Part 1
Review and Photographs by Linda McDermott
If I tell you that the early bird tickets for next year’s festival sold out within 3 hours, without a single band being announced, that should tell you exactly how much this little festival means to the rock community.
Based at Witton Albion Football Club, Wincham, Northwich, and run by Prometheus Promotions, Rockwich is a great festival that has been running for a few years on the August Bank holiday weekend. It is a festival that seems to attract the best of up-and-coming and well-established bands and this year is certainly no exception. With a Saturday unplugged session as a warm-up, and an open invitation to come and watch Witton Albion play a home game first, (which ended as a 2-2 draw,) and a jam-packed Sunday featuring 13 quality bands, what’s not to like?
Saturday
MisAdventure X
Saturday night’s acoustic session got underway with two guys playing a mix of covers and a few of their own songs. With just two guitars they covered bands like Biffy Clyro, Alter Bridge, Levellers, Prince, GoGo Bordello and my favourite by Breed 77 or originally The Cardigans, Zombie, whichever you prefer. What a fantastic start to the night.
This was followed by comedian Pete K Mally
Well, he had a tough gig, some of his jokes hit the mark while others were a little lost but I’m not sure he helped himself really. If you’ve got a room full of reviewers, slagging them off is not going to help your review, right? However, putting that aside, it was obvious that he had worked hard in putting some comedy into introducing the bands, reading from a variety of books to make the link to them coming on stage, he was funny. I can honestly say I couldn’t do what he does.
Slyder Smith
Next on the bill was Slyder Smith, without The Oblivion Kids
With guitar in hand, he played songs from the band’s album, Charm Offensive including great tracks called Calico Queen and When the Rain Comes that had a real rock & roll feel to them.
Unfortunately, Slyder broke a string in the middle of a song, but this was soon rectified, and he continued like a pro, covering a Hanoi Rocks song, Malibu Beach.
Slyder had his first solo album out last year and has plans to release an acoustic EP in the autumn, and a new electric album in 2024, I’m looking forward to listening to both after hearing his set.
Slyder has one more gig planned, so if you want to catch him, he’s in Swindon on the 1st of Dec at Level III
Beth Blade and the Beautiful Disasters
I last saw this amazing melodic hard rock band at the Call of the Wild Festival in May where I was totally blown away by her and the band. Tonight, I was eager to see what they would sound like doing an acoustic set, and I wasn’t disappointed one little bit.
Beth and two of her ‘beautiful disasters’ sang a great variety of songs including ‘Crazy’ taken from their second album ‘Show Me Your Teeth’ and my favourite song ‘Tonight I’m With You’ taken from Mythos, Confession, Tragedies and Love album. Taken from the same album was the beautiful song ‘Sacrifice I loved it, Beth’s voice was just perfect, with the emotion coming across, it reminded me of the band All About Eve who I loved and still listen to. This was such a great way to start the festival and they had the audience eating out of their hands with their spellbinding set which also included Alanis Morissette’s, ‘You Oughta Know’. Personally, I didn’t want them to stop playing, I could have listened to Beth sing all night, but Sunday was going to be a big day and the night had to come to an end.
Review and photographs by Linda McDermott
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