This blog is just a review of the gig I went to on the 28th of December, I should have wrote this a lot earlier and made it more blog worthy with various incidents such as leanders fetish for death, his goth look and the lighter man who claimed to be the father of a premiership footballer but unfortunately my lack of enthusiasm for blog writing has returned and so apart from maybe the odd band review I don't think I will be writing any more for a while.

Kid Harpoon has been for the last couple of years, one of my favourite artists and so when I saw that he was going to be playing at KOKO, one of my favourite clubs in London, it was immediately a certainty that I would be going.

We got to Camden at about 9:30 hoping to get in for doors open and to our joy we were told that because we were one of the first 100 people to turn up, we got in free, Brilliant. Obviously getting in this early meant that buying driniks for the rest of the night would cost a bomb, but we had already been drinking earlier in a pub so it wasn't too bad.

There was an early dissapointment when I saw that even the main act was only going to be on for half an hour when I was hoping for a real head-liners set as Ive never seen Kid Harpoon do more than 40 minutes but nevertheless I continued to have a good time.

The DJ was great in my opinion, playing all the sorts of bands that you read about in NME, including no less than 3 songs by my beloved Libertines over the course of the evening.

The first band, Paris Trading came on at about 10:30 and provided some decent music, if not particularly exciting, I must admit during this band though I was mainly still sitting and enjoying the company of my friends.

The second band on were The More Assured who I had heard of previously only through them being one of those annoying bands who add you on myspace. I remembered listening to them before and not being particularly bothered by what they were playing. Again there was nothing really bad about them, they just provided nothing to get excited about.

But then at about 12:30 came the main act, Kid Harpoon and the powers that be. Unsurprisingly they gave an amazing performance as I have seen on the 4 previous occasions that I've seen them play. Unfortunately their regular Keyboard player couldn't be there but he was replaced by a woman by the name of Ciara Haidar who as an artist in her own right I saw at the electric gardens festival in the summer. The show went flawlessly to my knowledge and they played all the songs that you come to expect including Death of a Rose, Milkmaid, Late for the Devil and First We Take Manhattan. I have noticed though that he never plays Colours when he is with the Powers that be, which is a shame as it is one of my favourite songs but this aside it was still an excellent set and I think they gained a few new fans in my friends.

We stayed for a bit longer dancing to the indie DJs and then left by about 2:30 and then made our way home to various bits of south London.

All in all a good night and so I shall be revisiting Club NME in the near future.

END - for the indeffinite future

Sunday the 16th of December was to be the day that I trundled home after my university term had finished, but a couple of days previous, my sister had contacted me and told me that I should come and see The Pan I Am playing free somewhere in Camden and if that wasn't enough of an incentive, it was free aswell. (Just to point out here, for those who don't know, The Pan I Am is a band formed by ex-Larrikin Love lead man, Ed Larrikin.)
Of course I thought that this was a great idea, Larrikin Love were one of my favourite bands and having only seen them twice before the split I didnt want to throw up this chance. So the morning came and I packed my bags and realised.. bugger I'm gonna have to take all my bags to the gig, but this didn't stop me, I went down anyway.

So i got to the Lock Tavern, to find that to my surprise it was not just the Pan I Am playing but also, the Metros, 2 members of the View and the Magic Numbers, a less useful surprise was that the gig did not actually start until 5:30 when my sister forced me to get there by 2:30. That was ok though, we took an expedition up to the the less market-like parts of camden and even when into a large morrisons where we sat and ate a late lunch consisting of sandwich, crisps and salad, all of which were a little off, but for £1.69 I couold hardly complain. We made our way back to the pub for about 4:30ish and sat down and waited. Soon enough Ed Larrikin came in and to our delight so did Drew McConnel, the bassist from Babyshambles. Me being me I couldn't let this opportunity go so I had a photo. When I asked them for a photo, first Ed said ok and tryed to move out of the way so I could have a phto with drew but then I said no and dragged ed back in and drew tried to walk off but I said No again and dragged them both in with me. Ed unfortunately had his eyes closed and after complained of the light being too bright (I think he was stoned) but apart from that another great photo for my collection.

We sat back down and conversed, waiting for the first band, The Metros to come on, Little did we know, they were actually playing in the room upstairs. the acoustics must be very good in there because we had no idea this was happening. So we missed that and thus were sitting around doing relatively little until 6:30 when the band showed life and by 7 they had started playing.

