Tag: gig photography

Saturday 04 March 2023 – Hastings.

I completely managed to screw this weekend’s entertainment right up,  though having said that I still had a very good weekend. I’d bought myself a ticket to Entombed Festival in Hastings back in October I think, stupidly didn’t put the dates in my calendar and almost totally forgot about it. In the meantime I agreed to go and see another band, the Loft, in Brighton last night which was day one of the festival, and then go to dinner at the house of some St Leonards friends tonight.

Entombed Festival has been running for three or four years, a small punk and metal festival in a basement bar in Hastings. The Saturday night headliners this year (postponed from last, and the main reason I was going) are Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs, Pigs (Pigs*7) a doom/stoner rock band from Newcastle. I quite like them, especially their more Black Sabbath influenced tracks. There were a couple of other bands scattered over the weekend I wanted to see as well, at least that was the plan when I bought the ticket. I managed to see just two acts, neither on my must see list. It was a bad mistake on my behalf.

To compound the double booking the weekend error I didn’t look at the start time for the festival on Saturday and only realised it started at mid-day in the late afternoon. I was quite keen to see punk band The Domestics; I have one of their records, and felt I could see their set, then catch a bus back to my place, pick up Eleanor and make it to our friends and only be fashionably late. I grabbed the camera and power walked my way into Hastings.

I arrived at The Crypt just before the doom/sludge duo Kulk started playing. I’ve seen them once before and the singer/guitarist is great to photograph, though I’m not a huge fan of their music I was pleased to see them play.

This was my first visit to The Crypt and it’s a great venue, decent floor space, small and low stage, big bar with really friendly staff and a few places to get out of the blast line of the speakers. Though it was still a bit flat the stage lighting was bright enough to be OK for photography, which is always a bonus.

The next band up was Fatalist, a blackened hardcore trio. Blackened hardcore was new to me and I almost immediately decided it  wasn’t my thing. I wasn’t a fan. I felt sorry for them as there were issues with the bass amp/speaker cabinet and there was a lot of faff before they started, so much so that I missed the end of their set and also didn’t get to see The Domestics who were on next. None of this was anyone’s fault, tech issues are common at gigs, but I was a bit disappointed.

I had intended to make my excuses from dinner early and go back for Pigs*7 but after a few glasses of red and a delayed meal we didn’t end up leaving our friends house till past midnight.

The festival was cheap, had some great bands and the vibe in the rooms was really good, I’m gutted I ballsed it all up. Next year I will plan better.

We haven’t been spending a lot of time in St Leonards since Eleanor bought the new house in Leytonstone in November; we’ve visited so rarely that I’m seriously considering finding a tenant for the flat which is getting more and more expensive as the cost of living crisis bites. When my mortgage goes up in June it will stretch my finances significantly, renting will relieve the pressure but means we don’t have somewhere to go if we want. I love it when I come down though. Decisions decisions!