Firefest 2009
Rock City - Nottingham
24 October 2009
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FM Diary: Firefest VI - Nottingham Rock City - 24 Oct 2009 - Ant Critchley
Firefest VI held at Rock City in Nottingham on October 24th 2009 - what a day it
was! I am not going to review the day and the bands that played, as there are plenty
of reviews available on the web, instead I am going to tell you about my lead up
and Dragons Eyes' involvement on the day.
The previous Thursday (22nd Oct), we were
honoured to be in attendance at FM's rehearsal at the M Club in Crewe (the exact
same place we filmed the Wildside video), and we also took over 15 or so music tech
students from Winstanley College to witness how a professional band prepares for
a big event. The night was incredible, and on a personal point it was a big highlight
for me. This was really the first time I have watched the band play as a live unit
for 15 years, because the other 2 performances I have been heavily involved in one
way or another, so I usually miss out.
But what struck me at the rehearsal is how well Jim Kirkpatrick has now settled in as FM's main axeman, he really is a top guitar player and I knew after watching him here at Crewe that Firefest was going to be something special. There was also a new sax player (Chris), who literally blew me away during "Hard Day in Hell". I managed to also get quite a bit of filming done for a project we are working on, hopefully to see the light sometime in 2010.
Which leads me to Firefest itself. I took with me my very good friends Lee Rigby, Phil Mathews and Martin Hurst to assist me during the day and evening at Rock City. And although we spent a good part of the day enjoying the bands (especially Romeo's Daughter... top-drawer Leigh Matty!!!), we managed to collect over 6 tapes worth of footage of FM. Filming was taken from the soundcheck at 11am up until 1am at the aftershow party.
See you at the Roadhouse in London in February for the album launch!