I don't really know what I expected from the Out of Spite weekend except for good bands and good company but I approached it with some trepidation. This was mainly due to last year's Jackass style antics with glass being flung around the car park for cars to drive over with utter abandon. I thought it was pointless and hated the people involved.

This year's event started for me on Friday morning packing for my trip and making my way to King's Cross station. I arrived way early and so spent a lot of time just wandering around the area, grabbing a coke, getting some money out of the cashpoint and feeling really depressed when I saw the place where I first kissed Tracy being built on. Grabbing four cans of Stella for the journey, I boarded my train and found my reserved table seat. The other three seats were occupied quickly, with one woman annoying me because she kept trying to stretch her legs out, encountering my feet and glaring at me. My feet were already pulled back as far as possible. It's not my fault I'm 6 ft 4! Anyway, she swapped with the guy who arrived, claiming a leg injury of some sort. He seemed happy enough and was a pleasant chap, peppering the journey with conversation and amusing comments. Nice one, whoever you are.

I got to Leeds at around 2:30pm and made my way to the Travel Inn with no problems. It was a bit of a walk from the train station but not hard to find at all and very near Joseph's Well. After checking in I had my first encounter with the "most rickety lift in the world" (TM) which announced floors twice, shook when you got in and once sank below the ground floor when I got in. Frightening. This is a lift that is supposed to hold four people.

Great view of the car park from my room and I got mildly pissed that afternoon before Bob and Cath arrived. I was happy to see Bob had brought my Strike Anywhere ticket for Brighton (which I swapped for a CD of the new Bitchin' album) plus my "Our Band Could Be Your Life" book. The only thing to do after that was to head up to Joseph's Well for the first night of Out of Spite. I couldn't resist but go to the takeaway beforehand for a cheeseburger and chips - there, I bumped into Andrew Ninety who informed me that The Mercy Suite had pulled out of the Friday line-up - nobody believed me when I told them of this fact until they'd confirmed it with Andrew. Oh well.

It truly was a pleasure to see Joseph's Well again even though "my favourite barmaid" wasn't serving. ;-) When I worked in Leeds I went to this place loads of times with Rich Harrison to see bands like Scaramanga, Chest and the Landspeed Loungers so it held some good memories for me. On the Saturday night I was very grateful to Mel for introducing herself to me (even though she totally blanked me on Sunday when I waved to her on arrival). I'm pretty shy unless I'm totally blasted, especially where girls are concerned, a shameful fact but true. However, if people say hello to me then I'm friendly enough.

The first band on was Nathaniel Green. I was lucky enough to hear their soundcheck so I'd discovered they'd mutated into a full band for some of their songs! And boy, they sounded amazing. The stuff they did as a two-piece was great enough and as sweet as ever but the full band just took them to another place. The majority of them seemed to be in Dugong so there you go! It was a pleasant start to the evening, but didn't give you any idea of the fury that was to follow.

I really do wish I'd taken notes during the weekend, or at least written some kind of summary at the end of each night. However, as much as I recall, I think I spent most of the nighttime hours dreaming of the girls I'd met during the day. I am a real fucking sadcase right now, let me tell you. ANYWAY (!!!), I am working from the Out of Spite webpage so I'm not 100% on the band order (or even who played!) for the weekend. I think Scuttle were next though and let me just say that Steve's vocals have improved a hell of a lot. They're still not top notch though and will always be the thing that drags this band down in my estimation. Still, they were right on the mark tonight and were the best I've seen them in a long time. They seem to have matured quite a bit and aren’t 100% on the throttle all the time and have some neat new songs. I’ll look forward to seeing them on the upcoming Small Brown Bike tour.

The website says that Sex Maniacs played next - I'm sure they played on Saturday but I could be wrong. Anyway, I'll talk about them now. The Sex Maniacs were one of the best bands of the weekend in my book. They had some genuine rock and roll attitude going on, something which bands like Swampass, Zeke and the Supersuckers exude. Guitar solos a gogo - THAT was the part that made me smile from ear to ear so much I think. Songs to die for... and to play air guitar and headbang to til you hurt. Superb.

Dugong were next and didn't play People Like You Are Hard To Find - I remember enjoying them but what I just wrote is just about all that I remember! They were pretty much the end of my evening. I didn't see any of Consumed, instead choosing to chat to various people until the end of this short evening. It was four hours at the venue and I was hammered.. instead of going to the club with the others I went back to the hotel with Bob and Cath instead. I was convinced I'd pissed them off because I'm sure I was obnoxious for most of the night.. thus, I sent them a text message explaining my disgust with myself. It went uncommented on for the rest of the weekend. Probably a good idea. I came down from my room and stalked in the car park during the early hours but then went back and got some restless sleep, with the usual dreams of faces I'd seen during the evening.

