19/8/2012 Renaissance Alternative Music Festival @ Boston Arms Music Room

Subject	Renaissance Alternative Music Festival @ Boston Arms Music Room
DateCreated	8/21/2012 5:10:00 PM
	Sunday finds me leaving the bike at home and getting the tube down to Tufnell Park to enjoy a few beers at the Renaissance Alternative Music Festival @ The Boston Arms Music Room. This was an all day event preceded by the 'Alternative Bring & Buy Sale'. So would that be the 'Alternative Buy & Bring Sale' then? There are about ten bands playing - great value for £7, and the Newcastle Brown is still only £3.30 a bottle too. I don't arrive in time to see the first few bands, but the ones I do catch include a Goth band who claim they are not a Goth band,  and a metal band who claim they are not a metal band.  They aren't a good metal band anyway. The first band I do catch is Drilling Spree.  Apparently not a Goth band - well they had me fooled.  I thought they were rather good though. The bass player looked familiar from somewhere, but because he kept his hat on I didn't twig for ages - it's ex-King Lizard man Alice, who also currently plays with Maleficent. I'm not normally a particular fan of this type of music, but I did quite enjoy Drilling Spree's set. Next up were Lilygun. This lot seem to be popping up everywhere at the moment, but they do have a forthcoming album to promote so it's good that they are out there. I only saw this band in Kingston last night, but I'm not getting tired of seeing them as they are doing something different and their songs are interesting and dynamic. Tonight's performance by Lilygun is at least as good as last night's, but I find it noticably more enjoyable because there is a more suitable atmosphere here. It also helps that the band are playing to more people tonight. Lilygun never fail to impress with their dramatic and moody songs - always well performed by musicians who have a real feel for this sort of dark and stirring material. Led by the mysterious and enigmatic Anna-Christina the band cast a spell over the audience as the intricate songs weave their way into their souls. Once again Lilygun's set seems over all too soon, but I think they made more of an impression than most the other bands on the bill - it will be interesting to watch their progress after their debut album comes out next month... There follows some bad un-metal, and then some solo acoustic alt/goth singer/songwriter stylings from Jordan Reyne - who sounded rather good, but due to a combination of being distracted elsewhere and running out of battery/memory card on my camera there are no pictures. Final band of the night is Die Kur. I've been wanting to check this lot out for a while, even though Industrial Metal isn't usually my sort of thing. There is definitely something different going on here and the music is better than I normally expect from this type of band.. I'm not sure if one is actually supposed to 'enjoy' this type of industrial music, but this does seem more like it's actually made by human beings so I can relate to it better and I do actually enjoy the band's set. I can actually see and feel the music being made by real live human beings - rather than just coming out of electronic boxes. I don't normally like 'machine music' but unlike how I percieve most industrial metal I genuinely do feel that I am witnessing a real performance by human beings rather than something that has been programmed into a computer at some previous date. This is a band I would go and see again. All in all an excellent night and great value for money. In spite of having planned my journey home and knowing when to leave for the last southbound tube we still arrived at the station about 20 minutes too late - nothing ever changes but the shoes...