Techfest 2019 - Part 2

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Techfest 2019 Part Two

On the Saturday I turned up earlier than I had for the Friday, but not for the whole thing...

As I arrived, I had made the faux pas of cutting my weekend wristband off when I went home, because I thought that it might irritate in bed.

Me, with Florian, Manuel, and Bruce from Long Branch Records.

Thankfully the staff on the entrance were understanding and let me in, giving me a new wristband, but telling me that it had to stay on for the duration of the whole festival!  Lesson learnt...  I didn't know this, as this was my first actual multi-day festival experience!  I'm guessing that I'll need to remember that for future convention attendance, when they're for more than one day?

The campers

So, I got through the entrance, and started to make my way over to the performance area, which is basically a large three sectioned unit, with a waiting/marketing area in the middle, and then two performance areas in the sections either side, known as the main Line 6 stage to the left, and the Fireball stage to the right.

I first of all took some photographs (in the daylight) of the site.  I was surprised how something so big wasn't in danger of being overcrowded with campers!  To me it's huge, because I see bands that they've had over the years as huge - Leprous this year, The Contortionist and Sikth last year, and previous years they've had Between The Buried And Me, Persefone, Animals As Leaders, Haken...

I'd love to see those last four mentioned (I saw The Contortionist and Sikth of course).  I regret that I hadn't known about the event in the years previous.

Me with Neil and Joel from Dividium

I went to see the band Time, The Valuator on the Fireball stage straight away, who were already on stage.  A progressive metal band, with an emphasis on the more death metal side of things, with the fabulous Rafael Andronic on lead vocal.

There's something about Progressive Metal that really pulls me in...  I very often describe myself as a musical sponge, whereby I am open to soaking up all the music that I can, and then if I like it, I like it, if not, then move on and find something else.

In the Progressive Metal genre, there is a mix of the classic metal elements, mixed up with varying moods in their songs, going through soft, hard, and in some cases classical aspects, and even dance in some cases, where they might use electronic percussion sounds and feels.

Time The Valuator to me are like a progressive version of the classic pub rock band, with a great bit of swagger thrown in there for good measure, but at the same time they're shifting feels that are absolutely effortless.

TTNG on stage at Techfest 2019

After they finished their set, the Line 6 stage was letting people in to get ready for the Progressive Pop band TTNG, who are from Oxford..

TTNG Guitarist Tim Collis

Most of their set seemed to be filled with songs from their 2008 album Animals, where the songs were named after animals - I remember Chinchilla, Baboon, Lemur, Badger, and Gibbon all being on the setlist, alongside songs from their recent album Disappointment Island, and others (Disappointment Island was their fourth album apparently).

TTNG Lead Singer Stuart Smith

This was another one of the acts that I was really looking forward to actually.  I really like the way that somehow they have merged the classic sound of indie pop with progressive styling, somehow transitioning through sections that are different, and with a guitarist in Tim Collis that has some great tricks up his sleeve, which belie their surprising difficulty (tapping, sweep-picking, alternate tunings, etc), and his brother Simon was providing a great backing on drums, with the bass duties by Henry Tremain, giving the whole thing a wonderful rhythmic backing, with some great slabs of syncopation thrown in to make you go "Huh, where did that come from?"

TTNG Bassist Henry Tremain

I didn't feel let down by their set at all, and am really glad that I caught them!

After this I went into the marketing area, and chatted with the guys at the stand for Long Branch Records again.  I chatted with them a little bit on Friday, but today I chatted more with them.  They have a great wealth of acts on their roster, and they really have gone out of their way to support and plug their acts on the bill at the festival.

Florian, Manuel, and Bruce from Long Branch Records had actually driven all the way over from Germany in one go basically, and were doing the same back.

They love the festival, and said that they were looking forward to a new festival starting later in the year down in the south of England, that is named the Radar Festival.

For now though, they were backing their artists who were at this festival, who included Time The Valuator, Valis Ablaze, and From Sorrow To Serenity.

Sam from local firm
Beyond Coffee

Lovely guys.  I can't wait to see them there again next year! :-)

From there I went outside and got a flat white coffee from local company Beyond Coffee, who basically make and sell fresh coffee from one of those coffee machine things that you find in a coffee shop, but in the back of a van in this case.

The owner who served me was named Sam!

The next band I saw were Psycroptic, a "death technical metal band from Australia", and boy does that description match them!  Really low tuning on the instruments, with some cracking riffage on display, and it was the first that I had actually heard anything from them if I am being honest!

I'd been told that they were a must-see band, and sure enough they weren't disappointing in any way at all.

They were on the Line 6 stage, and when they finished all of the audience left to go for refreshments and such, while the techfest crew cleared the stage of the Psycroptic set-up, to make way for the next band.

Before I forget, I chatted with the guys from the band Dividium on Friday night, and with Rafael from Time The Valuator on Saturday night.

All great guys.  It was funny in a way with the guys from Dividium, because it was like chatting with friends, and I'm happy to say that they are now "friends" on Facebook.  I spoke and got a photo with Neil (vocal) and Joel (bass) from the band, as well as chatting with guitarist Peter Delaney.

Raf from Time The Valuator is a nice guy, but still obviously overwhelmed by the whole experience.  Lost for words, and in the moment.

He had been discovered online apparently.  Their previous singer had left the band, and they were looking for a new lead singer.  Someone suggested checking out and auditioning Raf, who put videos onto youtube of his singing, and sure enough they took him on, and a couple of weeks after taking him on, he was singing with them at a festival in Europe!

Anyway, the next band (and final band of the night) were Monuments, a progressive metal band, whose album Phronesis was one of my favourite albums of last year (2018).  A perfect album from start to finish, and I was so pleased that a fair bit of their set was made up of songs from that album, along with a nice swathe of material from their other three albums.

The extremes in their music were incredible, with absolute all out loud rocking and some lovely softer bits, and all of the in between.  I could hear some influence in their music from bands like Sikth, in that there are a lot of djent elements in there.  Some lovely palm-muting on the guitar, tapping on the bass and guitar, and I'm still amazed that I saw these guys, and how incredible they were!

All in all, another incredible day at this amazing festival!  WOW!!!

Day over, next day in part three then!

Thanks for reading again.  Take care...

I'd better get on with part three soon, and close it all up!

July 15th 2019 (48 years, 7 months, and 19 days old)