Saturday's start was an inauspicious one with a killer hangover and the discovery that the Travel Inn didn't provide shampoo, only small bars of soap. I felt stinky and fat before I even left the hotel for the day. I'd phoned Bob to see if he and Cath were ready to come up but they planned on heading into town first for food before going to the venue. Before getting to Joseph's Well I called at a newsagents (the takeaway was shut) for a sausage roll and a large Snickers and, feasting on these culinary delights, made my way to the venue. Well, there was noone around when I got there and the place was locked up, so I sat outside in the sunshine and awaited the arrival of the unwashed hordes ;-) 5 minutes later, Lloyd, Si and crew showed up and we went in through the back door. Even at that time of the day it was boiling hot inside so we knew it would be hell later on.

Adam had brought along a large box of old band t-shirts to sell that Mel was forcing him to chuck out. There were loads in there but it was apparently only a small percentage of the total he owned! There were several that I wanted to buy but unfortunately most of them were large size rather than XL. Still I picked up a J Church shirt and, later in the day, an American Steel one. I’d originally passed on this one because it was only a large size but I couldn’t resist in the end.

Anyway, Saturday. A few bands had dropped out today – Douglas and The Take had both dropped out due to some confusion or other and Goober Patrol had also cancelled, probably just because they’re lazy fuckers. Filling in and first on on Saturday were the Double Six Flight Team who I managed to avoid seeing altogether and instead I carried on drinking my combination of Smirnoff Ice and cheap lager. I think the first band I bothered catching were This Ain’t Vegas who hadn’t really impressed me last year. This year was a whole different story. They’re very Fugazi like with two singers, one playing guitar and one just with a mic who looks remarkably like the singer from Idlewild and dances at the mic stand in a slightly less hyper Ian Curtis style. The band is a lot tighter now and if you love the Fugazi sound then you should seek out this band.

I think One Car Pile-Up may have been next but I didn’t see them either. I’m just not interested in their slightly Fat Wreck punk pop sound and I can’t see why it excites anyone else. That’s just my opinion though. Homebrew, another late addition, may have also played in this period – it’s difficult to remember as I’m just working from the old line-up on the Bombed Out site. Needless to say, I didn’t watch them either. There appears to have been quite a bit of drinking going on on the Saturday afternoon shockingly enough!

Oh, I shouldn’t forget to mention that I met Penny from Afraid of the Dark on Saturday. We’ve exchanged a few e-mails but the last time I was in the same room as her (the Nottingham all-dayer) I was too shy to introduce myself. She knew who I was by the time Leeds rolled around though so she caught me at the bar and we exchanged hellos. Her and Al (another AOTD alumni) filled me in on the antics of the Eighty Six / AOTD tour and bassist Chris soon showed up complete with straw hat and other bizarre hawaiian attire looking much the worse for wear. Strange boy ;-) Anyway, the conversation was brief and I didn’t manage to speak to them much, if at all, for the rest of the day. Maybe next time. Another girl I saw at the fest but didn’t actually speak to was Ellie and she gets my vote for being undeniably the cutest girl of the weekend. Wow. Hopefully she will never read this review haha…

Blocko were next up and the “cunt” crew were out in force. Ie. Sweet Pete and others shouting cunt at every available opportunity. Very nice. Blocko played a storming set of mostly new songs that the Leeds mob probably hadn’t heard. My favourite of these, Dry Sky, was partly ruined for me by the antics of a couple of the Leeds mob who got a beery shower from me for their troubles. Pretty funny considering the title of the song! Bizarrely enough no-one tried to fuck with me over it. Or maybe that’s not too bizarre at all…. Times seem to have changed and that’s just fine by me!

According to the website line-up And None Of Them Knew They Were Robots were next and pretty much blew the roof off the place. I went off them slightly at one point because of Kev Robot’s “hilarious” antics on the Fracture forum but have since regained an appreciation for them. I suppose you could call their music part of the recent flurry of UK emo / hardcore / indie scene but the new record is apparently a lot more hardcore. I’m not sure whether they played any of that but the stuff from the last record went down a treat.

