Crud World Domination Enterprises give you
SUPER
FURRY ANIMALS
Ashton Court Festival
Bristol
16.07.04
(reviewed by Guy Salvador)
This is a huge festival! Which caught me by surprise, 70,000 people
per day over the weekend of 16/17 July & this year the weather is
absolutely perfect. It used to be called
the Bristol community festival & costing only a fiver to get in it must be
the bargain of the festival year, with the prices for the commercial events
reaching ridiculous levels this year it was nice to see that whole families
were able to come along together & enjoy the whole day, even being allowed
to bring in their own food & drinks.
Apparently, it is run entirely by volunteers, I take my hat off to them
for organising such a massive event.
To the music….. 4 stages with the majority of artists
previously unknown to me, offering a variety of styles & genres. I watched a few, who were fine but maybe not
my cup of tea……
SFA headlined the main stage @ 9.40 after the crowd were heartily
warmed up by “foul mouthed” Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel, who did a great
job running through some of their old favourites such as “Mr Soft” & “ Come
Up & See Me” getting the biggest cheers of the set, not only from the
wrinklies but also the younger element seemed to know these songs. The main stage here was quite small for the
size of festival, with no side screens for projections etc. This limited the visual aspects of the
nights SFA set, although the screenings behind the band were visible to some of
the crowd. First tonight is “Slowlife”
with Gruff unusually set up on the left hand of the stage, he usually starts on
a riser behind the drums, obviously no facility for this tonight. This means his walk from back to front with
his “Power helmet” on midway through the song has a slightly less impact, still
good fun though. “Rings Around The
World” was next up with the sound crew starting to get it right & by the
next song “The Horn” the band sounded great.
“The Horn”, which is very well sung by Bunf is a sort of psychedelic
folk waltz which grows at every listening, really looking forward to hearing
this one on the new SFA album, “LoveKraft” released in August. A slightly shorter set than I have seen them
play recently, not playing as many of the newer songs, although “Zoom”……………… all working well. Good also to hear a cracking version of the Dead Kennedy’s,
“California Uber Allies” take off, “Calamero” a rousing 3 chord bash about a
little cartoon chicken, which adds a well needed burst of pace to the end of
the set. If there is any criticism of
this set it is sometimes one paced with the beginning particularly suffering
from this? The band are again,
sporting their new “radioactive shepherd” look, with the strange suits not
really lighting up again tonight, outdoor gigs don’t really get dark enough
this time of year to get the desired effect.
The band finish with the eternal “Man Don’t Give A Fuck” leaving Cian to
do his thing for 5 minutes or so. The
crowd at the front got a bit pissed off that the Furries didn’t appear for an
encore, they never do! With the DJ
compere bloke with the irritating voice requesting people stop throwing stuff
at the stage, afraid they were going to hit his big head I think!
Overall, a good festival for
very little money & a good set from SFA, not bad for a fiver!
All the best
Guy Salvador 2005
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