as Bret came back over we left the pub and I grilled him about what was said in his little chat. When Bret asked for his autograph, Alistair thought he was just taking the mick and was a bit short with him. When Bret explained that "His Mum" had been a fan since way back he started chatting about music tastes. Bret was well chuffed that he took time to chat and signed his book for him.
And then it was all over and we were on our way back to the station. The place was still full of people in posh clothes and the roads and walkways were still really busy. It was a gorgeous day and York is a gorgeous place...I even managed to photograph a passing Hot Air Balloon...
In the end we got back to the station in plenty of time. The journey home wasn't very pleasant though full of all the drunkards from the races. The Quiet coach was packed and they weren't very quiet - In fact they were very larey shouting and swearing and singing football songs (Mostly about Sheffield teams) Luckily they got off at Doncaster and those that didn't got off in Sheffield.
We got home about 10pm.
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