At some point during the afternoon I was planning on walking with Bob and Cath down to the pizza place for some lunch so I was slightly chagrined to find they’d already left without telling me and I passed them as they were returning. I nearly made some snotty comment but didn’t bother, as I knew I’d have to get into some ridiculous argument about it later on and I didn’t want that. I ended up saying bollocks to the pizza and getting a fantastic chilli burger. This didn’t do me much good on Sunday morning obviously!

Aha – I’ve just remembered another addition to the Saturday – Scarper! – who’d actually been moved from the Sunday. I’ve no idea what time they played but I actually did see this band and enjoyed their trumpet-peppered pop songs immensely. Scarper! seem to have the annoying knack of writing tunes that embed themselves in your brain after only a couple of listens. They’re not the kind of band I can ever see becoming really popular though but that doesn’t mean I enjoy them any less. Travis Cut have slogged along for years, playing tons of gigs, and enjoying what they do and I can see the same thing with Scarper!

Fig. 4.0 were next and, as evidenced at their Brighton gig earlier in the year, have moved away slightly from the 30 second thrash attack (thankfully) and into more conventional hardcore territory. To me, Tim Wheeler (hah) and his cohorts are an integral part of the Leeds scene and, instead of that being a totally good thing, means we get lots of in-jokes and heckles that aren’t really that necessary. It’s not as bad as it used to be though – this fest has seemed to be a lot less cliquey than it was last year. Can’t recall whether we had Twofold leaping up on stage to join in on a song as per the norm, but I get the feeling they might have been off somewhere else! Oops! I could be wrong of course….

Most of the rest of the night becomes a bit of a blur after that. I didn’t watch Joe Ninety (normally good but I just fancied getting out of that room for a while) or the Copperpot Journals (fucking get this dull shit away from me). HOWEVER, the main event of the day, and the weekend, was still to come – the return of LEATHERFACE to the stage. I’d been anticipating their arrival ever since it was announced they were playing. There was an initial worry that Lainey wasn’t going to make it due to him being in Prague til that morning! However, my fears proved groundless when I saw Lainey sitting at the bar during the afternoon.

Leatherface hit the stage and blasted straight into Springtime. An astonishing opening and as soon as the vocals hit, the crowd joined in for the rest of the song. For the next 40 minutes or so, they blasted through all the classics – Little White God, Gang Party, Do The Right Thing, Daylight Comes, Hops and Barley and a magnificent Not Superstitious. I was screaming the words so hard during this song that I nearly threw up! Oops! At one point during the set I threw my second beer of the day over some moron dancers who weren’t just dancing but slamming into people hard. Simon Spite had this look of thunder on his face so I just twatted my beer at the dancers.. didn’t stop them but it made me feel better ;-) If my mind isn’t deceiving me greatly Bad Mongo got on stage at the end and helped to sing “You Are My Sunshine” with the band and also proceeded to make an obnoxious tit out of himself. NOW who’s the groupie eh? ;-)

Leatherface were the last band on Saturday so after they’d done we hit the Bassment in the Merrion Centre for Juvenile Hall. This is a club that’s put on every month or so which usually features live bands and then punk / hardcore DJs. Because of the OOS fest though they just had the DJs on this occasion. It wasn’t a bad night in there actually – they have Irn Bru on tap which always helps ;-) However, me and Pete had Budvar and they were probably the most expensive drinks I’d bought all weekend – still less than three quid though! As for the music, well, some of it was ok – I think they played Get Up Kids and Hot Water Music (which I requested) but a lot of it was just nu-metal style rubbish which I’m not into. I didn’t dance and just stood at the back for much of the night. Moments of hilarity ensued when an extremely pissed David Stuart turned into Superman and decided to start picking people up. First he flung Pete over his shoulder and then he managed to pick me up and nearly get me over his shoulder, much to my horror. The best moment came when Lloyd tried to pick up DS using one arm, Russell Remains using the other and then falling over backwards – a massive pile-on ensued obviously!

After the club, me, DS, Hilary and Chris Cut walked all the way back to the hotel, past Joseph’s Well again and via the pizza restaurant for some slightly weird tasting pizza. More fodder for Sunday morning! Urgh! Chris was staying in my room Saturday night due to Nic apparently fucking up and not being able to decide whether he was coming up or not. Lucky I had a twin room booked for anyone needing a place to stay :-)

On Sunday morning I had the usual massive hangover so I stayed in bed for ages whilst Chris got ready to go out and meet DS and Hilary. I had nothing to do til around 2 when my Mum and her partner were due to come to the hotel to meet me for lunch. I sat outside for ages reading the Husker Du chapter of “Our Band Could Be Your Life” (superb book – highly recommended) and 2pm came and went. I phoned my Mum on her mobile only to be told “We’re in reception!”. “Well you must be at the wrong hotel then!” I replied – indeed they were. Despite me sending three maps and saying it was next to a TGI Fridays, they’d managed to go to the Travelodge instead of the Travel Inn. Very impressive I’m sure you’ll agree. Anyway, it took them probably another 40 minutes to get to me.

