Gig Review - Define Pop Day One

Another attempt at writing up a review of Define Pop Fest 2.
Hopefully this one will be a bit more coherent, but don't count on it...

Oh, and didn't I tell you the football would be rubbish?

Day One - Saturday

Due to a couple of line up changes the running times I posted the other day pretty much went out the window early on. They were later picked up off the street outside the window and torn into little bits when Environmental Health shut down one of the stages for being too loud, meaning everyone had to be crammed into the Living Room stage. I've tried to remember the order I saw folk in, but it'll no doubt go awry at some point. It doesn't really matter anyway.

First band I caught were Little Yellow Ukuleles, although I missed the start of their set due to thinking they were still soundchecking, not actually playing... Good start to the weekend with this band. Good set of indie rock, not exactly reinventing the wheel or anything but still plenty entertaining.

Off to the other stage to catch esperi next, who was a late addition to Saturday. I could pretty much copy and paste my review of esperi from the Classic Grand in here, as it was once again entertaining, mesmerising and all kinds of brilliant. It did however suffer from being up against a loud band next door. It's quite distracting during those quiet moments when a door opens and all you can hear are the band in the other room. Esperi played again on Sunday, so he'll get another mention in the Day 2 review later.

Briefly caught a bit of Make Sparks, sounded really good. Sorry I didn't stick around for the whole set. Skipped next door to see Miniature Dinosaurs instead who I was very impressed with. Had heard a couple of songs before and dug them, but the band performing live exceeded expectations. I had a feeling that I'd either enjoy them, or they'd really annoy me. Thankfully I enjoyed them. Very good stuff.

The Morgue Party Candidate were good again, still somewhat chaotic but endearingly so. My only quibble was that the vocals got a bit lost in the mix. Other than that I enjoyed them.

Macabre Scene were a late addition to the bill. Saw them a wee while ago in Stereo and thought they had a lot of potential, on Saturday I was even more impressed. It hasn't been that long since I saw them, but they'd already improved a lot. Really like this band, and they do a killer Smiths cover. Get along to Pivo Pivo on Thursday to see them with The Morgue Party Candidate if you can, and swing by their MySpace, where they've just added a couple of new songs for download.

I didn't see enough of Other People to form an opinion. First sound sounded good though. Despite my efforts to see at least a little bit of everyone playing I somehow completely missed Pacific Theatre. Sorry guys.

Mickey 9s I'd barely heard before seeing, so they were a bit of a surprise package for me. Again, I missed the start of their set. Wandered in while they were covering Daft Punk's Da Funk and was hooked from there on. Massively entertaining and also really quite scary too. To say their frontman is interesting would be an understatement. He's certainly not shy... Anyway, really good stuff from them, and I'll pay more attention to them in future.

It's round about this time that we lost a stage and my brain started to get overloaded, so it'll be even briefer from here on in.

Gdansk were completely different from what I expected, reckon I had them confused with someone else. I really should pay more attention I know. They were much better than whatever band I thought I was going to see, which worked out nicely. Really good set from them.

Vendor Defender made me dance a bit. Excellent. I'm sorry i tried to say hello afterwards and called you totally the wrong band name, I'm an idiot...

Young Aviators are another band I'd only heard a little of before seeing, but was dead impressed with. I missed out on CDs and a cheap t-shirt, so if any of you happen to read this give me a wee shout.

Kid Canaveral were fantastic, and made me dance more. Had to risk death by stabbing on the night bus to Paisley to stick around for them, but it was worth it. As a bonus, I got home alive. Obviously.

Also, if anyone went home with a snare drum that wasn't actually theirs can they let me or Kid Canaveral know please? Their snare went missing on Saturday.

Day 2 review will follow. Sorry this is all a bit thrown together, and sorry to any bands I missed.