Artists I liked

Otoboke Beaver, Gurr, Fable, Gabrielle Aplin, Dead Pretties, Aldous Harding x3, Pins, Dronningen, Rose Elinor Dougall, The Avulsions, Tired Lion, Byrde, Pumarosa x2, Life, Dream Wife, The Kills, Public Service Broadcasting, Gold Class

Artists that were okay

J.W.Paris, Yon Aka, Molly, Emme Woods, Fazerdaze, Bite The Buffalo, ILL, Flamingods, Slotface, Kane Strang, Hey Charlie, Olympia, Puma Blue, Our Girl, Abattoir Blues, Hazel English, Emily Barker, Education, Mata, Like A Motorcycle, Locks

Artists I won’t be going out of my way to see again

Skott, Dream Nails, Cherry Glazer

Best Gig

May is Great Escape month. With my poor blogging, I didn’t keep track of the bands I was seeing as well as I should have, so the number of bands I saw this month was much larger than recorded. Few new bands stood out. But there were some excellent highlights this month with a number of my favourites such as The Kills, PSB, Pumarosa and Aldous Harding. I think The Kills was probably my highlight of the month.

Best new band

Gurr

Albums of the Month

• Parasite (EP) – The Coathangers
• The Witch – Pumarosa
• Party – Aldous Harding
• Popular Music – Life

Best photo

The Johns

Hibari

Hibari

Hibari

Hibari

Bruja

Bruja

Bruja

Bruja

Bruja

Otoboke Beaver

Otoboke Beaver

Otoboke Beaver

Otoboke Beaver

Otoboke Beaver

Otoboke Beaver

Otoboke Beaver

Otoboke Beaver

Saturday

I arrived late, but (un)luckily they were running late. So I only missed the first band. The first band up were Peaness with a great line of jangly, indie pop.

The Cross Makers were up next. They were billed at the Holy Motors but they informed us that they’ve decide to change their name. They didn’t do much for me. They looked like two different bands pushed together.

When Whitebait setup I thought I wouldn’t like them. A three piece with the singer behind a keyboard could easily be quite bland. But they were saved because I liked the singer’s voice.

Wolf Girl

T-Shirt Weather

Seconds

Two White Cranes performance was a bit messy. It looks like the band had just been put together for a tour. So there was a lot of ‘how does this one go’ conversations between the drummer and guitarist. But it didn’t detract from the performance.

Try the Pie had flown over from the US for a mini UK tour with Two White Cranes. Playing solo. I really enjoyed this performance. Great voice that suited the music

T.O.Y.S

Unfortunately, the late start meant that I the bands were running late and I had to get off for my train home. So I missed a few bands

Sunday

Again I arrived late and missed the first band and the second band, Camp Sky were just finishing up their set.

Next up was Oh Peas. This was a bit of an odd one. What I heard was pleasant enough but the singer was suffering really badly from nerves. On the one hand I want to be sympathetic. I couldn’t stand up on stage on my own. But on the other hand, this didn’t feel like an isolated case. I think she’s regularly suffers from nerves. I just wonder why you wouldn’t take shelter in a band and in all honesty, her music would be improved with a band around her as I think some base and drums would give her music a better dynamic.

Good Grief did very little for me until they brought up a guest singer at which point I thought they had much more energy and a better dynamic which then seemed to keep going until the end of their set.

The next band were the surprise highlight of the weekend. Otoboke Beaver are a Japanese four piece girl band who have so much energy. They play that kind of garage punk pop that’s popular with Japanese bands. As they were singing in Japanese, I just held on and enjoyed the ride. They were so good, I caught them again later in the week.

Dirtygirl had the unenviable task of following Otoboke Beaver. But she did a great job.

Next up was the extremely talented Haiku Salut. I did think that their instrumental led music might not work in the Shacklewell. But surprisingly it did.

Due to the day running late again. Chorusgirl closed my second day. But this was perfect. This was the band that caused me to buy the tickets. I’d seen them earlier in the year and really enjoyed their sound and energy and tonight’s performance was no different.

Just before I left, I managed to catch on song of Soda Fountain Rag. I quite liked the singer’s voice but the music didn’t do much for me. But then I had an eye on my watch. So maybe I wasn’t really paying attention.