Once they arrived we went next door to TGI Fridays where we had a nice lunch and I was fit to bursting. Obviously I developed a crush on our waitress especially when she brought me a cocktail and told me that “I only need one of those and I fall off my barstool!” ;-) Anyway, Sunday was the third and final day of the Out of Spite festival and as 5pm approached I wandered over to Joseph’s Well for the remaining bands….. On arrival, I was delighted to discover my favourite girl behind the bar.. ahh… a perfect vision of beauty, let me tell you! ;-)

First up were The Leif Ericsson, featuring Will Farley from the Propagumbhis. The ‘ghumbis were never a band I was that fond of but I know that lots of people loved them. What Will and friends are doing now is much more down my street – there’s the inevitable Hot Water Music comparison but to me that’s a good thing and this set was probably the best I’ve seen from them so far. Energetic, extremely right and very rocking. Great stuff – unfortunately they were a bit disappointing a couple of weeks later at the Peel so they seem to be a bit hit or miss. It’ll be interesting to see how things develop with this band.

Twofold were next up and were as storming as usual – I’m constantly amazed by how good this band have become since Lindsay joined. The one major change now is that Danny no long appears to sing ANY of the songs – he used to sing most of them and at one point wanted to come out and be the frontman. Sorry to say it but I don’t think some people will miss Danny’s growling style. Lindsay got heckled a few times during the set due to his curly blond locks – someone shouted out “Since when was Duff Rose McKagan on bass?” and he also got the obvious comparison to He-Man ;-)

Next up were Milloy and I only lasted about two songs into their set before I went outside to cool off in the rain. Milloy are hyped to fuck in this country at the moment and they’re an ok band but are not, in my opinion, deserving of all the praise heaped on them. Then again, I don’t really think that much of Samiam who are the band Milloy remind me of most. Punk rock with the emphasis on the ROCK rather than the punk with a swaggering but boring lead singer.. it doesn’t really fill me with excitement I’m afraid and, dare I say it, I think they’re getting a bit dull.

A band that DOES fill me with excitement is Wakefield’s Pylon who feature three quarters of old ace band Chopper but don’t sound anything like them. The Pylon Mums and Dads were out in full force tonight and seemed to enjoy the set quite a bit – especially one dancing Mum. I enjoyed the set a great deal too and Pylon were my second favourite band of the weekend. The few new songs that they played haven’t stuck in my head yet but I’m sure they will when I see them again. All their stuff just fills me with an immense hope and put a massive smile on my face like so few bands manage nowadays. The crowd favourite was Says Al and we all had a singalong for that one – Yo Yo Blue remains my favourite. It’s hard to beat a song that has a line in it that goes “not much besides a great big pile of fuck all”. :-) 10 out of 10.

Only two bands left – Vanilla Pod and Capdown. I only caught one song of Vanilla Pod (sounded ok but I’m not really into them) and I didn’t see any of Capdown. I believe they were late arriving due to motorway traffic but went down well I’m sure. For most of the last hour I played free (yes, FREE!) pool with Nij and chatted with Sean Hunter of Torino 74 and his mate.. I think her name was Sian. Nij was mullered by this point and was chattier and funnier than ever before. Great stuff. Unfortunately, despite the party atmosphere, the bar still shut by half ten so it was all finally over. I said goodbye to a few people and then sloped off back to my hotel, via the pizza place of course!

Maybe it’s the fucking cheese in the pizzas but I had the most horrible nightmares on Sunday and woke up several times during the course of the night. There were demons and chase scenes and at one point I thought I heard someone come into my hotel room to kill me and I couldn’t wake up. It wasn’t a very pleasant night to say the least. Still, Monday morning arrived with no deaths and, after a few drinks at the pub in the railway station, I made my way back home to London.

To sum up – this was a fantastic weekend from beginning to end and a million times better than last year’s fest where I was disappointed and disillusioned by some of the things I saw. It couldn’t have been different this time around and even Adam OOS said it was the best of the five fests they’ve put on. A couple of days later I sent an e-mail to Joseph’s Well thanking their barstaff too and got a grateful reply from them. Good work guys.

Roll on next year!

--Chris