Touring and Festivals
The 25th anniversary of the Ashton Court Festival may have lacked the big headliners of last year, but it certainly featured the cream of the Bristol scene. All-female band MOOZ continue to impress, and their cool jazz beats were perfect for lazing around in the scorching sun.”
– Evening Post, Ashton Court special 1999
Along with our local Bristol gigs we played many festivals over the years including Glastonbury, Edinburgh Fringe Festival, Bristol Community Festival at Ashton Court Estate, Lady Fest, Truck Festival, Sheep Music and St Werburgh’s City Farm Festival. Going on tour to Greece with Morning Star, Tammy Payne and Patrick Duff was probably one of Amy’s fondest memories (see video and this image, drawn by Jim Barr. And thanks to Gothmag, who organised the trip). We all shared musical parts and performing together as each other’s backline. We even played a gig in Egypt!
One of our standout festival slots was early on in our life cycle when we played Glastonbury – the Sunshine Stage in the Green Futures Field. During our soundcheck, Roni Size cycled into the tent as we had caught his attention with our drum ‘n’ bass song Grit. Roni liked it so much that he wanted to help us record and produce it. It ended up as our demo.
“Travelling up to Edinburgh during the Fringe festival to play at the ‘Bongo Club’ was always a great adventure. We were surrounded by tons of performers and the experience expanded our minds. It is very special to have those memories. The downside was the long drives but with a great gang in a rented minibus, we laughed our way through it. We were lucky to cover our costs with gig money and slept on the floors of lovely and very generous hosts.” – Amy
It was very exciting to play the big stages, sometimes with big video screens as well as large and distant crowds. The sound was always a bit of a shock though. There was so much space between us, we felt almost vulnerable. There was never a chance to sound check and we generally couldn’t hear the other instruments. We would try to glue our ears to the monitors to hold us together. Practising the art of big stage performances was done on the job.
The show must always go on!
