Eastern Haze Impressions

[Tom Byrne]

Eastern Haze

Hats off to organiser Vinny. I don't know what he does during the day for 
the rest of the year, but I wouldn't be surprised if he were the logistics 
director for a multinational. The sheer vision, energy, diplomacy and 
co-ordination that went into Eastern Haze were clearly monumental. I had a 
brief chat with him on Sunday as he flitted around the site and was 
impressed by his good humour.

The festival site, camping and car parking covered several large fields. 
There were several stages and a multitude of stalls. The stages had been set 
far enough apart so that there was no sound pollution between one and the 
other. The stalls consisted of a variety of food vendors, alternative 
therapy practitioners, the Hare Krishnas (from whom I had a very palatable 
vegetable stew), sculptors, tarot readers, clothiers of various kind, etc. 
etc.

Numbers attending probably disappointed the organisers - at a rough estimate 
I would say maybe 2-3 thousand, but that's just my impression.

We travelled down from Cheshire in two batches - a camper van hired for the 
occasion piloted by me with the wife, sons Matthew and James  (guitarist and 
drummer) and a couple of their friends conscripted as roadies. Singer Tim, 
guitarist Craig and bassist Tilly came down with the gear in a hired van 
that looked as though its last hirer had used it in a stock car rally.

This was the first time I'd driven anything larger than a saloon car - so a 
7 hour journey in a 5 berth camper van through some of the narrowest roads 
in Britain was something of a challenge. I was pretty relieved to finally 
reach the site at 9:15 on Friday evening.

Senser were playing as we wandered around the site - proficiently played and 
those watching seemed to love it, but not my style - but my style isn't that 
of many either! Senser sounded to me like a sort of spacey Beastie Boys. I 
was sorry that we'd had to miss others, such as Tarantism whose blend of 
celtic rock and techno really impressed me at the Hawkfest three years ago.

The real ale tent was most appreciated - we discovered 'Gone Fishing', which 
has an ABV of 5.0%, and all the characteristic earthy heaviness of a real 
ale that I knew was going straight to my waistline - it's still in evidence 
as I type this on the sofa.

Clearly the local council had felt they'd stuck their neck out having this 
event. A pair of policemen ambled around the site from time to time and 
licensing restrictions were vigorously enforced by an army of t-shirted 
security of various size and shapes - mainly large and daunting.

However, the atmosphere was such that the local power should have no 
hesitation in running such an event again. I saw no trouble whatsoever and 
everyone looked as though they were having a thoroughly great time.

The crowd covered a wide social span - from the clearly occasional festival 
visitor to the dedicated alternative lifestyler.

Friday morning came, and we had been scheduled for 11am. So I climbed onto 
the stage at 9:30 to be greeted by a young gentlemen who asked me if I were 
a pimp. I explained that this could be clearly discerned from my hugely 
expensive wardrobe. Pleasantries out of the way, he promised to see who he 
could find to set up the sound, but explained that everyone had gone to bed 
very late the previous night.

Craig and Tilly plugged in a 10 and started to warm up by playing a 
spontaneous blues number. They were promptly hushed by the stage manager who 
explained that the licence in fact stated that there was do be no music 
before 12 - so we were delayed an hour.

We went back to the van and enjoyed the sun, chatted to 'Womble' who was 
running the local security, then at 11:30 went back to do the sound. As we 
were first on, much of this activity consisted of the soundteam getting the 
house drumkit right.

Then the soundteam asked a question which I shall remember for a long time: 
'What do you want in your monitor?'

'Er, everything?' I retorted.

So at just after 12 we started - first time on a stage anything that size - 
and all I could hear were my keyboards blasting out of the monitor and much 
less loudly the bass from the stack and in the far distance a bit of guitar. 
I couldn't hear Tim singing at all. I must confess this threw me; I'm used 
to rehearsing in a small area to a balanced sound and I found this strange 
mix very daunting indeed. However, Craig kept us all on track; he's an 
astonishingly professional, proficient and cool musician. In the gig photos 
my face is screwed up as I'm desperately trying to listen to the rest of the 
band, and Craig is jumping around animatedly as he keeps us all in line.

