Miffstock 2001 - Sunday Night

Check out the pictures!

Limping and complaining, we made our way back to the Sports Bar after the football to begin setting up for Sunday night. It was busy again by 6:30pm with a large queue of people desperate to see new boys Slaughterhouse, who were first up on the night's bill…

Slaughterhouse
These guys rock in a very loud way indeed. They're still pretty new to all this gig malarky, but you wouldn't be able to tell that from their front man who has a lot of guts and sure gives his best when getting the crowd moving. Paul Talbot on drums is a really accomplished player aswell, especially as he's only 12 or 14 or something. Good stuff mate - wish I could play drums as well as that! Their sickly shirted guitar player insisted on annoying the crowd by playing the riff to Sweetchild O'Mine between every song! But Slaughterhouse delivered the goods for Miffstock in a big way because they brought a tremendously large following along for the night and they put on a great show. When they're scaring the british public on CD:UK in a few years time, just remember that Miffstock had 'em first!

O5
Sunday was always gonna be an eclectic mix of sounds, and that was underlined when O5 followed Slaughterhouse onto the main stage. O5 go for a mellow acoustic sound with a hint of edge, and tonight's set mixed together a plethora of rock radio hits from the past few years. 'Teenage Dirtbag' by Wheatus and 'When I Come Around' by Greenday combined with a sassy rendition of the Chilli's 'Californication' to get the set moving in a decidedly US frame of mind. Stand in sticksman Simon Godfrey was called in at a moments notice and showed his qualities as a session player with a faultless performance on drums, and this added to a very well received show all round. Cheers fella's!

Myriad
It was then time for the Barns Green big teasers to take the stage and show the intrigued crowd what they could do. By now the venue was pretty much packed with around 150 or so, braving the sub tropical temperatures inside. Unfortunately, the PA was suffering from the battering it received on Friday night and Myriad's opening tune suffered from a droopy mike stand. Luckily, the onstage crew got this sorted while some impromptu tuning took place by guitar guru Allen. After this little misfire, the Myriad carburettor was burning away vibrantly and the chaps went on to put on a polished set of original compositions. There's a hint of 70's groove behind a lot of their tunes, mixed with a more experimental style that really makes for captivating listening. They put down the relentless chants for 'Animal Friends' by a certain section of the audience to deliver a show of up to the minute tracks, and on the strength of their song writing alone, Myriad stand head and shoulders above the NME wannabe's of the London scene. To have them appear at Miffstock was a real pleasure as the very generous crowd reaction underlines. Ace!

Dust N' Bones
Before Dust N' Bones there was a prize draw which almost went pear shaped, but hung in there to make a few people happy winners. Miffy then got presented a nice big bunch of flowers from Dean which made her cry a bit (I don't think she'd have been allowed to leave the stage unless she cried a little for the crowd!) Then those smuggy football heroes of The Brothers Jaf got to come up on stage and collect the Miffstock Challenge Cup, which they get to keep on their mantle piece for a year. They did the decent thing of raising it up to a full-on cheer from everyone in the place. Well done chaps, if we're honest, at the end of the day the best team won and the boys done good and you have to take each game as it comes etc. Just watch out next year!! Then it was time for the grande fromage himself…

You know what you're gonna get with Dust N' Bones. Lots of Guns N' Roses songs and Axl Rose mockery. W. Axl Wood had put in a lot of homework for this one in Slash's front room and it paid off bigstyle on the strength of the crowd reaction. Putting his hand through the ceiling whilst standing on the drum riser was an unrehearsed move as was picking a fight with newly crowned football champs, The Brothers Jaf. But the usual strange banter that only the most avid of GN'R fans would ever be able to decipher was on show in as big a way as it was during the first DN'B appearance back in February. I think Dust N' Bones will only ever play a handful of gigs, as the 'real' tribute band thing is a little sad. But for a lavish p*ss take, this always provides a good laugh. Slash had a nice section of girlies screaming at every riff, and Duff (fresh from receiving a red card in the footie earlier)… well, the Dolly Parton hairdo was great! Chris on drums looked like a reject from the kids from Fame, and he was joined on percussion by special guest star Dean "Rock Monster" Herridge. All the classics were dragged out and played in a decidedly out of tune stylee - Welcome To The Jungle, Nighttrain, Out Ta Get Me, You Could Be Mine, and of course the cheesey singalong hijinks of Knocking On Heavens Door. You can't beat it! This is even better than the real thing… as Axl's Buddy Bono would say. Possibly…

Anyway it meant that the evening, and Miffstock 2001 itself, had a really cool finale. Serious amounts of singing, drinking and torso licking from the deranged crowd, lots of duff notes and sweat from the band. Sounds like a success in my books - especially when you add in to the pot another £500+ for the cause, bringing the running total to £1,600 in one weekend.

At the time of writing, it looks like we've got over £2,000 to hand over to Sargents on Dean's behalf which is so much more than we ever expected. We also attracted around 400 people and 9 bands to Broadbridge Heath over the space of 2 days which, although of secondary importance, is also something pretty special. People are already trying to fix us up with working out what's gonna happen at next years event. We're still too tired to even think about it, and we have a bit of a busy summer planed. All we can say is, we'll probably end up doing something… but quite what will just have to be a surprise. One things for sure, if we do attempt it again it'll be even better.

Thank you everyone who attended the event, and helped out in any other way. Dean came up to me during the night, thanked me and drew me a cool picture to show how pleased he was, and I know his family, our band, and little Miffy herself are all thrilled with how everything ended up. It was a really magical weekend, and you all helped make it so. You rule! See you in 2002???? Who knows…