Gigantic Indie All Dayer – Marble Factory, Bristol

This was my second Gigantic Indie All Dayer – nine years after the last one. Because of COVID and whatnot I don’t think I missed any in the interim. But I wanted to go to this because (a) it’s obviously “my music”, (b) the tickets aren’t rip off prices and (c) Gigantic are generally pretty good organisers.

Today was also my 15th Jim Bob (solo) gig – although my first in 7 years – and my 12th Darling Buds gig, 9th Ned’s gig, but just my 3rd Inspirals gig. (Have to say I prefer Tom Hingley and the Kar-Pets).

It’s a 3 1/4 hour drive to Bristol now – but a really nice drive through the Welsh countryside. We stopped for lunch in the very picturesque Talgarth, and got to Bristol in time to check into our hotel, which was walking distance from the venue.

We timed it just right so we got in, shuffled up to the front (the room was pretty full already) and caught the whole of the Darling Buds set, which started at 3.30pm. Two more new songs in today’s set, so must be almost a whole album worth now? I chatted to Matt and Andrea after their show – they seemed very happy with the performance, but no sign yet of the promised 4th album though.

I hadn’t seen Northside or the Soup Dragons before. Northside were good in a dated, baggy kind of way and I watched the whole set. I saw a little bit of the Soup Dragons – which sounded much more up to date than the other bands – but sadly had to leave to join the very long queues for food, where at least I had a very generous chicken gyros and chips for a tenner.

Back in time for Jim Bob, who did a half solo, half Carter USM set – the usual karaoke was in place when the Carter songs were on, with the whole audience singing the songs. Me included. I can’t work out why I know the words to every Carter USM song after so many years, when there are bands I’ve played more and would struggle to sing the words to one song.

Was pretty exhausted by the time Ned’s came on – I’m getting too old for this! A good set, and they rattled through 18 songs in their one hour slot. Inspiral Carpets wrapped it up nicely – I managed to catch four songs before we gave up and staggered back to the hotel.