always be centaurs

As part of the 'Summer Nights By The Sea' series of gigs, an open-air event was scheduled at the De La Warr Pavilion in Bexhill. Levellers, PWEI, and some other acts I'd not seen before. Having somewhere to stay within walking distance, it would have been rude not to, really, so tickets were booked.

And then the weather forecast intervened, with yellow warnings of thunderstorms, and on the Friday afternoon a notification was sent out that the gig would be moving indoors. An impressive set of storms rolling in from the Channel on Friday evening suggested that was a good idea, although on the Saturday the threatened storms failed to turn up, which a couple of the bands noted, although others thanked the staff for having successfully moved the entire event into the auditorium with only around twenty-four hours notice. What had been 'standing only' tickets now had to be reclassified, so on entry we had to announce whether we wanted one of the limited number of standing spaces or instead one of the balcony seats. Down onto the floor for me, and up to the balcony for a seat for Lisa. It was pretty warm inside, and the audience represented a vast cross-section of alternative music fans, including some for whom this appeared to be possibly their first indoor gig for decades.

First up was solo performance by the lead singer of local band Tellums, with acoustic guitar and backing track. Nice clear voice, although a little low in the mix, and he did his best to encourage a mostly-empty hall to engage, which quite a few gamely did. Being a local artist he did have the advantage that there were a few folk there who had definitely arrived early to see him. Not on Bandcamp, but on Spotify and some other sites.

Next up came Colchester's Pet Needs, the reason for at least one friend attending. Full of energy and enthusiasm (and an anecdote about trying to sell t-shirts to the nudist spa attendees at Glastonbury) but unfortunately the sound still wasn't great, and the lead singer's vocals were hard to make out among the guitars and drums. Would definitely be happy to see them again, especially with clearer vocals.

Then there was Skinny Lister, a fun folk-punk band with a double-bass player (of the kind who periodically hoists their bass over their shoulder) and a mandolin/melodeon player, as well as a very enthusiastic female co-vocalist, who also passed a large earthenware jug of 'something' around the crowd (but did ask that it came back, because apparently they're hard to find and harder yet to clean out for use). The sound was improving a little by this point.

With each of the support acts, the hall filled up somewhat, but in the interval before the next band, it pretty much filled up entirely, which was somewhat expected, as next up was Pop Will Eat Itself, who probably need little description. They did what they do, and did it well. After watching the previous three acts from the sidelines, I'd headed into the middle for the Poppies, and that was good fun. There was one very energetic teenager whose first gig this was, who had to take a brief break partway through to hand his broken glasses to his uncle, but was soon back and hurling himself about again. Turns out that being about twice his weight and almost thrice his age gave me something of an advantage when his course intersected with my location, and he simply ricocheted back into the melee.

And then it was Levellers, who I'd not seen for just over a decade. Have to admit, not a great deal had changed. They'd got older, the crowd and I had got older, and that was about all. We had songs from the newer releases as well as from the old material, and a good time was had by all, including the lad who appeared to have still more energy to burn.

Over the course of the evening I saw a few familiar faces, both from the B-Movie days and from the NMA gig community, which was nice, too. On the downside, the food stalls on the terrace ran out early and the café was only acting as a bar and there was no readmission, so when Lisa had to leave to get some food due to feeling a little faint, she ended up missing the headline acts. With regard to the earlier sound being a little poor, I did wonder if the headline acts brought their own sound crew, while the previous sound team had been prepared for an outdoor festival rather than the indoor one.