Not a naked lady in sight...

It was the Godiva Festival in Coventry this weekend, and though I was working at the Organic Food and Wine Festival at work (and meeting some lovely people) I did get down to Memorial Park both evenings and saw two of the headline acts. This is my first attempt at music reviewing, you may prefer that it is my last!

Saturday night - Mercury Rev

It's a while since I've been to a gig, even longer since I've been to a festival. The idea with the Godiva seems to be something for everybody, and it probably just about does that. Wandering in at about 8pm were punks with their hair in proper big spikes, guys in baggie trousers, goths of all ages, skater boys (or is that skata boyz?), various hippieish people... (Or is that hippyish people?) Going in the opposite direction were lots of very sunburnt people with rather grizzly children. By catering for so many people, the festival inevitably ends up lacking any real character. Perhaps that is its character. Actually, the really big distinguishing factor for me was the amount of litter. Drifts of perfectly good recyclable beer cans and bottles mixed up with chip wrappers and burger-boxes.

'Deserter's Songs' is one of my favourite cds, but I never saw Mercury Rev in their heyday, which I realised looking at the date on my cd was 1998, so I was curious to find out what else they did/had been doing. Well, not that much apparently, as the set included virtually all the songs on the cd. The lead singer has a rather irritatingly camp way of posturing, but this got less annoying as they got into the set and as the music got heavier, and better. There were a lot of apparently diehard fans (Revvers?) who whooped and sang along, and a small group of crusties who danced very enthusiastically like they used to at Leveller's gigs.

Although seeing Mercury Rev has taken a bit of a shine off them, actually I really quite enjoyed it, mainly trying to take arty photos with my newish digital camera, which all turned out to be totally hopeless once I got a proper look at them. I quite like this though, even though it's all blurry. Gigs are fairly blurry occasions anyway.



For some really good gig photos, and some proper reviews, look at http://peteashton.com/. In fact for a really good blog anyway.

Coventry folk are very friendly - at the gig a very happy-looking man tried to give me a hug, and another wanted me to take his photo as he posed like Popeye. Then I ended up walking three miles home (no change for the bus, how divvy is that?) and one very wobbly man wanted to tell me all about his 'missus' and how he loved her and how he was getting married in 7 weeks and he was shitting himself about it, and he'd 'see me right through all the underpasses, bab' until he bumped into some mates and I just carried on. A mile or so later a young guy shouted across the street what was I doing, and when I said 'going home like everybody else' he suggested cheerfully that I came home with him. But I didn't feel like taking him up on the offer!