A quick weekend in Lincoln, England-The Night [part 2]

Coconut DF Live @Jolly Brewer, Lincoln 28th October 2006

Another great show delivered by Coconut DF on saturday night.

The Jolly Brewer, an outdoors venue pub garden, was packed. There is everytime more and more people attending to the gigs, which is good considering the lack of promotion on this band.

I guess is all made by the 'word to mouth', which is without a doubt the best of the promotions.

The show kicked off about 9 pm by a supporting act [DJ Diltsy] who was also lined up at the Brewerfest. Techno Beats energy. A good warm up along with some pints.

Coconut DF started the set about 9:45.

It was the full band, Ralph Harris drums&Keyboards, Paul 'Didge', Dave Fielding with his space rock guitar riffs and an also an extra percussionist.

I am not sure about the sound compared with other previous shows, but I was on the front and stage sides taking some photos, so I guess its not the best place for acoustics.

The whole show was video taped with 3 cameras and also recorded on the sound desk, so that hints the probably upcoming release of a live DVD.

I cant wait for that. It was again a full real pleasure to listen Dave Fielding unique Microfret ebow trippy effects .

Their guitar&techno-Trance beats made everybody dance away. Paul was stunning with his didge so was Ralph on the drums. There was a couple of new tracks played at the end of the set. Dave and Paul rehearsed them the very same morning at Dave's home recording studio in Lincoln. I am aware they were meeting the next days to play and jam new songs.

Dave displayed pure Melancholy in The Reegs song 'Bosnia'. Its the only track with lyrics on the Coconut DF set. Sad song about the loss of a friend, someone you trusted, but all without self pity.

We want a full album lads!

Beautiful.

On the middle of an ecstatic guitar solo he dropped in a short but great riff of The Chameleons song 'Pleasure and Pain'!!

What a nice surprise!

Dave said he didnt know how but it just suddenly came to him. Its the first time I see him playing anything Chameleons related in all dozen times or so I have seen him live with The Reegs or any of his other solo projects.

It was commented after the show and everybody seemed very pleased about. It was a short but very nice trip back on time.

Dave took over the toms on the encore.

Coconut DF cosmic trance alliance taking off.

A journey to mysterious sonic lands.

That night we had an intense visitation of energy.
Deep beats and big epic spaced out melodies dominate.

And all this wall to wall with a beautiful church behind! This brought the perfect spiritual atmosphere to the place.

It wasnt easy to get focused taking photos after 'a few' local bitter pints!

The lights and fog machine were again hosted by my friend Gaz and it was a really oustanding job I have to say, as good as it was in the 'Brewer Fest' this last summer, if not better, it was really supportive to the whole show.

Thanks for making that happen mate.

I have no idea wich form or direction this band will get on the future but I really hope they play more gigs even if it is from time to time.

Coconut DF result is a trippy journey, the platform which provides a balanced fusion of Daves unique guitar sound and some psychedelic trance with a didgeridoo on full turbo mode.

A new musical perspective and a fantastic live experience.

Cheers.

You can see some other photos here [same text]:

http://blog.myspace.com/index.cfm?fuseaction=blog.view&friendID=45812453&blogID=187492714&MyToken=698f08da-68fe-4aea-b1c8-dd3811580913

Pedro Vila, Somewhere in Arguelles Madrid 1st December 2006.

A quick weekend in Lincoln, England-The day [part1]

Lincoln Cathedral

For some unknown reason I always liked to visit the churches to all the places I go. I have never been a religious type of person, despite the quite common and widely extended catholic background here in Spain. Cathedrals always had a special appeal to me, but like I said more under an aesthetic point of view not religious.

Lincoln Cathedral was first build in 1072 by William the conqueror. But It wasn’t as big as it is now, as it was rebuilt after en earthquake in 1185 by a French Bishop. Between the years 1307 and 1311 the central tower was raised to its present height of 83 m (271 feet).

