The weather forecast was for thunder and lightning but the rain held off for the set we played yesterday at a community festival in north London.
Lissenden Gardens, next to Gospel Oak station, has a strong sense of community and a fascinating history – see its wikipedia page.
We had a single set, and this is what we played:
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Everyone knows that bank holidays are wet, windy and washed-out. But not so this year as the temperature has climbed to ‘phew, what a scorcher’ levels. It was therefore a good weekend for the Seahaven Beer and Music festival in Seaford, close to Newhaven, along the Sussex coast from Brighton.
We had great fun playing to a lively audience (the photo above was taken from the stage but well before we started playing).
This is what we played in a single set of just under an hour:
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We were told that the festival was meant to launch last year as an annual event, but was rained off. It got off to a flying, if delayed, start this year.
It was a blast playing the Maidstone Ska Festival on Sunday.
We played a good long single set to a great crowd who sang along from the first song.
And it’s always a treat to play an event that was so well organised. We started at the right time and came off just a few minutes late after an extended encore. The sound people did a great and a relaxed job – not easy when you are having to get bands on and off a stage all day with no time for thorough sound checks.
There is another festival scheduled for September with a fabulous line up too.
This is what we played.
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We were delighted to be the main band on the Saturday night of a weekend mini-festival at the Royal Oak pub in Hollywater, near Liphook in Hampshire.
We were sharing the stage with the General Wayne sound system who have impeccable taste, and selected some great tunes for before and after our set. And while bands can never tell what the audience get to hear, the onstage sound was spot on.
Our special guest was the mighty Joe Ospalla on drums.
We didn’t get a chance to take many photos, other than a few as we were setting up.
This is what we played
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We had a great time last weekend playing the vintage event that was part of the Crystal Palace Overground festival.
We decided to play music from the 1960s or earlier for our set to make sure we kept to the vintage vibe. And this is what we played.
And we could have played many more 60s tunes if we had been given more time to play.
We hadn’t quite realised before that the Skamonics are an ideal fit for a vintage themed event. Normally they draw influences from a number of decades, but tend to rely on 40s swing for their music. There’s nothing wrong with that but adding some authentic 60s ska adds variety.
We commissioned some photos ourselves as we don’t have any good ones from an outdoor festival. Mouse over the one below to start the gallery. And there are some more photos and phone video taken by others on our Facebook page.
We had a lot of fun playing the Cray community festival yesterday. The sun had got his hat on, there was a good sound system and an appreciative audience. If we did cliches, this is where we would say ‘what’s not to like?’.
Well, perhaps we would have liked to play for a little longer as we only had time for a relatively short set:
Leah enjoys an ice cream before our set
We’ve got hold of some very lofi video of our performance. The quality is pretty poor, and the camera gets jolted a few times.
But you can see that we were having a good time, and even through the rubbish sound quality, you can tell it was a tight performance. It’s not going in our official video collection though.
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This was one of our two horn gigs – something we do when there are short sets and someone can’t make it. But there will definitialy be three horns at our next gig.
Watch this space for more details.
Nigel with scooter
Don’t forget that we are playing the Cray festival this Saturday at 4:15 pm.
There are more details about the line up at the Festival website – and it is clearly a varied set of acts. We follow the the UK’s hip-hop dance champions.
As well as the music stage, there is a lot more going on across the site in what looks like a great community event. We are looking forward to it – it’s a long time since we have played on a festival stage.
St Mary Cray is to the south east of London – and the festival site is ten minutes walk from Orpington High Street.
View The Cray Festival in a larger map
We will be playing at the Cray community festival on the afternoon of Saturday July 6th. We will be on stage at about 4:15 pm.
St Mary Cray is in South East London. Think Orpington – and there’s a map below.
View The Cray Festival in a larger map
There’s a varied line-up of acts on the music stage.
Ska and scooters always go together, so we expect to go down well with those at the festival for the vintage scooter display.
But there’s lots more going on. To quote from their website and Facebook page:
The Cray Festival is a “Community Festival” of Live Music & Arts on Sat July 6th at the recreation ground St Mary Cray , with the emphasis on social cohesion and inclusion where people of all ages and walks of life are invited to take part. Artists, Live Bands,performers,Volunteers,Sponsors,Local business and the many amazing Community Groups in the area will be taking part.
We are not sure how much social cohesion we can deliver, but watch out for some skanking and top ska.
We were just ready to announce that we were due to play Buster Bloodvessel’s Skafest in April when they let us know that they have moved the date to August.
Not sure that we can play the new dates, but watch this space.
And it’s sure to be a good event, even if we can’t make it.
