LAS Festival

Friday 27 August 10 • Categorized as Gig Reviews

Before I start this article properly I must take a moment to apologise to everyone for taking so long to write it. For many reasons, some valid, some not and some that are just ridiculous, I have somehow managed to take months to finish this off.

Sorry about that.

The annual LAS Festival is now in its third year. After the success of the previous one day events in 2008 and 2009, the festival evolved in 2010, becoming a two day event held on Friday 28th May and Sunday 30th May. The LAS (Light and Sound) Festival is the brain child of Dale Hawkins, frontman of Jets to Zurich and the bloke who runs Imperious Music, and to be fair to him he managed to put together a pretty good line up.

Unfortunately the festival was blighted by a last minute venue change. A switch between the intended venue at the Aberdare Rugby Club to the Cwmaman Hall and Institute had a profound impact on the size of the crowd, which is a shame because there were some pretty good bands playing.

Another bit of misfortune, this time on my part, due to my transportation situation I missed the headlining bands on both nights. But mishaps aside it’s about time I moved on to the actual review.

(About now you are probably wondering what kind of journalist I am, and the answer is: Not a very good one, but at least I can admit it, and if you’ve managed to read this far you might as well just keep on going.)

The first night was held in a rather big room, which, due to the size of the crowd, probably wasn’t the best of ideas but I’m sure it provided someone which a fairly decent learning experience so it’s not all that bad.

The line up featured Aulos and Jets to Zurich, who were both great, there were some other bands as well. One of the other bands had a guitarist who looked like he was straight out of Wayne’s World, and after I had shared that fact with everyone in the room who would listen to me, I started feeling pretty good about myself and the gig.

The headliner that night was I Am Hope who I have heard nothing but bad things about so I wasn’t too sad that I missed them.

On the whole I think the first night was OK. Totally I’d give it 6 out of 10. (7 out of 10 for the music, which was brought down to 4 out of 10 for the lack of crowd and atmosphere, with a final two of points being contributed by the kid who was apparently lacking in the ability to recognise a parody.)

The second night was better. I turned up a bit late, I can’t remember why, but it probably has something to do with the fact that Cwmaman is hidden so deep in a tiny nook of a valley that it is practically in a cave. No offence intended to the town or people of Cwmaman, but you have to admit that the place is pretty difficult to find.

The bands on the second night were pretty cool, Clay Statues and Broken Vinyl Club to name two. I have lost pretty much all of my notes since I began the long and painful process of writing this review and the notes I took on the second night were written on to beer mats so…

I think I have the poster somewhere, hang on a minute, I will try to find it.

Sorry for keeping you waiting, it was in a box under my bed, not that you needed to know that. After looking at the poster all kinds of memories have come flooding back. The Heavy Flames and the Gubbins were also playing. The Gubbins were in their usual good form and I remember being distinctly impressed by The Heavy Flames.

Unfortunately any other knowledge my brain collected about this festival now appears to have sunk to the deepest, darkest place in my mind and I don’t think there is any reason to suspect that it will ever be heard from again.

I should probably end the thing there. I think that any more exposure to my shockingly awful journalism may result in you having a massive brain haemorrhage.