Steve Harley Make Me Smile

5000 soak up atmosphere at Cumbria's CockRock music festival

The three-day festival saw 5,000 music lovers and party animals take over several fields at Wellington Farm, near Cockermouth, to become a new temporary town of the weird and the wonderful.

Music is its main focus and the headliners chosen couldn’t have been more different.

Friday night was dedicated to the heavy and angst-ridden rhetoric of Funeral For a Friend and Gallows.

These poster boys of new rock demonstrated that misery loves company – and apparently likes a good dance as well.

Saturday was much more easy going with Goldie Lookin’ Chain and The Bluetones. Both can be described as indie/alternative, but are as far apart from each other as rock and roll and dance.

The Chain didn’t even steal the show – they stole the entire weekend.

They bounded onto stage in dayglo tracksuits and belted out tracks that while witty and sometimes laugh-out loud funny, shouldn’t really appeal to a huge cross section of people because of their “adult” nature.

However, they defy all expectations as tots to OAPS were singing along and dancing to tracks, including, of course, Guns Don’t Kill People, Rappers Do.

I have never seen a crowd as big at Cockrock and probably won’t again, unless the Chain reappear.

After whipping the crowd into a frenzy, they were suitably calmed by The Bluetones with their slice of good, honest guitar indie.

Sunday is always chill-out day at CockRock and it was wrapped up by Steve Harley and The Cockney Rebel. Still going after all these years and consummate professionals, they drew a huge audience and raced through song after song – leaving their biggest hit Make Me Smile (Come Up And See Me) until the encore.

As well as the headliners, there were hundreds of local bands performing all over site including Five And Dangerous, Hunderneath, Katfish, Tropical Fruit Disaster, AWOL and Colt 45.

Bizarre moments included prize bingo at Tent 42, with prizes hand picked at a car boot festival the week before, and a rock choir performing marvellously in the dance tent yesterday afternoon to the delight of a rather large audience.

And that’s the beauty of CockRock. Organisers create a wonderful environment for festival-goers to enjoy the bands and Tent 42 is an oasis of sublime oddity in the centre of it all.

Anything is possible there, from one-man bands to bingo to Red Hot Chili Peppers tributes to thrash metal. You never know what you’re going to get.

THE WEDDING PRESENT NEWS : AUGUST 2011 « The Northern Line

The Wedding Present will be playing six concerts in England this August, starting with Leicester on the 11th and ending in Holmfirth on the 29th. In between, the band will be playing in Clitheroe, Middlesbrough, London and Brighton.

As regular readers will know, the band’s Brighton and Holmfirth concerts form part of David Gedge’s one-day indoor festivals. Cinerama, David Gedge’s ‘other’ band, will also be appearing at these events.

The band’s London appearance is also for a festival. This one’s called ‘Radfest’ and it takes place in Peckham.

Here, then, is a list of all the Wedding Present dates for August 2011 :

11/08 : Leicester, UK – Lock 42, with The Humdrum Express

12/08 : Clitheroe, UK – Grand, with Silence Rises

13/08 : Middlesbrough, UK – Crypt, with Silence Rises

21/08 : London, UK – Radfest at The Bussey Building, Peckham. The Wedding Present will play for 45 minutes from 10PM.

27/08 : ‘At The Edge Of The Sea’ – the Southern English edition of David Gedge’s annual ‘Mini-Festival’ – Concorde 2, Brighton, Sussex. The Wedding Present will be headlining and Cinerama will be opening. Other bands confirmed to play are Badly Drawn Boy, Summer Camp, Pinky Piglets, Silvermash, Dirty Fingernails, Stars Down To Earth, Precious Few & Urban Shadows and there will be DJ sets from Rocker [Dandelion Radio]. Doors open at 3PM and the concert will end at 10PM.

29/08 : ‘At The Edge Of The Peaks’ – the Northern English edition of David Gedge’s annual ‘Mini-Festival’ – Picturedrome, Holmfirth, Yorkshire. The Wedding Present will be headlining and Cinerama will be opening. Other bands confirmed to play are Darren Hayman & The Secondary Modern, Summer Camp, Pinky Piglets, Silvermash, Dirty Fingernails, Stars Down To Earth, French Soul Party & Precious Few and there will be DJ sets from Pete Jackson [Dandelion Radio]. Doors open at 3PM and the concert will end at 10PM.

Finally… Silvermash [featuring Graeme Ramsay from The Wedding Present], Dirty Fingernails [featuring Charles Layton from The Wedding Present] and Pinky Piglets will all be appearing at Lock 42 in Leicester during the night between their ‘At The Edge Of The Sea’ and ‘At The Edge Of The Peaks’ appearances, along with local favourites Produkty. [Please note that this is not a Wedding Present concert].

HAPPY NEW YEAR TOUR ANNOUNCED David Gedge’s new plan for The Wedding Present to ‘see out’ 2011 with a ‘Happy New Year’ Mini-Tour of Great Britain has become a reality.

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