Jonathan "Tempest" Phillips

So i’m about to pull the plug on my internet in a while. well actually i’m about to unplug my PC as a whole in bit. For you see, little denison of the interweb, I am about to enbark on a great and dangerous journey. I’m about to move into a flat with claudia, my wife to be. I’m really looking forward to it. Can’t wait until I can wake up every morning and role over and a vision beauty lying next to me.

Were going over to Ironbridge, a historical town featuring an…………*drum roll*…….Ironbridge. Infact we can see said bridge from out flat. In fact we can see the river, gorge and valley from out flat. Its gunna rock.

But to do that I need to disconnect my self from the ones and zeros being pumped through my phone line. So here it goes. Next time you hear from me I shall be speaking to you from our gaming room (I Shit You Not)

This is somthing I have had sitting on my desktop for a while and just wanna get it out there so that I can release it from my desktop.

Below are two pictures. Both taken on my graduation day by the same person. But can you see the difference. yes thats right….in the one picture I look like a prat and on the other picture mother looks like a miserable bag.

So, using only a mask and no smudging or fading at all (which i am surprised about not needing) i cut the two together like so….

      Sorry about the mammoth gap between infest and the end of this damn blog……but I’ve got a lot going on in my life right now that is taking up valuable blogging time. But don’t worry, as I shall be informing you about that soon and this is the last of the colossal infest blog posts.

      Well first band of the day was Rupesh Cartel This was one of the few bands I had heard a large quantity of stuff by. A lot of there songs were very much what I liked. Simplistic synch with clean powerful vocals over the top. Just simple, yet good, music. A lot of there songs were also the sing along types of songs (about denial and push). Diffidently a warm up band, but still great to listen to. But when it came to them playing….something wasn’t quite right. I think they had polished there recorded music so much that when it came to performing live they weren’t as good as they were on the cd. Its like linkin park…..they spent so long of recording value and music production that it far exceeds the songs played live. They were still fun to listen to but were slightly upsetting to not be as polished as I would have liked.

      Next was one of the power four, PainBastard I had heard there stuff before and if you look on myspace, they are the music that I have attached to my profile currently. They sounded like if Dimmu Borgir had made industrial instead metal. Well let’s talk about the band themselves…… because they are worth talking about. The singer comes out dressed in armour covered in circular razors, like he had been attacked by an angle grinder. Then there was the music man, working the drum machine and syth. Well how can I put this? IT WAS WESKER from resident evil. He was wearing the glasses, had the hair and even was wearing the jacket……it was kinda creepy. But then he took of his glasses (presumably because they were sunglasses and he was in a dark as hell club) and turned into a Nazi……very much the super solider template. Blonde hair, blue eyes, emotionless and looking like he could take a bullet to the gut and not even flinch. But back to the music. They were amazing. I knew they were going to be good. But I did not expect what I got. They were full of passion, anger and hate (both the music and the vocals) if they were to come back next year I would not feel upset or cheated. Infact, bring it on.

      Soman was the next in line. They, or rather I should say he, was very good. Claudia took the time to browse the market one last time, so I was all alone in the crowd. This was the first time I had actually started to dance…..club style. Looking back on it I would have more than likely looked like an idiot. But at the time there was nothing cooler to do. The music was very hard and great to dance to. He had also employed two of the shop owners to dance on stage next to him……did I mention they were wearing nurse outfits and tight leather. Fun for the whole family.

      Lastly, but in no way least, was VNV Nation. I must admit I wasn’t particularly looking forward to them before hand. The album I had was “advance and follow” which I have now found out is there worst album and does not give a clear view of the band. Even still we decided that we were going to try and get close to the front. We succeeded. We were right at the front hanging over the bars to the left. So they came on stage and jumped right into nemesis from there new album and completely blew my mind. From that point on I was an instant fan. The song was fast, powerful and with great lyrics and vocals…….how could I complain? Between this song and the next, there was a slight gap as one of the symbols had broken and was being repaired “well its not a really party time something gets broken” he declared on stage he then filled the gap by keeping the audience happy and was really funny on stage. In fact you can hear what he said on you tube here.
      From then onwards it was nothing but great music and fun times had by all. They then went into dark angel (as the video dictates) and then into farthest star. He then paused before jumping into the next song and declared “The next song is dedicated to Sophie Lancaster who was killed yesterday for being a Goth” they then started to ply “Illusion” which if you have heard the song is very appropriate. Instead of the usual screams of happiness and excitement, a round of applause carried itself across the entire crowd. (To find out more about Sophie Lancaster please view this article.
      They then carried on with the ass kick music they had started with. Each song made me love them more and more. Until the time came when it was the end of their set. Due to the location we were standing in, we could see where they went to. They were simply standing outside having a smoke. British down to the last drop. The crowd chanted and soon they were back on stage ready to entertain the masses again. Don’t ask me what order they were in but I know that “Serial killer”, “Genesis” and “Savior” were all played and are now on my top played list too. After many talks with the audience (and naming us the crowd of the blinky blinky) they left the stage once again. Once again they stood outside smoking away as the crowd chanted for them to return. And return they did. By this time I was on so much of a high from the gig I was ready to explode……..but I didn’t. Don’t worry I didn’t just combust from no reason. They stood on stage and told us how this would normally be where their set would end but due to the fact that they were veterans of infest and in the early days infest gave them the publicity they needed, they were going to carry on. And so they did when everybody left they were so amazed by the spectacle that they had witnessed, that all of the VNV nation merchandise had sold out. I had been made a life long fan of VNV nation again and Claudia went home and found out when they were touring again. They really did steal the show. VNV all the way. But incase you weren’t able to attend or if you did and want to remember it all over again. I think you may find this quite amusing. Infest: the movie

      It is now more than a week since infest and I’m still on a slight high from it. At work I am singing songs by the likes of Apoptygma, VNV and Dopestars. In fact I’m singing them so much that I have got the song “Until the end of the world” stuck in       somebody else’s head and they haven’t even heard the song. Yay for persistence.

