Thursday, October 20, 2005

John Peel: What a gig!!

John Peel day took place at BCSU, High Wycombe last Thursday (October 13th) , what a gig!!, what a day!!!

Over 250 people turned up to 'The White Room', old and young to celebrate the life of John Peel. MusicMann Promotions weighed in with five of the best unsigned bands going and we are confident that the great man would have enjoyed every second of these 'new bands'. Tributes came in the way of covers and dedications as well as original sets from Rocketchild, Dariush Rashidi, My Luminaries, The Wutars and Mr Derry.

Rocketchild delivered their usual frantic yet brilliant set capped with The Jams 'Going Underground' whilst Dariush Rashidi kept the heat up with another quality set including 'Beetlebum by blur' before My Luminaries really got the crowd going. The Wutars added to the atmosphere with a short set topped off by 'There is a light that never goes out' by The smiths and by now the crowd would cheer loudly everytime somebody mentioned the word 'Peel'!!!

The bands were great, the crowd were up for it yet nobody had forgotten why we were doing this. The night had surely climaxed after 4 fantastic bands each adding an extra log to the fire and the party in full flow. everybody was already estatic with what hey had alreay seen and heard. The problem was we still had one band yet to take the stage. Surely Mr Derry could not add to this perfect night any further?, surely the crowd had had there fill?. Wrong!!!!

Mr Derry took the stage at 11.30pm and absolutely thrived on the challenge of adding one more to the perfect 10. The band delivered a fantastic set which transfixed the throbbing audience into foot tapping, clapping and adding the 'la la la's' in the right places on the bands demand. This really was not an unsigned band, surely??!!!! Ten out of ten suddenly became eleven out of ten when Mr Derry opened up with 'Teenage Kicks' and then the night really had reached its final peek and we could all look at each other and say John was remembered in the best way possible.

Even more fitting, if one (or more) of these bands gains any exposure from this gig and the wheels really start turning for them who can argue that John Peel is not still exposing 'new' bands and introducing them to the world!.

Something poetic is happening here!!!

Thank you John Peel.