surprise guest set on the second stage at belle & sebastian's 'bowlie weekender'
during '24 hours' stuart read the lyrics from "touching from a distance", the biography of ian curtis, written by ian's wife.
may be of some interest to know that the 'gwai were the mystery guests
this weekend at the bowlie weekender festival in camber sands... and
of course they were fantastic.
we managed to see stuart in the queue on the first day drinking cheap
white wine with his girlfriend. his hair has grown back a bit now, and
it's approx the length of renton in trainspotting now (ie. ewan
macgregor then). i saw dominic in the bar and was *really* happy that
he recognised me from the time i met him and john in new york. he
seems really happy - the band are doing absolutely nothing at the
moment, and they've been just lounging around and drinking back home
recently (except for the ice hockey game thing).
they played on the saturday at around 8pm as mystery guests. the hall
they played in held around 750 and was completely packed out. stuart
sang on 'cody', which is the first time i've heard that live. they
opened with 'kappa' and kept the set pretty short - around 6 songs - but
went down really really well. one of the songs involved stuart reading
poetry from a book which i 'think' was about or from ian curtis of joy
division fame...
on a kinda funny note, on the friday dominic had a full beard and
sideburns. he got really wasted on the friday night and somehow shaved
his beard off on that night, leaving only the sideburns and few other
bits but looking very strange! by the time sunday came around he
shaved all of it off, so now dominic looks exactly like he used to
pre-cody except for a cowboy hat which he wore constantly saturday.
in case anyone was wondering about the rest of the festival, it was
amazing. highlights were definitely mogwai, belle & sebastian,
sleater-kinney, cinema and the delgados. godspeed you black emperor
also played and from what i heard went down really well, but i was too
transfixed by the belle's.
thats about all i can remember on the 'gwai front. i asked dominic if
they had any possible singles up their sleeves but he seemed pretty
sure they wouldn't be any releases in the near future.
they were introduced by a guy who called them 'the best unsigned
band in britain'. anyone know anything about this, or was it just a
large slip up???