Stop The Earth!

How many people does it take to open a window that is already open?           Seven and a piece of string.

Yesterday I went along to the first day of BML to review the event and the bands, little did they know how predatory I am, I managed to also rangle interviews with the Welsh sensation The Blackout and Dans Le Sac VS Scroobius Pip.

Before I entered I was subject to a horrendous wait, why? Because the window in the press box wouldn’t open far enough for them…Here is “Stop the Earth!” giving you the scoop, that window was open far enough! It then took a large group of people and a piece of string 15 minutes to deduce that they should abandon the press box and get a table outside…but even then, they didn’t have a paper list…only an electronic list…so someone had to sit inside the box as names were shouted out because they couldn’t bring their laptop outside (Probably didn’t have a battery, probably). So press were late in by 20 minutes, but that’s not a complaint, more of a fact, I’m still super grateful to be given the gig.

The festival was situated in Mertyl Park in Bingley, accessible via a large number of trains. The stage itself was located in a pretty sexy area of the park, with people going around selling pints of Tuborg for 4 star hotel prices. The first day was blessed with amazing weather, 18 degrees at around 5 o’clock isn’t to be messed with here in England!

First up was Dan Le Sac VS Scroobius Pip, I’d never heard of them until I heard them doing a rendition of Fix Up Look Sharp by Dizzee Rascal, it definitely made me turn my head. Just before their final song they commented on how the EDL (English Defence League) used one of their songs in a promotional video. I managed to catch up with them backstage to arrange an interview to discuss this a little more.

When asked about what their response was to the video was, their comment was that they immediately contacted Youtube who are more than scared of copyright law suits. Youtube took down several of the videos quickly. Dan then started up a discussion on lovemusichateracism.com which started a big discussion, because whilst the song “Steak a Claim” has a political message of freedom, the EDL were using it to deliver a message the lads did not agree with.

Dan & Scroobius said on stage and backstage that they loved the way in which the city of Bradford celebrates cultural diversity and on one occasion said “the edl can fuck off”

I took some questions from the crowd, the question I took to these guys was aimed at Scroobius, “How do you maintain your beard?” and the answer was “Persistence and a lot of leave in conditioner”. The questioner won an autograph from the guys! I asked Dan why he had a plaster on his forehead…He did not comment.

I also ran into The Blackout backstage and had a sit down interview with them that nearly involved giant jenga…nearly. Again I had a question from the crowd, the question was “Why is Sean Smiths twitter name SeanSmithSucks?” the answer came from the sucker himself, and the answer was “It saves time, if I go ahead and say it, others don’t have to”.

I also asked them about High Tide and how they liked working with Ian Watkins, they said they have a really close relationship with lostprophets and that when they all get together it is like having 12 brothers together on a lads holiday, however I don’t know of any lads holiday that would involve an around the world trip!

Sean told me that the new album, whilst currently unnamed might end up being called Dog Porn, which would be quite shocking really.

Somehow the band got talking about Gareth Gates and Will Young, and whilst Gareth Gates came second, he got the most media attention. That may be the case lads but Will Young is still making music and Gareth was dropped from his label. The response then was, yeah but anyone who has slept with Jordan is a winner to me. Gary then said, but I bet Will Young has slept with Jordan, just Jordan with a cock.

The guys are going on tour with LimpBizkit and commented that it would be “2002 every night!” Apparently, 2002 was a good year for these welsh boys. They put themselves forward to tour with Limpy but didn’t expect anything and then one day got told that they would be and were like “whatttttttttttt?”

That’s the end of the day 1 review, the weather drew cold and the sun set upon the festival before the buzzcocks hit the stage but the crowd grew incredibly large, and people were arriving non-stop all night so they had a lot to live up to!

Photos courtesy of the wonderful Allesia Cifali