Our only regret is that we could only squeeze one day of Incider Festival 2019 into our weekend.
Because this is a brilliant concept from the Fuelled by Cider team.
Get together a stack of festival favourite live acts and cram them into a Pontins Holiday Camp at the start of February when then chalets would normally be locked up tight. Then invite all the usual festival stalwarts to come down and pretend it’s July… simple.
We may have gone to the wrong Pontins first (thank you Google Maps) but luckily it was only 30 minutes down the road. So we still hit the venue in plenty of time to catch Nick Parker – and we were so glad we we did.
In full-band mode Nick ramps up several notches from his solo shows – and that’s saying something.
As a special treat he was joined on the last two numbers by Les Carter – and we were delighted by an exhuberant cover of The Only Living Boy in New Cross.
Nick Parker and The False Alarms Featuring Fruitbat – eat your hearts out CUSM fans…
A health problem caused a programme shift meaning that The Surfin’ Birds were replaced by Gaz Brookfield and The Wood Burning Savages shifted forward a day to play the post-dinner slot… but nobody complained because the entire line-up is an all-killer-no-filler one… so whatever order things come out nobody cares.
What we do have to say is that The Wood Burning Savages brought a shade of Reading and Leeds to Incider – so for anyone looking for a band that has a rocky edge and attitude a-plenty…look no further. Angular guitar hooks and intelligent and considered lyrics make for the perfect package.
Black Water County did that Celtic thing they do so well, but then a great name to see on the bill was Buster Shuffle. Hot on the heels of a European tour with Flogging Molly this is great fun stuff along the lines of early Madness. It’s singalong time with almost every tune, and we’re confident we’ll be seeing a lot of of these guys on the festival circuit over future years.
For the main event it was the turn of Ferocious Dog – and we don’t need to say anything about this band, because their actions and songs speak louder than words ever could.
The crowd were delerious with joy, the security turned a blind eye to human pyramid building, and there’s no doubt this was a brilliant end to a great day of live music.
Yes, there was a pretty much permanent queue for the bar…but we made a few new friends every time we lined up for the next round of scumpy. And yes there was a long queue for food int he evening – but we guess people just have to learn there’s plenty to go around so it makes more sense to just wait for the queue to subside before joining it in the first place.
Would we go back next year? You bet we would!
Photos by www.sarabowreyphotos.com
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