This pertains particularly to fellow island dwellers. Middlesbrough has its own festival every year. It's fun, but the acts are pretty much always utterly shit.

If you have time, please would you do me a favour and have a look at the listings and tell me who, if any, I should see. Otherwise it's going to be the usual getting pissed and progressively more cynical as the day goes on, possibly going home to fetch a baseball bat in time for the Oxford Glamour Models and a shotgun for Ocean Colour Scene.

http://www.middlesbroughmusiclive.co.uk/

Cheers.

just get stoned.
pretty much any live music is passable if stoned right?

i've seen only one of the bands that are playing - the sugars.
they were alright, nice enough to look at at.
if they play a shortish set you could probably stand it.

There's a pa pa pa pa party going on
and it's fu fu fu fu fu fu fucking shit
but I'm going to drink some be be be be beer
and enjoy the shi shi shi shit at the pa pa pa pa pa pa party

Ah, there's some proper shit on there alright. From the Leeds contingent, I can tell you that both The Sunshine Underground and The Pigeon Detectives are fucking shit, but then their endorsements from the NME and Steve Lamacq may have led you to that conclusion already.

Benjamin Wetherill might be worth a look, if you're into contrived troubadours. He used to look exactly like Bowie but last time I saw him he'd put the white suit and white hair-dye away. He did a superb cover of 'Good Old Fashioned Lover Boy' at a fund raising gig a while ago, he was made to play it twice. Later that day I gave him away as a prize in a bingo competition, an experience he really didn't seem to enjoy. The fact that I was drunk and blathering on about his suit and how he was going to get a bus back to Chapel Allerton might have had something to do with his discomfort.

Enjoy your day!

I've always enjoyed Wetherill. Not heard a lot of those other bands.

The 'White Negroes' nearly made me throw my lunch up though.

"Legendary North East Rock 'n' Roll band THE WHITE NEGROES are back - and ready to reclaim their crown as the best live band the region has ever produced. Ask your older sister about these raggy lads' ability to blow away an audience with their trademark baggy beats, killer riffs and hands-in-the-air anthemic choruses - then prepare to dream all over again."

Makes you proud to be from the north east. I can assure you they are in no way 'legendary'.

I shall not be going.
The last time I went a couple of years ago I tried to have some fun jigging to some pretty lack lustre folk revivalists whilst being surrounded by people who look like this:




They were waiting for Will Young or someone and took umbrage at our trying to enjoy ourselves so I insulted them all loudly, narrowly avoided a beating and spent the rest of the day outwardly trying to have a good time but inwardly praying for some kind of thermonuclear device to come and wipe this fucking town off the face of the earth.

Hope anyone who goes has fun though. Me, I'll be nailing my knee caps to the garden chairs in my yard whilst listening to something worth listening to.

I got drunk, wandered around getting rained on, danced drunk with friends to the pretend Beatles (who were quite funny, how very much like the beatles they all were, and how they talked to each other on the microphones with Beatles accents and Beatles names), got drunker, got shouted at by an anonymous voice in the sky for trying to wee in a car park, and came home a few hours before anyone I had a vague interest in played and fell asleep immediately, it seems.

Chapter Two wrote:I got drunk, wandered around getting rained on, danced drunk with friends to the pretend Beatles (who were quite funny, how very much like the beatles they all were, and how they talked to each other on the microphones with Beatles accents and Beatles names), got drunker, got shouted at by an anonymous voice in the sky for trying to wee in a car park, and came home a few hours before anyone I had a vague interest in played and fell asleep immediately, it seems.

where are you?

anyway, MML was very good. too busy though, musch more so than previous years. Bromheads Jacket were the best. quality stuff. first mosh pit ive been in for years. saw a bit of pigeon detectives and i thought they were good too