17th PSYCHOBILLY MEETING
Pineda De Mar
June 24th – 28th
5/5
The psychobilly scene’s summer holidays rolled around for the seventeenth year and once again lived up to all the anticipation. The town of Pineda De Mar (near Barcelona) is invaded by fans from all over the world meeting up during the day at the ‘Psycho’ Beach Bar. Various warm-up gigs took place during the week but the big names began to roll out on Thursday night at the smaller Magmar venue. The ASTRO ZOMBIES were definitely one of the highlights. The news of Michael Jackson’s sad demise had begun to filter through so it was up to DEMENTED ARE GO to pay tribute with a hearty ‘Good riddance you c**t’ before blasting into an excellent set. Friday was the first day in the large beach-side tent venue. The UK’s new favourites THE GRAVEYARD JOHNNYS gave a rollicking show to those that had turned out for their early slot. The horrorpunk-tinged THE REZUREX put up a slick performance before neo-rockabilly veterans THE CARAVANS gave the punters still sat outside no choice but to get in and check their set out. Psychobilly legend P PAUL FENECH headlined. His latest solo offerings have been excellent slabs of studio greatness but live they didn’t seem to ignite with the crowd. Maybe the fact the line-up was The Meteors with a couple of additional vocalists was the problem. The solo work is not The Meteors by design, but maybe that is what the slowly dispersing crowd would have preferred. A few Meteors classics pulled out of the bag did little to dampen the slight air of anti-climax. Saturday was lit up early by THE GUITAR SLINGERS, a psychobilly super-group of well-known luminaries. Japanese band BATTLE OF NIMJAMAZ blasted ears with their hard sound before THE GO GETTERS brought the rockabilly back but the band of the night and the whole weekend were FRENZY. Steve Whitehouse and cohorts showed how professional and tight psychobilly can be. The whole show simply rocked and with the wealth of top songs available from their back catalogue, never let up and thankfully never slipped into extended bass solos or crowd chant-backs. The whole weekend is so much more than just the gigs, the majority of Sunday being spent at the organized pool party. Sunday night was slightly quieter but no less rockin’ with The ARKHAMS, THE SURF RATS and POX raising their game, The Arkhams were particularly impressive. It spoke volumes that such a large crowd had amassed for headliners THE RICOCHETS and the wait was worth it as they blasted through their set of pioneering 80s favourites with three minutes of slap-bass brutality ‘Running Wild’ the highlight. The 17th Psychobilly Meeting was better than ever before, Sun, Sea, Psychobilly and a great atmosphere all packed into a very long weekend that belonged to Frenzy. Be there next year.
Simon Nott
