the music and atmosphere make up for the weather at Rhythm Festival

Rhythm festival was very enjoyable this year, even though it didn't have the best weather - it was a bit chilly with frequent rain showers. The music and atmosphere more than made up for that. It was on a new site this year, The Mansion House in Bedfordshire, and it was a wonderful place for it.

After having a quick wander around the site and purchasing a programme fresh from the printers I meandered to the BBC Introducing stage, and there were a variety of bands on to promote local talent. The best band was CoConi, who has toured with Natasha Bedingfield. The front woman was an American and she sang brilliantly, as well as the band having some original music. Inevitably 1 stages loss is anothers gain and I headed main stage.

I went and watched Dodgy on the main stage, and they played all their big songs, the crowd really enjoyed them, despite the rain. After that, the night's headliner, uncharacteristically for the rhythm festival but not unexpected for the Buzzcocks, caused a modest good natured mosh pit for a forty something crowd, which in turn breached the crush barrier front of stage, even though there were security guards braced along it. Fortunatley no injuries were sustained and next year we can expect more substantial crowd control barriers for everyone's safety. They played tunes such as 'Orgasm Addict' and 'What Do I Get?'

Sandi Thom was the first band I saw on Saturday and although she's not my cup of tea she pulled a fair crowd in the afternoon sun ... or should that be cloud? The BBC introducing stage was renamed the cowpunk stage for Saturday and was curated by The Men They Couldn't Hang, consequently this ensured a good size crowd throughout the day. I watched FastLane Roogalator, whose lead singer Syd is also an actor who appeared in Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides. They play their late dad's music singer/songwriter John B. Spencer as a tribute to him.

I then caught Jack Bruce (who was in Cream) and The Norman Beaker Band. For me, he really dragged the songs out, self indulgent playing long and unnecessary guitar solos. I would've preferred him to knock out a few classic tunes in quick succession. But then Cream was about the 60's & that's what they did then, needless to say the audience was very attentive, unlike my attention span, so over to cowpunk land to witness . The Boothill Foot-Tappers played their last ever gig, and it was cider laden booze riddled corker. They really enjoyed it, and the crowd certainly were.

To round off the day, Imelda May played. She played 'Johnny Got a Boom Boom' and 'Tainted Love' in a rock n roll stlye and everyone was dancing along. If she could've, she would've played all night. The compere who followed her was booed by the crowd because Imelda May wasn't allowed to encore but this was due to time restrictions and the fact that rather than end her set Imelda May had asked the crowd if the wanted another song.

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