Posts Tagged ‘ gigbeth ’

Gigbeth announced – Things can only get better

As far as I know only rap granddaddies The Sugarhill Gang are confirmed for Gigbeth 2008, but the facebook group brings rumours of… Argh! Maybe Peter Cunnah will be able to tell us what they’ve been up to, and how he’s stopped doing their big hit (please) as it’s tainted with Tony Blair. Gigbeth 2008 is going on on the Friday 7th and Saturday 8th November throughout Digbeth — 10 venues across the weekend and a outdoor stage at Millennium Point. Tickets are priced at £15 for Friday, £18 for Saturday, or £25 for the entire weekend, available now from (0121) 202 5000, but we’re betting more widespread soon. Last year was brill, we really enjoyed it. Hope to do a myspace marathon with the line-up soon.

Gigbeth returns

6th – 8th November 2008. According to their myspace.

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...

Here’s what we saw on Friday as part of Gigbeth. First we went over to the Sunflower Lounge intending to see Apache Beat – as they were the only band that we reckoned wouldn’t be back soon (they’re American, most of the other acts were local), the programme said the night started at eight and they were on second, but when we got there at about quarter-to-nine there was precious little evidence of any gig whatsoever. We hung around with the junior mods for a bit, admiring a nice collection of Adidas Stan Smith and fringes, but then cut our losses and shlepped over to actual Digbeth. On the way down Hurst St we saw a bagpipe player with nice brogues and a traditionally cavalier attitude to the falling temperatures, it was brass monkey weather and I’m sure I saw something fall. So the first actual band we got to see shook their dusty Converse with a SKA twist, they played bits of Pigbag to an empty Dragon Bar, there were a lot of people on a tiny stage not much footroom – but they rocked quite well. EDIT – Cueball 8, they’re called. “Nuneton’s second best band” announced...

Here’s a quick review of what we saw and did on Thursday at Gigbeth - just the shows really, as we haven’t chance to make the conference aspect (David Nikel has a post about that). I’ll try to leave out any conclusions about the event as a whole too, at least until we’ve been to all three days. On a personal note it was both nice to bump into Pete, and Christopher for the first times (as well Nick too) – if that speaker had come down there might be no blogging on Brum today. The bands had spent “a weird day with people we didn’t know” hanging out together jamming yesterday – I’ve never really heard of that at a festival before – it was a shame that the sound guys hadn’t had a similar bonding session, because technical difficulties didn’t really cover what was going on. Nizlopi played without amplification for at least part of their set – while Achanak set up behind them, the tabla player making frantic signals to the gazebo’d sound desk. At Live Aid, Harvey Goldsmith came up with the idea of a rotating stage to make quick turn arounds possible – at...

Igbeth preview, through the sieve of the interweb

Without doubt the bestest thing about Gigbeth* is that it makes you consider going to see artists that you wouldn’t have thought of unless you’d just paid your money for ticket. Frugalism in the gig-going public is what leads them to “get their money’s worth” by not being turned off by that first hoary old whiff of jazz, or the appearance of a some kind of accompanying theatre. *What isn’t the bestest thing is the fact that the logo (while a clever twist) makes it very difficult to decide what the whole thing is actually called. I’m plumping for Igbeth. It’s a bit of a shame that the various styles of music are a bit ghetto-ised, in a not-so urban festival you get that mess of pottage thing going on – here you’ll have to make a more conscious effort to swap venues and styles. In order to help you do that in a slightly more informed way, we’ve taken it upon ourselves to knock through the artist list and have a listen to see what we think. Then we’ve written very quickly. The writing is based purely on cursory listens to the first thing on each link. Beware...

Radio To Go Gigbeth Special

Are you getting excited about Gigbeth? This episode of the Radio To Go podcast should wet your acme whistle. Better to let them explain: Clare Edwards, and killer music from artists appearing at the festival – the Priory, the amazing Vijay Kishore, Deluka, Johnny Foreigner, not forgetting Project X presents collaborators Einstellung, and an amazing live track, light years aways from whimsical songs about earth moving equipment, from Nizlopi. If that doesn’t get you up for November’s festivities, nothing will… Six weeks to go….RadioToGo ‘casts are at feedburner and iTunes. Radio To Go Gigbeth Special

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Posts Tagged ‘ gigbeth ’

Gigbeth announced – Things can only get better

Gigbeth returns

Igbeth – raise nd ome onstructive iticism

Igbeth Aturday – The Social Graphs

Igbeth Riday – best foot forward

Igbeth Hursday – supergrouptastic

Igbeth preview, through the sieve of the interweb

Radio To Go Gigbeth Special

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