Whitby Gothic Weekend April 2011
Well I haven’t blogged about Whitby for a long time so thought it was about time I did. These days I only go for the main 2 days, there has been a lot of problems with WGW not least due to people trying to put obstacles in the way of the official event, well the chickens came home to roost and the rivals proved they couldn’t organise a piss up in a pavilion, I pity anyone that’s made plans to go this weekend coming as a fear it will be rather empty.
Anyhow, as you may know I have been actually staying in Scarborough as its radically cheaper, like its 30 quid a night for a BnB where as your lucky to find anything on Whitby for less that 65 quid a night.
I got there Friday afternoon still on a buzz after seeing Roger Daltry and his band perform Tommy at the Albert Hall with special guest Pete Townshend. After checking in I popped down to the spa, this is where I noticed that there was far less of the usual Mr Ben Goths about, and I quickly realised there were quite a few faces there I had not seen for ages. I got my kit set up then it was time for the evening to start. Its also worth noting this is the first ever Whitby where every band had a drummer and most of the bands were 100% live with no sequenced backing.
Dutch Order This is a new band to me, and they played a very impressive set of Joy Division inspired melodic Post Punk, This genre is very popular these days, and this lot are right on the money looking forward to seeing them again.
Black Moth I’m a bit puzzled about this lot, they are playing on the Goth scene yet there an out and out Metal band, all well played and tight, but really the wrong sort of band for WGW IMO.
Dr Arthur Krause
This is my first pleasure of the evening, this is a Swedish old school gothic rock band, and are signed to M&A so it was really good to see Andreas there whom I haven’t seen for years, he was always a great friend to ALF in the old days. Anyhow Krause played an extended set as it was there 10th anniversary show, its great to see bands like this on the WGW stage, as I haven’t seen anyone like this for years, good stuff. Fuzzbox Another wildcard, in 1986 I saw them on whistle test doing Spirit in the sky in an arty / punk way, so I was kind of expecting this as what the band would be, what we got was hummm, well it was bubblegum pop, and they even did a cover of Ms pop muzik, they went down very well and they still did spirit well.
Red Lorry Yellow Lorry
Were pretty much the same as last time except that they also had Wolfie on guitar, a Classic guitar driven gothic rock band that didn’t disappoint. So after the bands did a bit of mingling, was very happy to have a few people come up to me and say the liked the new music that I was doing with both bands, this was really lovely as its something that seldom happened before! Met up with Lilly from Static magazine and a few old friend such as Plant, William Faith and Scary Lady Sarah. It was the people I didn’t know, you know the faces you see but you don’t know them, many were there this time that had not been there for some time. This ‘Split’ with Whitby where the rivals took on a separate weekend, has meant that the true spirit of the Whitby Gothic Weekend has returned, no poseurs just there to get there photos taken, it was a Gothic music festival for gothic music fans, and it worked just like it did in the 90s. A quick word about the DJs, Dj wolfman, Cyber Andy and SLS all played a great set of tunes, no EBM or bleep just proper Goth with the odd bit of 80s and post punk just what you want. On to Saturday Popped in and had a look at the stalls, and caught up with Gary and a few others there was a nice vibe, again didn’t see to many people with cameras getting in the way though I did see one pair that looked like the Paparazzi’s out of Come Fly with me. Oh I also listened to the world according to Maisey as well haha! Band wise, it was another great selection.
Pink Hearse
This was an all girl punk / gothabilly band from Blackpool, they had some catchy tunes and reminded me of a Canadian band I know called Machetes, they did a good set.
Luxury Stranger
Ok I gigged with this lot twice last year, and I got to say I wasn’t sure what all the fuss was about, they were ok but nothing special to me so I thought id just be seeing the same. Not so this time, they have a new line up, now Chris Banshee I have always rated as a very good all round musician, and Neil is a very good drummer, added to what Simon does, we have one hot band, there is great interplay between the three of them, some really well crafted songs and a great performance. For me Luxury Stranger were the band of the weekend for me, and it goes to show that you have to see a band 2 or 3 times to really gauge them.
The Beauty Of Gemina
Well it doesn’t seam that long ago that they played before, I thought they were ok last time, this time they were a lot better, I think they had more faster songs too, again this style of Goth, that you had by the bucket load in the 90s you seldom see live these days, and thankfully Whitby had them, I wasn’t sure if l liked the couple of more ‘Dancy’ tracks, but the rest of the set was very good.
Frankenstein
American Gothabilly, again I have seen them before, and quite frankly I didn’t like them, this time, I dunno it grew on me more, they were good entertainers, very lively, well played and tight the finale William Faith and Pink Hearse joined them for a cover of I wanna be your Dog.
The Damned
Well the headliner have never delivered anything other than a spot on set, I had heard they were going to do Phantasmagoria in full, but they didn’t, they also didn’t do Grimly Fiendish or Eloise still cant have everything. Its like its come full circle, Whitby arrived when Goth gigs were few and far between and there were few places to meet people into Goth and Goth bands, and almost 20 year after the even we are at the same point in time, there are very few Goth gigs these days, and the internet is all very well but it’s a very special thing to get a large gathering of these likeminded people together, and through more hassle that I could imagine Whitby Jo has come up trumps this time and its been one of the best Whitbys ever for this reason. After hung out with the Rhombus lot and had some of Robs birthday cake, very nice it was too. I have put online a webcast of a track from every band, I’m very proud of this and I did it because I was so inspired on how great the weekend was. http://www.livestream.com/dangernoisetv its on the loop at the moment.
Comments