12.06.04

Sticklebrick Festival

Durdham Hall, Stoke Bishop

Stage 1: Berg Sans Nipple, Cyan & Ben, Gravenhurst, Don't Look Back, North Sea Navigator. Stage 2: Crescent, Drowsy, Mole Harness, Team Brick, The Shadow Project, Zebra Crossing, Glue

The annual music festival has been a regular event at Durdham (a Bristol university hall of residence) for many years, but in 2004 organiser Declan Fleming somehow managed to wangle both the booking freedom and the cash to pull in a stunning line up, and completely reinvented Durdhambury as the Sticklebrick festival. The bill across the outside and inside stages was a mixture of artists from abroad (Finnish Fatcat signee Drowsy, French bands Cyan & Ben and Don't Look Back, the awesome French/ US axis of Berg Sans Nipple) and local talent such as Gravenhurst, Team Brick and North Sea Navigator. The day was a great success, and the highlight for me was the bizarre spectacle of seeing Crescent emanating their usual levels of sparse intensity into the environs of a university bar, with the brass section wandering around the pillars of the room while honking to the climax of 'Fountains'. I managed to move my slot to earlier in the day so I could catch Gravenhurst on the other stage, and the mid-afternoon set went down well. I was using a new volume pedal on the guitar, which was something I'd wanted for ages, and now started to rely on making ambient, synth-like washes more than on playing 'ordinary' guitar.

Set list: Roman roads, Daydream/ Moths, All Your Memories Return At Once

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