Last night I headed down to the Ouseburn Valley in Byker to take in some of the goings on lined up by the Ouseburn Festival. The festival is an annual weekend event which, this year, had been extended to include the week of the Tall Ships Race. I was hoping to catch a gig being played at one of the outdoor stages that had been set up on local playing fields.
The band in question were Space Ritual who are made up of ex-members of Hawkwind who play a ‘best of’ selection of the ’Winds seventies classics. My second ever gig was at Newcastle City Hall to see Hawkwind in 1979 and I must have seen them over a dozen times in total, although not once in the last ten years. My memories of being a 15 year old school kid walking into the City Hall that night will stay with me for ever. I don’t think I have ever seen as many stoned people in one place in my life, there was no need for dry ice as the auditorium was filled by a herbal, smoky haze.
Back in Byker there may have been around 100 souls scattered around the playing field as Space Ritual came to the stage and tried to get a bit of an atmosphere going. To be honest the poor buggers looked like the 50-60 year olds they were but close your eyes and it could almost have been 1979 again. Almost. They played in typical Hawkwind fashion i.e. they were all over the place but it sounded like I remember from all those years ago and certainly sounded better than the real Hawkwind did last time I caught them. The audience got into it/drunker/more stoned as time went on and the exotic dancer/performance artist Miss Angel, whilst not matching Stacia, kept many entertained. Unfortunately I was neither drunk nor stoned and decided that I would have to rectify this so left just as Brainstorm was cranking up.
I was with my friend and fellow real ale lover Billy and we decided to head down to the Free Trade Inn further down the valley. Not only do they serve great beer but it has the best beer garden in Newcastle and would be the ideal location to catch the fireworks planned for later in the evening. However several hundred other people had had the same idea and the queue for a drink stretched out of the door and up the bank. So on to plan B and back up the bank to the Cumberland Arms where the queue was of much more manageable proportions and the beer garden only slightly less impressive. A further drink in the Cluny followed from where I decided to meet with Gill who had planned to watch the fireworks from her office on the quayside and Billy headed back to the Free Trade to meet up with his girlfriend Steph and her family.
The fireworks were a bit of a disappointment in that there were not enough of them, you can never have too many fireworks, and the organisers had tried to choreograph them together with music and other visuals. Whilst some of the visuals looked quite impressive (acrobats on the side of the Baltic) the music sounded like it was being played through a £5 cassette player after the tape had been given to a 2 year old to play with. Still it gave me a chance to play around with a couple of the settings on my new digital camera as evidenced below.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
The band in question were Space Ritual who are made up of ex-members of Hawkwind who play a ‘best of’ selection of the ’Winds seventies classics. My second ever gig was at Newcastle City Hall to see Hawkwind in 1979 and I must have seen them over a dozen times in total, although not once in the last ten years. My memories of being a 15 year old school kid walking into the City Hall that night will stay with me for ever. I don’t think I have ever seen as many stoned people in one place in my life, there was no need for dry ice as the auditorium was filled by a herbal, smoky haze.
Back in Byker there may have been around 100 souls scattered around the playing field as Space Ritual came to the stage and tried to get a bit of an atmosphere going. To be honest the poor buggers looked like the 50-60 year olds they were but close your eyes and it could almost have been 1979 again. Almost. They played in typical Hawkwind fashion i.e. they were all over the place but it sounded like I remember from all those years ago and certainly sounded better than the real Hawkwind did last time I caught them. The audience got into it/drunker/more stoned as time went on and the exotic dancer/performance artist Miss Angel, whilst not matching Stacia, kept many entertained. Unfortunately I was neither drunk nor stoned and decided that I would have to rectify this so left just as Brainstorm was cranking up.
I was with my friend and fellow real ale lover Billy and we decided to head down to the Free Trade Inn further down the valley. Not only do they serve great beer but it has the best beer garden in Newcastle and would be the ideal location to catch the fireworks planned for later in the evening. However several hundred other people had had the same idea and the queue for a drink stretched out of the door and up the bank. So on to plan B and back up the bank to the Cumberland Arms where the queue was of much more manageable proportions and the beer garden only slightly less impressive. A further drink in the Cluny followed from where I decided to meet with Gill who had planned to watch the fireworks from her office on the quayside and Billy headed back to the Free Trade to meet up with his girlfriend Steph and her family.
The fireworks were a bit of a disappointment in that there were not enough of them, you can never have too many fireworks, and the organisers had tried to choreograph them together with music and other visuals. Whilst some of the visuals looked quite impressive (acrobats on the side of the Baltic) the music sounded like it was being played through a £5 cassette player after the tape had been given to a 2 year old to play with. Still it gave me a chance to play around with a couple of the settings on my new digital camera as evidenced below.
Eeeeeeeeeeeeeee!
Oooooooooooooo!
Aaaaaaaaaaaaah!
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