Posts Tagged ‘ birmingham uk ’

Igbeth – these are a few of our favourite things

Promise we’ll shut up about Gigbeth soon, but this post is all about the positive – inspired by Misty’s’ Sound of Music-esque number, here are some of our favourtie things about the festival: The man with the unwarranted acieed smiley mask behind Deluka. Beestung Lips – are they even better without a singer? Bass-players where all the dancing is with the bottom. The effort that went into Project X. Especially the Boosh-y touches. Being just drunk enough to pose with the Custard Factory’s penguin bins. Free glowsticks – at least Jules thought they were free, so if she pinched them – sorry. Worrying how Fiori were going to drive their white Vauxhaul Astra estate home in their cowboy boots – I’m sure the driver must of changed into some carpet slippers. Waving to the people watching Thursday’s gig from the windows of South Birmingham College. The sheer good vibes.

Igbeth – raise nd ome onstructive iticism

We, and almost everyone else we saw or spoke to, really enjoyed themselves, and by all accounts the conference worked really well. Thursday was brilliant, although it probably didn’t happen in the way it was intended, we enjoyed seeing bands that we wouldn’t normally have bothered with, we stopped out late three nights in a row. We really hope there’s a Gigbeth 2008, and humbly offer some constructive criticism in order to make that an even better experience – this from the experience of normal paying punters… Some of the venues are just too far apart, the Sunflower Lounge, and the Nightingale being a case in point. We made an effort to go to the Sunflower first on Friday, but I doubt many people went the other way at any point. Some of the events (Heducation, Project X, Capsule even!) seemed just tacked on to make the festival larger and more ‘diverse’. They aren’t there for the festival crowd, worked separately and had totally different atmospheres. One event didn’t promote the others – when the last acts at the Sanctuary finished absurdly early why was there no announcement about what other bands you could just walk a few hundred...

Here’s what we saw and did at Gigbeth on Saturday. Here’s just a review of the gigs, we’ll collect a more overall review for tomorrow probably. Starting to struggle after two solid days, and wanting to see some of the late stuff, we skipped a planned visit to the world of Mr Derry (4pm, what bands play at 4pm?)- and headed straight to catch Shady Bard at the Sanctuary at 8pm. We got there, paid £3.60(!) for a can of Red Stripe, to find Misty’s Big Adventure on stage – who weren’t meant to be on until 8.50. They weren’t really their exuberant selves, possibly knackered with all the work around the new album, but had drawn by far the biggest crowd we’d yet seen. They revealed hitherto unnoticed (at least to me) shades of Belle and Sebastian, and “The Wising Up song” is sounding extremely like “I Have Confidence in Confidence” from The Sound of Music. Grandmaster Gareth would make a fine Maria next time you are making a reality TV show. They are summed up thus: With the gig finishing early we decided to catch a touch of Aimee Strange who were in the Dragon Bar, they...

Tough on crime, especially today

Did you know today was United Streets of Birmingham Day? I didn’t (kthx for the tip). It’s a Police initiative to “provide a focus for all community safety activity across the City with a particular focus on burglary, robbery and vehicle crime” and the day includes… high visibility patrols by police and local authority / environmental / youth wardens; speed enforcement checks; robbery vehicle patrols; anti-social behaviour responder vehicle in action; licensing enforcement operations (alcohol and fireworks); arrest days (warrants); lockdowns at transport hubs; active use of stop-and-search powers; Which is nice, although you might hope that “as many staff as possible take part in local activity” on the other 364 days of the year too. There are some sensible tips about safety and crime prevention on the website. All in all I’m not quite sure what they’re getting at with this, but I’m glad they’re doing something all the same.

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Posts Tagged ‘ birmingham uk ’

Igbeth – these are a few of our favourite things

Igbeth – raise nd ome onstructive iticism

Igbeth Aturday – The Social Graphs

Tough on crime, especially today

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