New Music - Part 19 - Sunrise Festival 2013 - Part 1

No. I haven't vanished; I have just been busy and, in part, that has involved working through the photographs, memories and musings of that which was Sunrise Festival 2013 last weekend.
I didn't think that I had taken photos prolifically. The reality proved to be slightly different - exactly four-hundred of them as it transpired! It is therefore time to dive in - to define what it was that made an impression and why.
I am, indeed still unsure of the subject of this one that I took on Saturday afternoon. Neville Staple, the other photographers, or merely just the fact that I could? I really can't say because I didn't think about it in that way at the time. 

More likely, I didn't really think about it at all and often that is the best way.

It probably hardly needs to be said that much of my time was focussed on the artists and acts less well known, though perhaps that is less obvious at a smaller festival such as Sunrise but I shall start with one that I have seen live and mentioned here before and one of several who stick resolutely to playing their own material.

Frome's Molly Ross - Spit & Sawdust stage - Friday.

This next is of an artist I first heard of, live, on the small Sunrise Stage at Latitude Festival 2009. To see that she was on the roster for Sunrise Festival 2013 was one of the things that made me get a ticket forthwith.

Tallulah Rendall, Main Stage Sunset 2013, Saturday afternoon.

The first time I saw her she was playing with a band - this time she was solo but that bass guitar is a clue. She played several songs from her forthcoming album 'The Banshee and The Moon', which involved live sampling of both guitars and vocals as loops that she then played and sang over. The multi-layered result was very special and the aforementioned album is on my wants-list already. It will be good any-which-way, I'm sure of that, but how about 180gm vinyl...

A band gloriously unpredictable and liable to appear in almost any situation was Calico Jack. They played live several times and also danced with the little kids at others...

Calico Jack live on the Spit and Sawdust stage, late Saturday evening. Here is a taste of that.
  
'Blue Shoes' is a track from the band's début CD Holdfast (2012).

While most pirates and privateers are usually assumed to hunt the oceans far and wide this bunch, although boat-dwelling, are pirates of the inland waterways and have the Kennet & Avon Canal as their home patch.

Free Music Player for Myspace at ReverbNation.com

Those I saw live @ Latitude 2008 (Part 1)

Festivals are not really that demanding when it comes to getting out of bed early in the morning, which is another appealing thing about them, but a little bit of effort can still pay dividends.

Live and exclusive on the Sunset Stage at about 10:40 on Sunday morning.

This was taken during the sound-check when they performed a complete song, not included in the ensuing live set, and for which the audience (excepting festival and band crew) was extremely limited indeed. The set itself was extremely good too and Tallulah Rendall is another artist to watch in 2008-9.

This next is the case of 'Who's That Girl?' (the one that I remember, who was she with her hands wrapped around the world?) and a late addition to the Latitude 2008 line-up.

Beth Rowley performing in the Uncut Arena on Saturday afternoon.

If there was one remarkable thing about this performance it is that, although it was preceded by a couple of minor technical hitches, it seemed as if she wasn't even trying to impress anyone. That it sounded even better live than on the album Little Dreamer was proof perfect. Given only twenty-five minutes on-stage she didn't even perform the single 'So Sublime', but it was.