>>Nostalgia For Infinity

It’s the arse-end of May again and that means it’s time for another Nice Weather For Airstrikes Festival, once again here in Brighton, once again at the Druid’s Arms by the Level, and once again playing host to a throng of post-rock, math and shoegaze bands from around the UK. Supposedly the good weather here will hold for the next few weeks, which is good news because it gets goddamn hot in that pub and it’s always a relief to step outside between bands. It’s running between Friday 27th and Monday 30th, with events running from the early afternoon on Monday. Did I mention that it’s free?

This year’s line-up features, in no particular order, The Strange Death of Liberal England (will they have room for all those signs?), Monsters Build Mean Robots, Shapes, Evi Vine, The Continuous Battle of Order, Crowns on the Rats Orchestra, Alright the Captain, The Slow Revolt, Juffage, Last Days of Lorca, Nordic Giants, Theo, Kontakte, Orders of the British Empire, Speak Galactic, Crooked Mountain Crooked Sea, Silent Front, These Monsters, Delta Sleep, A Genuine Freakshow, Karhide, Dark Dark Horse, Laish, Sorebones (loeb), Karl-Johan Nilsson, and Lowland Runners.

NWFA are also offering up a bunch of tracks for free download on their FB page, so hit that up if you like free songs. Songs by The Continuous Battle of Order, Orders of the British Empire, Silent Front, Nordic Giants and Last Days of Lorca, for example. Yes?

See you there.

Del.icio.us links for February 20th through February 27th:

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(I reviewed the first day of Offset way back in September, but the other half of the review got delayed for familiar reasons. Here’s a vague round-up of who we saw on the Sunday and, er, who we didn’t. Disclaimer: my festival reviews are always kind of vague and anecdotal. I’m there to have fun, not to review, and alcohol tends to addle my poor memory yet further. Expect no setlists here.)

A lesson is learned: I am probably too old, or have developed too strong a tolerance to intoxication, to drink several crates of extremely cheap dry cider and expect to get up the next morning and run around in the freezing cold after a sleepless night in a tent. Yeah, yeah, I need a waaahmbulance to get me to the party.

I wake up about half an hour before Crocus play but it’s all I can do to inch half out of my tent and breath in some fresh air; anything more might lead to explosive vomiting (or, worse, dry retching). Bleeurgh. Some hours later our campsite is awake and there’s solidarity in suffering. We miss Holy State. We miss Brontosaurus Chorus – an extra shame since I’d previously persuaded everyone that the best way to deal with a hangover was to listen to a man playing twee pop songs on a ukelele. We miss KONG.

Eventually we drag ourselves out to see young screamo noisemakers Maths. » Read the rest of this entry «

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I moved away from Essex eight years ago and as good as swore to never return. Grr! Place of teenage upbringing! Shitty county full of yuppie values I do not share! Source of much angst and rage! Of course I’ve been back there since, albeit for the stag do and later wedding of a close friend, because these sort of geographical vows rarely mesh with pragmatic reality. But my point is that I really don’t like Essex, and it takes a lot to tempt me back there.

Offset festival is based in Hainault Forest Country Park, or at least a big field in the middle of it, and is not far outside of Romford and accessible by tube. I could convince myself that this means it’s actually Greater London, a totally distinct area from Essex, but I would be as full of shit as those impassioned vows I made. Yes, Offset is in Essex, a fact underscored by the repeated chav invasions. On the Sunday night a gang of about twenty local tracksuited youths took over the security tower, after failing to topple it, and the security company went home. Fan-fuckin’-tastic!

The lineup, though, looked awesome, and at £55 for a weekend ticket it was a snip. Five stages over two days was surely an antidote to boredom, and there was enough variety between those stages and their acts that most attendees wouldn’t have to bemoan too many clashes. So far so good. » Read the rest of this entry «