This was the third year I attended At The Edge Of The Sea, and it turned out to be a more sedate affair than previous years, but that was my choice rather than the pace of the event. The format has been the same for a couple of years now; on the Friday night, the Wedding Present put on what approximates a normal gig, i.e., they have a support act and then perform an album plus a few crowd/band favourites. This year, it was Bizarro, which was the album I know, having grown up with it. So I was quite looking forward to the Friday night. The support were John (“I’m John, he’s John, we’re John”), who were a guitar / drums two-piece, but they were loud enough to make us think that there were more of them. I listened to their track “Future Thinker” before going to the Concorde, and I was a bit worried because they seemed quite noisy, but their music made more sense when played live, in a big space.
I met K at the train station; I was expecting M to be there too, but he was working up in London on Friday and so was going to meet us there. K & I had a good chat on the way in, which was nice, and we stopped for a beer at the Mash Tun in Brighton, where I had a low alcohol Laines beer (King Limbo). It was okay, but I wouldn’t have gone for a second, even if there had been time.
We wandered along the seafront to the Concorde II. I always forget how far along it is, but we weren’t in any rush, and K was happy to indulge me and see the support band too. I am always keen to see the support, unless it is someone I definitely don’t like. Even if it’s a band I’ve never heard of, I think it’s polite to turn up, if nothing else. You never know when you might find a gem of a band. In fact, that is how I discovered Beef, and a more recent band (sadly disbanded now) - Sheen. I am relatively short compared to other gig-goers, and I tend to get a bit frustrated when I’ve been standing there enjoying the support bands and then some lanky git (or gits) come and stand in front of me two minutes before the main attraction takes the stage. Still, I’ve gotten used to it over the years.
So I had a Becks Blue, “a tolerable substitute for beer” (I would dispute that), K had a different lager, and we went into the main room to wait for the bands. We did have a chat about whether M would make it, and what the chances were, and then he texted us “I’m here!” and charged through the door just as John played the first chord of their first song.
Now that’s what I call timing! John galloped through their set, they were good. Like I said, they made more sense live, and it was a good warm-up for the main event.
Then it was time for the Wedding Present. They played a couple of other tunes first, before launching into Bizarro, but they also broke up the album with some other songs too, which I wasn’t keen on. I did see Pixies celebrate 25 years of Doolittle a few years ago, and they rattled through the entire album in one go. I would have preferred that approach, but it wasn’t to be. Still, I heard the songs I was expecting; just not in the order I expected them. Or, they were in order, but not sequential. Oh, I don’t know…
Friday night was definitely worth attending, and I thoroughly enjoyed it. Of course I remembered most of the tunes, but it was good to revisit them “live ‘n’ loud”, and I listened to the album again when I got home and on Saturday morning.
And then it was Saturday. I wanted to see Cinerama, and they were on early (-ish) at 15:40, so I needed to be in town for then. M & K weren’t coming; M had a ticket, but unfortunately he had other commitments, so it was just me. Cinerama were good, as ever, but there wasn’t any other band I wanted to see at that time, so I popped up to see E and A, along with P who was visiting that weekend. I hadn’t seen her in about 18 years, we calculated, so it was a good catch up. I had a few Heineken Zeroes with them, and then headed back to the Concorde to see the Ukrainians, who were okay, and then The Fallen Women, who are an all-women Fall karaoke band. That was quite good, but very crowded in the bar stage. Then there was the raffle (cue crowd chants of “we’re only here for the raffle”), but I didn’t win anything. I intended to stick around and watch the Wedding Present perform again, but then realised that I’d seen all the songs I liked or knew when they’d performed Bizarro the night before. Plus I was halfway through watching Luke Cage on Netflix and I had an empty house to retire to. I had no reason to stay, so went home.
Overall it was a good event, if slightly less engaging than in previous years, but that was partly due to me being on my own on the Saturday. I think I’ll probably give next year’s bash a miss, even though the details have already been announced. I’ve got a couple more gigs coming up, including Indie Daze 6 and Jesus Jones in Worthing. Then next year, I’ve only gone and bought a ticket to the Great Escape! Really looking forward to that - I’ll be overdosing on new music that weekend!
TTFN.
