(review by cumi pants, pic by jane birchall)
Am I getting old? Well, there are two sides to every coin and the fact that I was sober for this outing made the answer more yes than no!
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(review n pix by neil crud)
With a name like North by North Wales, you just had to turn up to have a look. The Skerries is a cosy pub, the back room is a typical ‘live room’ – as in, pool table pushed to the back wall, cheesy horse brasses, bric-a-brac adorns every available space and a 100watt bulb to illuminate the band. That’s not a complaint; just an observation. The only complaint is that it could do with taking the tables and chairs out of one side of room to accommodate those wanting to see the bands.
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“Thank you, goodnight” – announced Rosary‘s singer as we walked through the door. Gutted! What are bands doing playing this early!? I had seen them a couple of years ago under the guise of Y Cer, and they do possess a quality that all of tonight’s band have, making this a very strong line up. Of their set, Gav Malone said, ‘The night was really good, with a really good vibe with a room full, which doesn’t always happen at Rascals. We were very pleased with our set which opened the night, and received some really great feedback from a new crowd for us.’
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(review n pix by mwj)
It was a bit of a roundabout route that brought me to my latest favourite spoken word rap stylings from the mighty pen and word of Mr Pip. His recent regular collaborator and touring partner from the U.S. B. Dolan had been recommended to me by friends over the pond for its hard hitting beats and intelligent socio-political stance which always wins over the bling for me, and then it was just a hip hop, skipping record and jump across the Atlantic to darkest Essex to be spell bound and tongue-tied by the similarly genius wordsmanship of Scroobius.
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(review by Adam Walton, taken from BBC website)
I didn’t sleep a wink the night before. At 4.30am, sat with eyes like pickled onions in front of my computer with a camomile tea that was neither ‘soothing’ nor ‘relaxing’ me, I decided that putting gigs on wasn’t for me. The thing that had kept me up was, strangely, a good-mannered kindness: “Sorry I won’t be able to make it, I’m a bit skint. I’m sure you’ll have a great time and a lovely crowd.”
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