The legend 'Mandingo' enjoying the rehersals

So on Saturday morning I went to visit Lincoln Cathedral. My friend Dave wanted to rehearse new songs for the gig he had that night in The Jolly Brewer.

I always thought some musicians like to be alone when they want some inspiration, at least that would happen to me, so me and Becky decided to go to make some photos of the Cathedral.

I have been in Lincoln few times, and visited the Cathedral surroundings, but never been inside.

You have to walk up the hill through narrow streets. The place is very nice. It is like a trip back in time and I always liked old things.

You can find lots of stone made and old Tudor style houses on the way. Some were made three and four hundred years ago.

The entrance to the Cathedral is pretty impressive. The first thing you see is a huge corridor with very high walls and a big old organ at the bottom.

There were huge arches above us. The windows were beautiful with lots of colours, you could see like little stories or tales painted on them.

Lincoln Cathedral has a very strong gothic Anglican-Protestant style, which makes it slightly different from the ones we have here in Spain. There weren’t virgins anywhere inside to be seen.

Organ

The organ is beautiful. It was huge. Dave said he had a chance to play it someday.
I will try to not to miss that if ever happens.

Behind the organ there was like a big room surrounded by wooden seats for the bishops I guess. They probably sat there and discussed their things.
There was an altar with a huge golden eagle. Bit scaring, to be honest.

Becky in the Cathedral

Bishop Speaker Altar

I gave a small donation for the maintenance of the cathedral. They give you a piece of paper with a prayer and you write down a wish. I wrote a note for the kids suffering wars in the Middle East countries, it was the first thing came to my mind.

‘Drop thy still dews of quietness
Till All our strivings cease;
Take from our souls the strain and stress
And let our ordered lives confess
The Beauty of thy pace.

J.G.Whittier [1807-92]

That’s what It said on the prayer paper by the way.

Lincoln Castle

I was told parts from the movie The da Vinci Code were filmed in the Cathedral.

There was some patio inside the cathedral, with few tomb stones.

One of the stone gargoyles within the Cathedral is the Lincoln Imp.

There are several variations of the legend surrounding the figure.

According to 14th-century legend, two mischievous creatures called Imps were sent by Satan to do evil work on Earth. After causing mayhem elsewhere in Northern England the two imps headed to Lincoln Cathedral where they smashed tables and chairs and tripped up the Bishop.

An angel appeared in the Angel Choir and ordered them to stop. One of the imps sat atop a stone pillar started throwing rocks at the angel whilst the other imp cowered under the broken tables and chairs. The angel turned the first imp to stone allowing the second imp escape. The imp turned to stone, The Lincoln Imp, can still be found, frozen in stone, sitting atop his stone column in the Angel Choir.

Then we decided it was time to head to Lincoln Castle.

There was a pretty high tower on top, and I thought it would be the best place to get a good shot from the Cathedral.

There was a small bar inside the Castle so we agreed to sit in the terrace and have a cup of tea while watching some guys practicing with arches.

Robin Hood for the weekend.

We suddenly saw a wedding!

They wanted to do a picture inside the castle I guess. I thought they were lucky with the weather.

Thought was all pretty funny. I have never been in a wedding. Don’t blame me, my friends never got married.

The views from the top of the tower were fantastic.

There was a prison inside the castle, so we decided to have a look.

Prison

It all looked too clean, tidy and well painted to me. Wonder if it was like that back then.
The prison cells had some video holographic recording images explaining the in mates rules and lifestyle.

Apparently they were 22 hours per day inside the cells, but prisoners were allowed to go to the prison chapel once a day. Fun

They covered their heads with masks so, apparently they could not recognize each other. They weren’t allowed to speak either.

Nice.


Prison Chapel

I didn’t see any torture chamber by the way.

About 4 o clock it was finally time to go, we had a gig to catch in the city centre and we didn’t want to miss it .
I had such a great time in the Cathedral and Lincoln Castle.

Thank you Becky!