The Crooked Festival

The Crooked Festival was an all day festival held on 25^th April organized by a group of Sherburn High School

students and featuring Kinch and Captain Backfire as headlining bands.

All the acts went down well with the crowd and the day was a huge success, despite the weathers best attempt to holt proceedings.

The day opened at around 1:30pm with a solo artist, who’s name escapes me (sorry), who had a strong voice and song writing ability perfect for a gentle introduction to the day. Music between bands was provided by Mouse.Monkey/Duck! Djing and Comparing. He provided a large range of music flexible enough to entertain all fractions of the crowd with excellent mixing and give all the bands perfect intro-music. Second up were Myraid, a young band who seemed to have little experience but potential for the future.

Then the rain came… Out of the blue 10 minutes of heavy sweeping rain right down onto the stage, everything was soaked from the crowd to the staff, the PA to the amps and instruments. It looked like it was all over it was too wet to use the electrics. The crowd stood around waiting for news of the next move. Soon members of the various bands broke out acoustic guitars and played an impromptu set, with the singers bellowing out the lyrics as loudly as possible un-amplified including The Monkeys – I’m A Believer and acoustic version of Backfires I’ll Be Waiting which was sung back word for word by a small number of their hardcore fans and the chorus was sung back nearly everyone in the audience. This kept spirits up in the audience and with the other bands.

Dean and Sam were scheduled to play an acoustic set so the power being out made little difference to them, other then the lack of mics for the vocals. After a small amount of organising they stepped out in-front of the stage and played there set regardless. The set included a comedy cover of Spongebob Square Pants, played twice for the audience to sing along to, Girls Alouds’ Love Machine and other well known songs.

Eventually the equipment had dried out and the festival was declared back on.

Nick Spencer reopened the proceedings with an impromptu solo set filling in for a band who had dropped out, and the fact that Mouse.Monkey/Duck! Had his set cancelled due to waterlogged equipment. He showed evidence of a strong singer song writer playing acoustic versions of his own tunes and tunes he would later play with his band. He also played covers of several Oasis songs and a few requests. A good strong set.

The Carlyle Group followed and to be honest were not the best band of the day. The singer seemed to have a good voice and they seemed to be trying to create an original sound. Something just wasn’t right and it was hard to tell if they were meaning to make the sound that they were. This isn’t meant to sound harsh I and other people I spoke too just felt that they could use a little redefining.

In a change of lineup and a refreshing change of pace Kinch played next. They were on top of their game and played a mix of their old jazz/funk style songs, including inde chart number 7 single Old Fashioned Love, and there new more inde/rock style songs. Though a large number of the crowd didn’t know many of the songs they got probably the second best response of the day. The songs were well written, the band tight and the performance the most professional of the day. Kinch showed that they take their music seriously and despite leaving early to play another set later the same evening they gave 100% winning over new fans and back old fans who may have doubted them. The mingling after the set also helped the new fans remember them and gave their existing fans a chance to catch up.

Kinch moving down the order left Leonards Revenge with the job of playing second last and also following their performance. They did this very adequately and played a strong set which sounded tight and well rehearsed. Strong song writing and good musicians were on show with the crowd feeling the energy on stage. I don’t know much about this band but would see them again under the right circumstances.

Finally Captain Backfire took to the stage. After two gigs, not reviewed here due to a lack of time, at The Riverside bar in Selby and the Thack pub in South Milford where their energy was high, the performance level matched and everything went right for the band, this performance was a little average. They weren’t bad but things that the band tried didn’t work as fluently as they would have on another night. They played their new set, opening with new tune We All Find Our Own and mixing their two other new tunes, Take What You Need and Change Of Heart with old favourites including I’ll Be Waiting, Adaptations and How Much It Hurts. An Encore was demanded and the band obliged with a cover of The Zoutons, Valerie and a relegated version of Blue Room. The fans and other people in the audience seemed to enjoy the set but talking to the band afterwards they were disappointed and felt they could/should have done better, though they weren’t as bad as you would think talking to them.

Finally well done and congratulations to Chris, Jade and Ryan who organized and ran the entire event. A good time was had by all, hope you get the grades you deserve.