The Ruskin is one of those places its best to imagine and not attend as it is a bit of a dive. There was some trouble about paying the bands towards the end of the gig which gave the whole thing a rather less than pleasant vibe. As is typical with these sort of festival shows the gig did not get off on time; closer to an hour late but no matter. What plagued the entire show was the piss-poor sound quality of the venue. Much of the time the bands on stage could not hear that themselves, which may have led to some of the rather less than spectacular performances on show.
Definite highlights of the day were Sacred Heart; who even though they were organising the show did not headline, and the Portsmouth band 'Dregs of Society. Having seen Sacred Heart once before I was not surprised that they delivered a tight and highly professional set of class melodic rock tunes. As with during the Dregs performance the audience ranged from disinterested to stoic, which was a bit of a disappointment.
It was fairly clear that most of the people who hung around all day were there to see the headliners Pride; as it was their final gig. The Dregs delivered an excellent set of LAGuns/Faster Pussycat-esque heavy rock. Their lead singer is a nutter singing sitting down, on a table, and even lying on his back. This lot could go far so keep an eye on them.
The two acoustic sets from Escape and Paul Hodson suffered from the crap sound and the indifferent crowd. The other acts on the bill Crimes of Passion and Lost Weekend provided competent if a bit standard sets. Pride delivered a decent if a bit indifferent set to a small but adoring crowd.
It was getting late and everyone in the audience was well aware that getting home was going to be right pain in the bollocks. (John Haithwaite and I had to take a dreaded night bus home.) Paul is to be commended for both organising this festival and for leading his band in tough circumstances through a cracking set. A good way to spend a Sunday afternoon/evening to be sure. Lets hope there is another one next year and its somewhere easier to get to and more pleasant.
Now I am further attempting to reduce the ludicrous pile of review CDs I have to go through. Here is the latest batch to get the treatment. We start off with the much anticipated release from The Darkness.
Article comments
1 - Paul Roy
Big surprise about the Opeth gig. They put on an awesome performance on the Lamentations DVD. I just ordered Ghost Reveries so I hope it is as good as everyone says, and I hope I can get past Akerfeldt's satanic death grows to get to the music, and to his good singing when he chooses to.
2 - Triniman
Can you shed some more light on Akerkocke's performance?
3 - Bliffle
What a lousy list! Not one new classical recording, not one new or re-issue jazz recording. I suppose it reflects the stunted audio world of modern dilettantes. How shallow. Too bad.
4 - Andrew Ian Dodge
I review what I get mate. Getting onto Classical review lists is notoriously hard. I do however get some jazz rock on occasion.
5 - Sic, The dregs of society.
Firstly let me introduce myself, my name is Sic(yes it is a pseudonym). I am the lead singer in The Dregs of Society whom you wrote about back in December.My comments on that review: Yes the sound was shocking and i felt that it did detract from the quality of the show as a whole but not as much as the pre-madonna attitude of some other performers on the bill. We all knew that the sound wasn't great but that should have spurred some of my fellow performers on to provide a show, something that is severely lacking in most modern live gigs. I would like to thank you for your review and in particular the honesty of it and take this opportunity to invite you along to The Star inn, Guildford on June 4th for more of the same. Sic & The Dregs of Society