Digbeth is Good
Culture, pubs and a whole lot more.

My Gigbeth

Written by Nicky Getgood on Sunday, November 9th, 2008 ( 6 responses )

Ugh, am still trying to clear the foggy head and failing – which is just a sign of a great Gigbeth weekend.

Friday

I managed to get a press pass, which I was ridiculously pleased and surprised about. So on Friday night I celebrated this by…going to see the stuff that was free anyway. John Mostyn arranged a brilliant Consider It Done Gigbeth Fringe evening in The Rainbow’s main bar. Mama Matrix were the pull for me – I really like their mental, rousing gypsy vibe and they got everyone worked up into a frenzy and dancing like nutters.

It made me feel a bit sorry for the act who followed them, Smileymic, ‘a live-looper and effectively one man band’. His set was cute and endearingly quirky and we got to hear his cover of the Sugarhill Gang’s Rapper’s Delight, which won him the Gigbeth competition to win free tickets and a meet-up with the band. Not that he didn’t deserve to win, but it seems a crying shame there wasn’t a bigger buzz and more entries for this competition, it was such a great idea.

The night finished with Marc Reck’s shamelessly crowd-pleasing set which unfortunately got me drinking and dancing in equal measure. This meant I spent Saturday on the sofa nursing a very nasty head.

Saturday

I managed to rouse myself to get to the 4Talent line-up in time to see the ‘obnoxious’ Iain Woods & The Psychologist and yeah, he was a bit of a wanker, but it made the show slightly more interesting.

I really enjoyed playing with Pete Ashton’s Thingamagoop (oh yes) but I’m really not sure about his big brother Thingamakit. He looks like an evil, squashed Dalek and I fear for little Thingamagoop. I think in his next film he should conquer big bad Thingamakit in a David and Goliath style stand-off.

The Keyboard Choir were great, not least because of Seb’s freaky dancing around his Casio, I half expected him to smash it up at the end.

They were followed by Einstellung who I do like but can understand why my friend found them a bit too ambient to get excited about. I saw them at Capsule’s Supersonic and found myself quite happily reading the paper whilst they played.

So we went in search of something with slightly more oomph and found – empty spaces. The Custard Factory seemed to be deserted and fast food trucks were shutting up early. It seemed everyone was at Drop Beats Not Bombs. The nearest thing we could find to a little little life was a DJ in the Big Bulls Head playing eighties hits interspersed with a tirade of crap jokes. It was fun until the fight broke out, and a great warm-up for D:ream in the Custard Factory.

There was some confusion over how they got on the line-up but it all became clear when I saw the owner of Rooty’s on stage – I never realised was in the band. I really enjoyed them purely because the lead singer Peter Cunnah was having so much fun. He was like a kid at Christmas and looked fit to explode during Things Can Only Get Better.

I’m very glad I rode the dip that followed (not improved by Kano) to see the Sugarhill Gang. Yeah, it was some seriously cheesy reminiscence, but it was bloody brilliant and everyone was bouncing around, singing along to the Rapper’s Delight encore. I must admit to slightly abusing my press pass at this point to get in the same room as them after the show and covet a bling-tastic, skull-topped, diamond-encrusted cane.

Sunday

I’ve spent the day in bed sleeping it off and am writing this in my pyjamas. Which just shows what a great time I had at Gigbeth.

But I was left with a few concerns about it, which have been echoed by Jon Bounds. It just seemed to be deserted, and acts that should have been packed had a small crowd gathered at the front at best. This could be a publicity thing, the poor marketing of that competition shows how some elements fell seriously short and someone I spoke to about the programme pointed out how little it said about the acts featured. Or it could be because it is a pretty diverse, disjointed event that tries to appeal to all rather than cultivating one, dedicated crowd like Capsule’s Supersonic. Let’s hope these issues are addressed before next year so I can look forward to a bigger and better Gigbeth 2009.

Tweet This Post