This year the festival returns even stronger, with headliners Art Brut, and Reuben picking up the reigns for the Gloucestershire Festival.
Tonight in Cheltenham, we had 5 sets coming up from bands that will also be playing the festival this summer. It was a chilled evening, with 4 out of the 5 sets being acoustic sets.
The night started off with Dan Heaver. It was a tough start for Dan. Unfortunately, as with most early starts, most of the patrons are still pampering up at this time in the evening. So he played to a rather quiet room. His 4 song set went down respectably, even if maybe a bit too quiet. He could of benefited from a bigger guitar sound, with too much treble prominent throughout most of the tracks.
Next up was Chris Taylor. Unfortunately, Chris seemed to suffer from the same problems as Mr Heaver before him. A quiet, and slightly off pitch guitar lead to a muted set. A set which came to a rather hasty finish, with songs such as 'Mystery Of Staines' and 'Victory Club', only seeming to last a couple of minutes at the very maximum. Maybe it was the slowly building atmosphere which just didnt have time to embrace Taylor in full effect.
Pete Taylor on the other hand, went down a storm. Not only did he bring a flashing website billboard along with him, which allowed some of the more intoxicated among us, a point to stare at. He also brought along his belting, powerful voice. Taylor has found the balance of power, with some beautifully melodic fretwork. His 6 song set couldn't have gone on long enough, with tracks such as 'I Am Yielding' played with perfect precision and balance. The intricate, almost mariachi style, allowed him to give a new, refreshing dimension to the acoustic guitar. Avoiding the all too common over strumming curse, which can often turn a performance into a predictable and flat set.
Luckily for all of us here tonight, Joe Summers was also able to keep the torch burning. Another brilliantly soft voice, with a heavy folk influence, Summers strummed his way through tracks such as 'Play The Hero' and 'Scarlet Skies'. Some of the set was unfortunately marred by some rather harsh feedback. But as most have learnt this evening, this seems to be more the error of the in-house sound engineer rather than the artists themselves. The local man finished his performance with the track 'She Is Free'. This particular track seemed to invoke the most response out of the crowd from the evening, as his folk and soft lyrics complemented the acoustic set nicely to a close.
The evenings entertainment came to a close with headliner Jim Lockey. With a large supporting presence and new album 'I'll Be Neon' just under his belt, the performance goes down fantastically. After a quick shout out to his local support, he blasted into tracks such as 'swimming less a lifeboat' and 'happy birthday c**t'. The nice touch was the way the rest of the band strolled onto the stage, half way through a song. Timing their introduction perfectly with Lockey and totally changed the perspective of the music once more. A nice touch.
The double bass and drums cut in and out of tracks, and complemented both the silence and scale when needed. A few snare drum problems arose, but the quick feet of Sam Robbers (drums) allowed the show to continue without issue.
Tonight gave us only a small snippet of what this festival has to offer. But if these 5 performances tonight are anything to go by, then it looks to be a very sweet summer indeed. With such a strong line-up, and reasonable pricing, 2000 Trees is succeeding in what its trying to be. A decent competitor to the largely overpriced, over hyped, and over rated heavyweights of festivals.
This is one reviewer who's convinced this alternative has a lot to offer.
article by: Phil Davies
published: 04/03/2008 18:47
FUTURE GIGS
sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.