As far as the Pan I Am go they were pretty good. The band consisted of a violinist, a cellist, drew mcconnell and ed larrikin and a man on the marracas. They played a few songs which i hate to admit I didn't at all know but I enjoyed thouroughly especially one song which I am informed is called something about Lucifer. Unfortunately due to the situation I found myself in with the bags and Caroline had some home work to be getting on with (ahh little sister still being at school) we decided to leave and thus not see the two members of the view nor the Magic Numbers who I am sure both put on a stirling performance. So we trecked off back to the tube station and made our way home.

A very enjoyable performance despite my less than gig-like apparel. I shall be seeing them again with less baggage.

And that is that for my Pan I Am blog, it was a little bit of a kop-out as I just adapted my 'last.fm' review into a more blog-worthy state. anyone who hasn't yet, join last.fm it is amazing. anyway ta-rah for now

END

This may not have been one of the fashionable summer festivals but for people like me, who like a non-stop selection of indie that hasn't quite made it into the mainstream, it was immense.

Day 1
The first act that I really stopped and watched properly was Blood Red Shoes after I had heard that they were good and although not bad they sounded a bit too much like The Subways for me.
Next it was Pull Tiger Tail who again were decent but nothing particularly special.
Then off to 2nd stage to see the Foals.. these were pretty dissapointing I thought (this review is beginning to sound like i didnt enjoy it but it gets better now)
On the main stage next was Kate Nash, an artist who I had wanted to see for a while and she put in a stirling performance. The only downfall to her set was the timing, I unfortunately had to miss out on seeing most of Lethal Bizzle but luckily I did manage to catch 2 or 3 of his songs on second stage, including the amazing Pow! and a cover of House of Pain's Jump Around
I stayed in the second stage for one of the main reasons i went to the festival, The Holloways who once again were amazing, every time I see them the number of people who really seem to enjoy them rises, especially when generator comes on. Having seen them 6 times now I am still wanting more, another clash of timing though happened during this, I had to miss out on The Pipettes who I had really wanted to see but I just had to see the Holloways
Next on second stage were the New Young Pony Club, who i managed to bag a photo with earlier in the day, playing a solid set which included most if not all the tracks from their album Fantastic Playroom, it is quite amazing the energetic dancing of the lead singer Ty, she is quite awesome.
And finally on day 1 was Supergrass who I watched from a way back as I dont know much of their new stuff but nevertheless I enjoyed their performance.

Day 2
Ox.Eagle.Lion.Man were the first band I saw on day 2 and although not really knowing much about them I did like the band that two of the members were in before hand Les Incompetence. And they didnt dissapoint with their very charismatic front man and good selection of songs including a cover of a song by the farm.
Then quickly yo the Main stage to see Hot Club De Paris who although were quite enjoyable, not knowing many of the songs I didnt find particularly inspiring.
After on the main stage were the Noisettes who despite me not knowing much about were very impressive and I will deffinitely be checking out more from them.
This succesion of artists was my longest stay in one part of the fields for the entire festival, Milburn were the next band on the main stage and despite technical difficulties and in my opinion too many songs off the as of yet unreleased new album and not enough of the old songs that made them one of my top bands of last year, they still provided a very good performance.
The Maccabees followed and gave a very good performance and although I think they are a good band, their single Precious Time for me is the only song that really stands out, I left their set 5 minutes early to rush over to the second stage.
This was because Kid Harpoon was playing, my third time seeing him but the first with his backing band, The Powers that be and they deffinitely gave the performance a very different feel, not better nor worse but different, this performance was one of my highlights of teh festival having never heard the great songs such as milkmaid and late for the devil with a backing group.
I headed back over to the main stage to catch The Rakes who were unsurprisingly very good, with the strange dancing and banter of lead man alan donohoe just adding to the experience
And finally Patrick Wolf coming on late dressed in the weirdest concoction of clothing and make-up Ive seen for a while was excellent, in fact much better than I was expecting, I have always just thought of him as a pretencious, cocky man with some talent and he is pretencious and cocky and VERY talented but also does put on a great show and clearly enjoys himself whilst doing so and through his performance gained me as a fan.

All in all a very good festival, at least 9 if not 10 out of 10, my personal highlights being The Holloways, Kid Harpoon and Patrick Wolf