Anyway, people clapped after each song and no-one wandered off. The wife, 
Bernadette had not buried her head in her hands and one of our friends who'd 
come all the way from Bournemouth to see us and who took the photos was 
still smiling.

So we finished the set with a new one 'Dynamo', which I think went of quite 
well, and I was pleased to see Rob Dreamworker write in his gig review 'good 
effort', if not his kind of music.

Talking to the other bands and technicians, it seems that there were 
problems with the monitors throught the day - it was certainly a learning 
experience for me.

Playing at this event was a fantastic experience for us all, and especially 
for drummer Matthew who was celebrating his 18th birthday. What could be 
more memorable than this? I'm very grateful to Vinny and his team for making 
it all possible.

Anyway, gig over, Tim and I decided it was time to Go Fishing big time. Paul 
'Bloke from Gloucester' introduced himself and joined us and a convivial 
and, in the spirit of things, hazy afternoon was passed in the beer tent, 
around the stalls and listening to the music.

We visited the 2nd stage which was placed for some reason well away from the 
rest of the site. The tramp across the barren wasteland of corn stubble left 
me reluctant to go again - which turned out to be a shame because I believe 
there were some very good bands playing.

On the mainstage, these stick out:

Shom sounded excellent as we packed away our gear backstage

Nukli were very good indeed.

Obedientbone, very enjoyable.

I'd heard a lot about Dream Machine and they lived up to expectations - very 
proficiently delivered instrumental space rock

Tim Blake delivered an excellent set. Beautifully played and some of it, in 
the light of his court case, very poignant.

I hadn't seen Here and Now for 28 years, and enjoyed their set - although, 
as others have said, far less animated than I expected. I wonder if this was 
down to on-stage sound problems?

Hawkwind - a very good set, similar to last year's tour with the exclusion 
of Psychedelic Warlords and Angela Android. Perhaps the best version of 
Uncle Sam's on Mars I've heard in over 20 years, with guest Mr Dibs intoning 
the original Calvert lyrics from the  PXR5 album - more relevant today than 
they were 30 years ago. The Chaos Illuminations lightshow, always 
spectacular, excelled itself with the backdrop to this song, combining shots 
of the martian landscape with an advancing Uncle Sam. 'We're looking for 
life - to stamp out - we're looking for life to grind out - we're looking 
for life, so mind out.......we put stripes on the stars....' Indeed.

Having been on that stage myself I have an enormous respect for these 
seasoned musicians - not only Hawkwind but many of the other bands who gave 
an outstanding performance.

Speaking of outstanding performances, Sunday was brought to life by 
Spacehead - perhaps one of the best sets of theirs I've seen. Many Spacehead 
standards, including my favourite, Dark Star (I have the Krel tape). They 
also did a storming version of The Right Stuff, within which was embedded 
Song of the Gremlin. For the few who haven't heard the originals by the 
lamented Bob Calvert, try and get a hold of Captain Lockheed and the 
Starfighters. A classic and once again, very prescient concept album dealing 
with arms sales and the seduction of the technology of death.

Other bands I saw - Litmus - astonishing. Very good indeed. I've seen them 
several times now, and this was the best. A cracking, and sadly of course, 
timely version of Astronomy Domine was one highlight - but there were 
several also from their own material.

Underground Zero - very good indeed.

Grooveweird, fronted by the ubiquitous and versatile Vinny. How do they do 
it? An amazingly good set. We were waiting to leave to catch a couple of 
hours of daylight for our journey home but by popular request stayed to the 
end of this.

Overall, a great weekend, great fun rehearsing for it, logistically 
challenging as it was so far away, and I'm looking forward now to going back 
to some studio noodling. Be nice to bands at festivals. They work really 
hard.

Tom