Danger, Danger...

Summer, eh?

The most overrated season of the seasons is somewhat less overrated this year thanks to the dearth of my flying nemesis (nemesisi?), the wasp. I've only seen one or two so far, and this means my mental well-being has remained relatively unmolested compared to other years, when great clouds of the yellow-and-black terrors have nearly caused nervous breakdowns.

Good thing I don't live in Japan, then.

In any case, the winter appears to have killed most of them, and that can only be a good thing. Of all the species that need to die, wasps top the list.

Norfolk! Flat land next to the North Sea. Kate and I spent a week there, and it was lovely. What is there to do in Norfolk? Go to pubs and drive around, mostly. We did some interesting stuff, like visit the nearby tank museum - in which I avidly pored over the exhibits while Kate pretended to look interested - and go on a boat trip to see some seals.

Post-Norfolking, we headed up to Sheffield, as Kate's sister's hen do was happening on the Saturday. The satnav tried to get us killed or arrested by sending us down bus lanes and over phantom roundabouts but we finally arrived at our house. Unfortunately, there was something we'd overlooked: I needed a parking permit for the car. After much worrying, we simply paid the pay-and-display machine which seemed satisfied enough with our offerings that it did not summon the Guardians of the Parking Bays (that is how pay and display machines work, right?) Well, I don't have a bill from the Sheffield City Council, so all must be good. While Kate was off making cocktails with her sister and co., I headed down to Casbah to see the always wonderful Northern Oak do their stuff, along with a bunch of other folk metal bands. Afterwards, much fun was had at Corp by all.

After a long drive home, we waited a week for the highlight of the holiday was fast approaching: the High Voltage festival at Victoria Park in London, which I so cleverly alluded to in the title of the blog entry. Along with the friggin' image.

Good god, is East London filthy. We were coated in dust and grime, the sun was attempting to burn us all to death with its cancer rays and the water was £2.00 a bottle. Still!

The Reasoning started proceedings on the Prog Stage, with frontwoman Rachel Cohen joking "Well, we're not Clutch". One of my favourite discoveries of last year, they played an excellent show to a receptive crowd- the band seemed in fine spirits, and that more than made up for a few sound problems. Their set was way too short, unfortunately. If you haven't heard their wonderful pop-prog before, here's a sample.

Kate and I wandered round a bit, and thanks to a schedule change we were unaware of we missed most of the first song of Wishbone Ash's (all right, Martin Turner's Wishbone Ash) set, also on the Prog Stage, in which they played their 1972 album Argus in full. Still, the rest of it was pretty ace, even with the "heavy metal backing" wryly pointed out by one of the guitarists coming from the Metal Hammer Stage.

After that we just meandered around. Caught some of UFO's and Bachman Turner's set on the Classic Rock Stage, bought some overpriced Pimm's and looked for food that was somewhat affordable. Failing, we wandered over to the Air Guitar UK stand, and watched people claw the air to boring Pantera riffs for a bit.

Eventually, it was time to see the mighty Uriah Heep play 1972's Demons & Wizards, in full. And my god was it worth the £75 ticket price just to see these guys play. Despite pushing 60, they played like a band on the very top of their game, Bernie Shaw's vocals standing in very finely for David Byron's, and were just thoroughly fantastic. One of the best performances I have ever seen. The band was having great fun and the audience was loving it, Kate especially.

After "The Spell" had finally finished, and the band were bowing to the audience, it was time to head over to the Metal Hammer Stage to see Opeth, who played a perfectly competent and enjoyable set. Despite an unadventurous setlist containing nothing I hadn't already seen them play before (barring "The Grand Conjuration" - not exactly an obscure rarity) and some less-than-great sound quality which unfortunately gave Kate a headache hindered them a little, but they were still great and Akerfeldt's usual deadpan stage humour shone through when he introduced the band as Poison and, just before launching into set closer"Deliverance", mentioned that "the riff of this song was first stolen by Slash in 1987".

After that, tired, dusty, and with Kate looking like she was about to fall over, we decided that it was time to go home and skip Marillion's set. Yeah, I know, we're wimps, but it was nice to get a train that didn't pull into Aylesbury at stupid o'clock.

Oh and I think some band that had Greg Lake in it were headlining the Classic Rock Stage

So that was the bulk of my summer. I'm returning to Sheffield shortly to see former housemate and good friend Rob Dillon before he disappears to Russia, and will probably hop between Sheffield and Milton Keynes at odd intervals. I probably need to organise some kind of birthday thing soon, 21st and all.