But here, today, meh. Their MySpace page said The Parsonage were on at three, so at five to I'm pottering along trying to find them. Maybe there was a map and bands timetable that I missed, but I get to the wee portacabin stage they're playing on at five past and manage to catch the last three songs. A Waylon Jenning's cover and Love Will Tear Us Apart. I recognised no one on stage, Ceylan is stood on my right and other people in the crowd are muttering about seeing people they know.
the wind's blowing on a couple of the microphones, so there's a howl behind the voices.
I thought there were a load of people sat on the mats in front of the stage, but no, just a big vacuous space with three or four kids running across.
Someone behind me asks if we're supposed to sing along. Thats kind of the impression they're giving.
Over to Gibson Street for the second Parsonage performance, and Christ, the street is packed with people I vaguely know or recognise, Sean from university, Stoo from Drive Carefully, folk from the 13th Note and Darius in the crowd.
I'm starving and the food is expensive, £4 for a carrot salad. I know all this has to be paid for somehow, but the ingreidents probly cost less than 50p.
There's a girl stood nearby who rides her boke past my car every morning on the way to work, we don't know each other at all. Somewhere across the street I think I can see Bjorn/Eric from Say Dirty, and passing me as I scribble is a girl called Fiona from university.
Some religious singing mob finish on stage, they sounded a bit too Christian for my tastes. Half an hour to set up some mics and The Parsonage take over. Crikey, I count 36 of them, the stage is creaking a little, and the crowd is thickening up.
Something to do with sweetspots, when I'm stood right at the side of the street in which the stage and burger/salad stands have been set up, leading against the front of the Left Bank restaurant, the Parsonage sound really quiet, drowned out by nearby conversations and the noise of eaters, two steps forward and they sound louder, but still unabmplified, the microphones aren't on as far as I can tell. When they'd finished and I walked away down the street, the Stone Roses 'I wanna be Adored' came on the PA and the bass was so heavy and shapeless, just the loud thudding, you couldn't even tell what tune it was.
Their conductrix was stood on a chair about five meters from the rest of the choir, between songs, without a microphone she'd try to explain to the crowd what they were up to and what song would come next, but she was a little quite, and the crowd, I think were growing restless. Dogs barked, kids screamed, and then slowly died down when the next song began.
The Johnny Cash covers were a bit samey, but it was neat to have a homegrown version of Scala performing. Some neat arrangement to the songs, the gospelly ones worked best, I think the wide dynamic range of bloke singing and girls singing over at the back could have been done better. There were flashes of it in some of the songs, like Ring of Fire.
Photies
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