SpideWriter

 Wild Paths 2025:  Day 2 Evening Pleasure Inc. spitting fire At last a decent picture of my own for a review, as luck would have it. The second Wild Paths event of this year's festival presented a lively crowd with another three acts: Chest, Canned Pineapple and Pleasure Inc. To put it simply, this was a fun night out.  Chest were refreshing to the ears after last night's intensive aural workout.  With audible lyrics, tunes, chorus, who would have known that such ingredients were a recipe for a good time?  As proponents of shoe gaze that leans towards the poppie side of that style, Chest are a band who engage with the audience through lively songs, structured in a standard form: guitar intro, singer comes in with a verse that blends into chorus, then round we go again. The songs are delivered by a front man who makes extended elegant shapes with his long limbs, emphasising his emotional input to the act. Each number gives the instrumentalists room to feed in ex...

Day One, Morning  Fear and loathing on Elm Hill this is not.  Transport, no fabulous red Chevvy, just the number 14 bus into the city from the N&N Hospital.  Drop off is under the looming, refurbed Norman castle, then a stroll round the corner to the Maid's Head Hotel.  There no sign yet of a festival, although the receptionist assured me the Edith Cavell Room would be functioning as a ticket office from Thursday.  I went back up through Tombland, once the site of a Viking market place, past Voodoo Daddy's Showroom, where a small street sign was tucked into the doorway announcing this week's events, to the bus information office to buy myself a week's bus pass, as it looks like I'll be tripping back and forth over the next few days for various reasons. Good value I thought, that bus pass.  Talking of taking trips, the bus will be the only type of trip I'll be enjoying this week. Gonzo's Tea Room as close to Gonzo journalism as this gets. Tonight and tom...