Summer’s End 2009 Day One
I have to confess that I did not know what to expect from Summer’s End. I am fairly new to the whole prog scene, you see. As a child of the 70s I missed out on the first wave of progressive bands like King Crimson, Yes and Genesis. It was only a couple of years ago when a colleague, who happened to play in a prog band, peeked my interest in exploring this genre of music. His band, Tinyfish, was due to play at Summer’s End 2007, and he played me a couple of tracks of their Summer’s End promotional cd. Since then I have been hooked. Thanks Rob.
Last year I was unable to go due to work commitments and it seemed like the same was the case this year. It was only a week before this year festival I suddenly realised that I was in fact not on call and could attend after all. A quick check on the festival website confirmed that there was tickets left so in two shakes of my prog cape I was set to go.
It seemed like the whole world was descending on Lydney this weekend if the availability of hotel rooms was anything to go by. After calling a dozen local hotels I realised I had to go further afield to find a base for the weekend and I finally found a room in Glouchester, around 22 miles away from the venue. My boss had generously given me the Friday off so just before lunch I got in my car and headed down the M4 to a weekend of prog. After a quick stop at the hotel to drop of my bags and refresh, I arrived at the venue around 6 pm. At first I was not sure I was in the right place as it was deserted. However as soon as I walked into the pub next door, I was reassured by the prog t-shirts worn by the patrons. Shortly thereafter I was joined by Uncle Bulgaria and Mme Cholet from the Fishtank and we shared a meal while we were watching pop videos from the 80s on the pub television. Next year I will bring them a collection of prog dvds.
To be honest when I read the line-up for Friday night and saw that Steve Hacket was headlining, my first thought was Steve who? By the time I encountered Genesis they were singing about their mama and Hacket was long gone … anyway I was not at all familiar with the man or his music, not that I was familiar with any of the music I heard during Summer’s end … I told you I was new to this prog malarky. I do not know if it was this unfamiliarity or me being upset that I could not use my DSLR camera, at the request of Hacket’s management, that left me unimpressed with his performance. I know I am in minority here as loads of the people who I spoke with during the weekend kept telling me how great Hacket was. I will give you this however, he knows how to play the guitar and there was entertainment value to be had in watching a grown man with pigtails wearing a leather skirt and playing bass guitar.