KYTV Festival – Ned’s Atomic Dustbin + The Wedding Present + The Primitives + Eat @ Civic Hall, Wolverhampton, 19th December 2015
Tonight was my last gig of the year, but for the Wolverhampton Civic Hall it was the last gig for at least a year, and the very last in its current form. The good old place, along with its sister venue The Wulfrun Hall, is up for a £10 million renovation, expanding their combined capacity to over 5000 and creating brand spanking facilities for the gig-goers. Good news for those that get fed up queuing at the peculiar bars, but bad news for those of us who’ll miss the place for all its slight roughness around the edges. Mind you it’s all relative; the Civic in its current state is still palatial compared to other venues.
That building has been a favourite haunt for our reviewers and photographers. Since 2008 we have covered bands in the Civic and Wulfrun over 150 times. We’ve covered the whole range from Blondie and Garbage to Kasabian and Elbow, Bjork, The Specials, Motorhead, Velvet Revolver and most recently Clutch to name only a few. Brumlive favourite Slam Dunk also revolved around the Civic and it will be interesting to see how it pans out next year, a few miles down the M6. The Wolverhampton event will be a hard act to follow.
So it was more than fitting that the final event was the KYTV Festival, fronted by a bloke who has a lot to do with the place, and just happens to be the lead singer of Ned’s Atomic Dustbin to boot. It was also no surprise that the bands announced as contributors to the festival had some sort of connection to Mr Penney and his fellow Neds.
Regulars on the circuit when Neds were starting out, were the idiosyncratic West Country swampy blues outfit Eat, and they opened the festival, complete with Malc Treece, late of The Wonder Stuff, on guitar.
A highlight was the involvement of the bloke with a Christmas turkey on his head; so peculiar that he was invited on stage.
They are a pretty eclectic bunch of guys these days, led by imposing front-man Ange Dolittle who apart from being older obviously, looks very much like he did in the early 90’s. Check out Youtube if you are in any doubt. They are more funk than indie, with a good chunk of blues thrown in for crowd favourite Fatman. If you like genuine, inventive bands go and see them in 2016.
Neds cite The Primitives as an inspiration of sorts and it’s easy to see how they would fit the bill. Back in the day they worked like maniacs to get established in a congested scene, just like our Stourbridge-based outfit a few years later. Tracy Tracy was, as she has always been, simultaneously naïve and cutesy, but very knowing.
Representing the festive spirit she arrived dressed in red and white, small and perfectly formed, whilst managing an impossible set of heels. Most people in the crowd were waiting for Crash but I’ve always liked the more indie-tinged Stop Killing Me.
The highlight turned out to be the first ever live playing of You Trashed My Christmas. There were a few people fighting for the set list because of that — a collector’s item!
The Wedding Present, stalwarts of the scene that Neds entered, spawned the first lively movements in the crowd which, by the time they had got to Come Play With Me had developed into a good natured but quite physical mosh.
A few people around seemed to take umbrage at this throwing the odd beer and complaining about being bumped and barged, but the die-hard Weddoes fans are made of stern stuff and to be honest it was like a pint of Fosters off a Platypus’s back. It’s Christmas so I was in there with the rest of them.
When David Gedge and his band mates are in top form, which is normally the case, the whole thing is infectious. So the following quartet of tunes – Dalliance, Dare, Flying Saucer and Kennedy – saw off any residual resistance from those who presumably thought Ed Sheeran was on the bill.
It was therefore interesting that those self same detractors were nowhere to be seen when Ned’s Atomic Dustbin bowled up and, as expected, got a mosh pit reaction that made a bit of leaping about to Dalliance look like a walk in the park. Was that really a twelve year old kid crowd surfing amongst the old stagers? Who was that bloke who managed to keep the young lady on his shoulders for the whole set — heroic!
I find myself getting quite defensive about Neds and their annual outings these days. Some folks get a bit sniffy about them and they can be unfairly maligned. All I know is I had God Fodder and Are You Normal? welded into the CD player in the car for what felt like years. These days the likes of Green Cell Grey and Happy are on the iPhone but the longevity is the same.
I felt it was very appropriate for the band to be saying the final words and playing the last live tunes on the stage of this version of The Civic. Maybe “someone” can organise it so they open the new one in twelve month’s time!
Review: Ian Gelling
Photographs: Stephanie Colledge