      On day two, instead of the mass of chairs and tables in the main area, there was now a large market place. But not just any market place. No this was not your local fruit and veg type market. This was for unlocal leather, Goth, Rivet and Clubber market place. Everything from UV clothing to bondage gear was on sale. An array of goggles, gasmasks and bracelets were lined out on tables as the pitch black clothing hung on rails next to the ultraviolet yellows and greens. There were stores by cyberdog, caustic and other such abstract names. There was also two…not one, but TWO, huge stalls of obscure music on cd and in some cases vinyl. There I got the echo image album as I have been looking for their album after using three tracks from it in my work. Claudia bought herself a green UV jumper with the sleeves attached by clips and buckles. God, I love that woman.

      The first band of the day was Faderhead. Well actually it was synnac…..but me and Claudia spent the morning looking for waffles and playing with darleks (a whole new Blog in itself). Faderhead were not bad at all. Sexy and dirty music. They got the people ready for the day ahead and put people back in the right mood after portion control the night before. One of the songs they played was dirty girls. It was the first time I had heard the song and it was stuck in my head for quite some time afterwards. I even heard some people topside singing it together in a group.

      Next up was Caustic. I found out after watching them that the band is basically one guy that gets other bands that he is friends with to play the music for him while he sings. This time is was Gothsicles. The real reason they were here. Caustic were a great band. There music was fast, fun and the singer had real passion behind him (something that had been lacking up till now). Jumping into techie mode for a second, I just want to say his gear was amazing. Last year people just had to lean to far forward with there microphone and reverb would occur. This guy literally stood in front of the speakers with is wireless mic and there was not the slightest hint of reverb. He took advantage of this fact at the end of his set by running into the crowd on the last song. Still roaring at the top of his voice. Although once he reached the center of the crowd he did stop and declare “Fuck, Goths are tall” he then continued back to the stage. On his way I slapped him of the back in a, good job, manor. Not a huge moment in my life, I slapped the back of the guy who was in that band that nobody has heard of…….but it was cool at the time, in the moment and stuff……stop looking at me like that……screw you.

      Next up on the show of win, was Dope Stars INC. This was the first of my big four to play (the big four being Dopestars, Apoptygma, Painbastard and VNV) they were unbelievable. When I found out they were going to be playing at infest I didn’t quite know why as they were more metal than industrial. But I didn’t care, as I liked metal more so than industrial. So this band strolls on the stage, right……and they are all pretty boys. They could cross dress and get laid really easily as nobody who know they were lads. But that’s enough about gender bending for now. They played all the right songs and more. The singer was full of passion and so was the crowd. All of the yelling and screaming parts of songs were performed more by the crowd than the band. It was great. After one song I heard people at the back of the gig booing. But its ok fans, I’m sure the large number of heavy boots wearing people around them stomped on their head until they were one level down (a rotersand reference). Before they left, they played something totally unexpected. They pulled out “The Ace of Spades” and rocked the whole place. Just imaging Moterhead doing it with a higher pitched voice and a drum machine instead of a drummer. Just beautiful man.

      The next band was 13th monkey. Notice how I didn’t link his name to a website. This is because he was at infest last year under the alias of kiew and the year before that under another name and I’m sure he’ll be back with another band next year. Last year he was terrible. Really bad, just drum and bass and some incomprehensible words….not lyrics, just words.

      So me and Claudia stayed away from the music and went to get some air. While doing so the guy who was introducing all the bands, the guy who we dubbed Mr infest. Came over and had a chat with us. He always wears clothes out of sync with everybody else. Last year he introduced Front line assembly while dressed as a sailor. This year he was wearing a farmer’s cap, a tweed suit and new rock boots. He called he outfit cyber tweed. LONG LIVE CYBER TWEED. He also introduced caustic while wearing a huge sumo fat suit….sorry did I forget to mention that. He then started to tell us that cyberdog are planning releasing UV glow in the dark fat suits next year. God help us all.

      But the greatest part of Saturday was the final act. Apoptygma Berzerk. By this time Claudia’s feet had died on her so we stayed at the back of the club where there were stairs to sit on. Even right at the back the atmosphere was fantastic. They played some of the best tracks to play live. Such songs as “until the end of the world”, “Kathy’s song” and “Starsign”. All of the songs people sung along with in the chorus. But it was “Eclipse” that was truly amazing. As they started the song a huge roar of amazement flowed over the crowd. As it started a woman told a bloke near her “this is my favourite song ever” and I understood why she would say that. During the chorus all of the crowd raised their hands in the air and sang along like a giant wave of harmony. When I listen to this song I can’t help but close my eyes and let the music flow over me (which is why I don’t have it in the car) as I looked around when the song was being played and I saw other people doing the same thing. People were just letting the music and the atmosphere be part of them. As a song of unity, the crowd really banded together to be part of something beautiful…….

.…..and that’s all I have to say about that.

Coming soon, infest 2007 day 3.