The second Blast Off! Festival in Nottingham proved to be a blast indeed – proving that small is beautiful, this three day event took place across two city centre venues, with a heady mix of bands, DJs and fun for lovers of classic garage rock n roll, psychobilly, Sixties psych and more.

Unfortunately, your humble editor was unable to make the third day, an all-dayer that is still taking place as I write this, for assorted irritating reasons. But unless something disastrous happened, I’m sure it was a splendid event, given that the first two nights were magnificent!

Taking place in – ahem – Spanky Van Dykes, the event opened up on Friday with a welcome change to the announced line-up, in the shape of Empress of Fur. This is a band I’d long wanted to catch up with, having managed to miss previous shows, and they didn’t disappoint, as the slinky Empress crept and crawled – quite literally – across the stage as the band pumped out some thumping beats, winding things up with a welcome Cramps cover and generally setting the bar high for the other acts to follow.

Local heroes Thee Eviltones stepped up to the challenge, banging out MC5 flavoured rockers that got the crowd stomping, and feeding of the increasing audience vibe – and what an audience! A fascinating mix of mods, rockers and sexy, sexy girls, this was a trulty cosmopolitan crowd, with – I suspect – more non-locals than locals, and a truly global smattering of punters.

This international flavour spread to the bands too, as Swedish rockers The Fourtune Tellers took to the stage and promptly tore it up with a spectacular performance that earned them a number of new fans. If you’re into Sixties garage music, you really need to check these guys out!

Although scheduled to run through til 4am, it seemed that most of the audience drifted off after the last band of the night, possibly to save their energies for the next evening, and I did likewise.

On Saturday, the crowd was bigger, the vibe groovier and the bands more spectacular. Things kicked off with all-girl outfit The Nuns – not to be confused with the New York goth band of the same name – who cranked it up and cranked it out with some style. It would take a lot to top them, and Northern rockers The Mourning After, though no slouches, didn’t quite manage to do so. That’s no criticism of their solid, infectious performance – just that when the quality is this good all round, you have a lot more to live up to. As one fellow attendee commented, the worst band at this event was still better than 99% of the stuff you might normally see.

The final band of the night were Wild Evel and the Trashbones, a bunch of Austrian lunatics who took the stage dressed as Robin Hood’s merry men (apart from the sole female member, who looked like Maid Marian) and promptly blew everyone away with a frantic, thunderous, out-of-control performance that probably had them groaning in pain when they sobered up in the morning, but which had the audience roaring their approval. Joined on stage by the Star Trek-inspired green-skinned go-go girls and a couple of ladies from the audience, these guys were spectacular!

With DJs from across the UK keeping the party going into the early hours, this was a glorious night – certainly the most fun I’ve had at a gig in a long, long time. My only complaint is that shindigs like this only take place once a year – we need more sleazy rock n roll events!

Your editor was filming during these two nights, so expect to see some raw live footage online soon!

DAVID FLINT

www.blastoff-festival.co.uk