My First Gig and More
Hey everyone.
Well, it’s been a very busy month. I played my first gig with my new band, The Hedrons,’ went to see Oasis, and went to Scotland’s largest music festival, “T in the Park.”
Oasis played at Hampden Park in Glasgow to an audience of 50,000. I used to be a big fan when they first broke on the scene, but many albums down the line; I still don’t think they’ve released anything as good as their first album, “Definitely Maybe.” I think I went along to the gig for nostalgic reasons more than anything else. They delivered what the fans wanted, but I found them to be a little flat. Oasis’s audiences are notoriously rowdy, and it was no different tonight. I don’t think there was one sober person in the arena, apart from me of course … heheheh. I think seeing them perform in such a huge venue, they could have put more of a show on. I think there is definitely a difference between a stadium band and an exhibition hall band. You could say it’s like The Who being the stadium band and Oasis being the exhibition hall band. Maybe the gig would have been more exciting in a smaller venue.
I played my first gig with my new band The Hedrons, and it was wild! We hadn’t advertised the gig, as we wanted to just go out and play and see how it went. When we took to the stage, everyone turned round in disbelief … four girls … I could hear them all whisper. By the time we got to our second song, the place was packed. We performed upstairs at Glasgow’s Barfly; people who were at a gig in the downstairs venue even came up to watch! It was a great first gig; it even got reviewed in one of the Scottish national newspapers. So onwards and upwards for The Hedrons.
T in the Park is Scotland’s largest outdoor music festival. 60,000 music fans descend upon the festival site in Balado, Kinross, for two days. This year’s festival acts included Green Day, Foo Fighters, Queens of the Stone Age, Travis, Joss Rouse, Joss Stone, Suzanne Vega and Cosmic Rough Riders to name but a few. The festival has seven stages and total. The weather was absolutely fabulous this year, the sun stayed out for the whole weekend (usually being Scotland … it rains!).
The festival opened in the traditional T in the Park manner … a Scottish piper took to the main stage and officially piped the festival open. ‘Alabama 3,’ the first act on the main stage, opened with the suitably titled song ‘Hello.’ I only own one album by this band, and had never seen them play live before, and I must say, they really surprised me. I thought they were a great band to start the festival, the lead singer had a black suit on and a white cowboy hat. He looked great. The whole band had so much energy, you would have thought they were performing to thousands and not just the few hundred keen music fans that had managed to get through the festival gates first.
Next up were The Ronelles, who played on the T Break stage. This stage is for up-and-coming local bands, and I have discovered many gems in this tent in the past. The Ronelles are now one of them. They are a very energetic rock ‘n’ roll band from Glasgow. Rock ‘n’ Roll in the sense of – pre Beatles, post Oasis. The gig was over before I knew it, they kept the attention of the audience perfectly, which was quite amazing, considering that not many people in the packed out tent knew who they were or knew any of their songs. They were fantastic and the audience loved them. The tent was so warm inside, but the audience were so into it, they suffered the heat to stay and watch.
Next I went to the X-tent to see Cosmic Rough Riders, Glasgow’s very own west coast band. The X-tent is double the size of the T Break stage, and it was packed out for Cosmic Rough Riders. They have been away recording their new album and touring the US, so to come back and play to a packed home audience, must have been fantastic for them! I would usually play a Cosmic Rough Riders album on a really sunny day, their west coast sound just adds to the sunshine, so for them to perform at T in the Park on one of the warmest days of the year, was magical. The audience were singing along and cheering to all the favourites, and the new songs went down great too.
After seeing Cosmic Rough Riders, my friend and I headed back to the bar. On our way there, we noticed a tent filled with people who wearing headphones and dancing!!! We decided to get closer to investigate. The sign above the entrance said ‘Silent Disco’. How funny!!!!! We just had to try it out. We got our headphones on and joined the party. I have not laughed so much in ages. There were two DJ’s playing records and you could change which one you were listening to by moving the tuning dial on your headphones. This is the type of party I should hold in my house, maybe then the neighbours would stop complaining about the noise!!!
I then went to see Josh Rouse … one of my favourite singer / songwriters. He was fantastic! The tent wasn’t really very busy, I guess it’s because he is not that well known in the UK yet. For the 300 people that were there, almost every one of them was singing along.
So decision time came … would I go and see the Foo Fighters headlining the main stage or would I go and see James Brown in the King Tuts tent? It was a tough call, but I thought seeing as I’d seen the Foo’s before, I’d go and see James Brown. This turned out to be the wrong decision. He was supposed to be onstage at 9.20 pm, but he didn’t appeared until 10.05 pm. The audience in the tent, all 8,000 of them started booing and all the policemen and security men were looking very nervous. The atmosphere in the tent was very edgy. I stayed for 20 minutes of his set, then headed to the main stage to see the end of the Foo’s set. They were absolutely awesome!!!!!! It was a great end to a fantastic day.
On day two of the festival, the only band I managed to see were Queens of the Stone Age, and they were tremendous! They performed on the main stage and had the audience singing along to every song. The sun was shinning, the beer was cold and the atmosphere was euphoric.
I did have a disposable camera, but managed to lose it somewhere in one of the tents, never mind!
I think I need a wee holiday now after all the madness of the past few weeks … heheheheh
Until next time….
Cheers
Tippi
PS I’m online at tippionline.com and measuredrecords.com plus ITUNES, Amazon and lots of other places!
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