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The Splitters @ The Environ Festival, Western Park, Leicester.
10/9/2000.

This pre Belgium gig saw Leicester based band the Splitters extend their fan base and get another chance to perfect songs from their forthcoming album "international Smugglers" which is definitely out towards the end of September. (Check out a review here first).

Anyway back to the gig. The Sub ska crew were the closing act on the main stage at this festival, which celebrates 10 years since Leicester was named Britain's first environmental city. There were loads of stalls and stands about recycling, solar / gas powered stuff and basically how to save energy.

Apparently there were a few bands playing along with other events such as belly dancing! Story telling and clowns  - no I didn't mean Braidley!
It also gave the audience another chance to familiarise themselves with the new splitters material, which I reckon is sounding better with every listen. At first I wasn't convinced by some of the new stuff when I heard a few tracks at Morecambe, but I reckon there's stuff to rival even the best tracks on Rock Or Riot.
"Fat punk" and "Look away" sound very good and won't take long before they catch on. "Mindless" although a new song seems to sound like its been in the set for years - it fits in so well.

Kicking off with "Smugglers" and swiftly followed by "Rock or riot" the band got a lot of visitors from sounding stands to the main stage quickly and quite a few people started skanking for the 3rd number "Guns of Navarone" - Well its a festival about recycling!  Unfortunately less people were dancing for new tunes "fruit salad" and the impressive "fat punk".
But the dance floor started filling back for the opener on International smugglers "Wykin airport". New track "in the end" was also played along with "mindless" which is up there with "Crime Time" (which unfortunately was not played here) and "last bus to Barwell"
.
By the time "look away" was knocked out the dance floor was awash with people having a good time. The festival obligatory of "has anyone seen a small child, who's missing" message was read out by manager Ross before the finale of the cracker that is "Last Bus to Barwell".
The crowd bayed for an encore and got it with the "Splitters fiesta" which sounded far better than the studio version.

Overall another top set and it was free! You can't ask for more than that!