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Summer's End Festival 2008

On Friday I went to the Summer's End festival in Lydney. It's a 500 mile round trip from Norwich as was well worth every mile, even though the traffic on the way over was dreadful.

Lydney is a nice quiet little place, except for the boy racers, but then every small town has those. The night got off to a good start with a reasonable curry, but then we were left waiting outside the venue for nearly an hour. We got in at 8pm and the organisers were still setting up. At least various members of both bands were wandering around in the crowd and Damian Wilson even came and said hello.

Seasons End came on nearly an hour later than originally advertised. I've seen them live twice before and they're always brilliant. It's just a shame it's not reflected on their debut album. They were absolutely incredible on this occasion, especially given the dreadful PA. Their new concept album is out before the end of the year and they played at least two new tracks from it. I'm not a fan of hearing new music live, but these two tracks were incredible. Their new album is certainly one to watch out for and hopefully they'll capture their live sound.

Threshold cannot help but be brilliant. There's no other way to put. They were also considerably late to stage, but still played a full two hour set. I've seen them twice before and am now resigned to the fact that they'll never play my favorite song, Choices, live. They've opened with Slipstream the last two times I've seen them and that song has got to come a close second. I'm not a fan of the early (pre-clone) stuff, but the tracks from that era they played were enough for me to get Wounded Land and Extinct Instinct out the following day. It is just like watching your uncles band as they're all in their early 40s, but I'll happily go and see them again and again. A special mention should go to the drummer who dislocated his shoulder the week before and was told not to think about playing the drums for at least three weeks. I was glad he didn't listen.....

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