Beer and Music – A Perfect Combination

Billy Wears Dresses went on tour for the bank holiday down to Hampshire. The venue was The Bullington Cross Inn near Winchester and the event was a beer and music festival.

The band and its entourage arrived on Saturday afternoon and began to set up what could only be described as the Billy Wears Dresses Commune.

The campsite was located at the far end of the pub car park which is bordered on three sides by busy dual carriage ways. The ground itself was a touch rough but that didn’t dampen our spirits, it certainly didn’t dampen the Bacardi anyway!

That evening there was a BBQ, a sing-along, beer, wine and Bacardi but by 4am the camp fell silent.

Sunday morning was spent watching the festival ground being set up and for some it was at time for nursing hangovers. Did I mention the Bacardi by the way?

The sun was shining and the weather was sweet, yeah. It made us wanna move our dancing feet.

The first of the 6 acts to play was a country band called The Big River Bandits. We all really enjoyed listening to their easy going style with a mix of original country music, rockabilly and bluegrass. They can be seen at www.myspace.com/thebigriverbandits.

Next up was Addison a solo singer who treated us to a set list of R&B. It was Addison’s first performance in front of a large audience and although he had a slightly nervous start his talent soon shone through.

The third band, a 3 piece call Rusty Strings looked as though they were going to be a punk band due to the Bassist Tom Moores radical Spike Mohican but then they opened up with a Red Hot Chilli Peppers number which was a pleasant surprise. They played a great set and we wish them all the best, the young scamps! They have a profile at www.myspace.com/rustystrings.

As the sun began to set it was Billy’s turn to take the stage. It didn’t take very long for the crowd to warm to them despite the fact that hardly anyone in the audience would have ever heard a BWD song.

The guys would later say that they were not to comfortable on such a small stage that they could hardly move and that they couldn’t hear themselves due to a problem with the monitors but it really didn’t show in the audience.

Nor did it matter that one of the band members was feeling the effects of to much sun (pronounced al-co-hol).

By the time they were half way through their set people were beginning to dance and air guitar. After their 9th original track BWD went on to play some covers. They started with the Eels “Mr E’s Beautiful Blues” followed by Radiohead’s “Creep” and Blur’s “Song 2” which stirred the crowd enough for them to call for and encore.

Billy responded by blasting out “Cigarettes and Alcohol” by Oasis.

The penultimate act was a solo artist called Pete Holden who performed for us a selection of covers from Rock, Pop and Soul bands both modern and older.

The final band of the night was called Quattro, a five piece that delivered on their promise to get us dancing.

It was towards the end of their set that the Billy boys decided to don the Sumo suits and start to rough each other up, while some of us were lighting the fire for the night’s celebrations.

A great time was had by all. You can now download a 30 minute podcast of the weekend at http://billywearsdresses.mypodcast.com/rss.xml and pictures are at www.myspace.com/billywearsdresses.

Mark Lawrence
The Fifth Billy