The Darker My Horizon - Quarantune Rocks Party, The Old Dairy Farm, Cropredy, 9 October 2021

6 Bands, 1 stage, 1 day:

The Darker My Horizon
Ryders Creed
Shades Of Seattle
King Awesome
Skinny Knowledge
More Human Than Human

Quarantune Rocks was set up in March 2020 to support rock music fans, bands and venues in what we thought would be a temporary covid glitch, three of us started our Facebook group with approximately 20 friends invited to join, word spread, we locked our group as we got to 350 members as we wanted to be able to manage it and not create an administrative monster – we now stand at well over a thousand members, with 6 admins and new people join our QR family all the time!

Well what to say about our very first Quarantune Rocks Party – I am of course bias here, this was a very overdue event that has seen its fair share of reschedules for the obvious reasons, did I believe it would happen on the 9^thOctober? Not until I arrived on site on Friday night and saw the stage being set up. Our QR admin team met together in person for the first time ever – it was emotional!

Our Stage and sound crew from Apache Stages, were second to none – running a 1 day event with 6 bands on 1 stage and a live music curfew of 10pm, meant we had a really tight schedule for sets and changeovers – the crew were brilliant from start to finish, with all the bands commenting on the quality set up and sound.

Our site in Cropredy was on the Old Dairy Farm, which if you have been to Fairport Convention you’d recognise as field 8, everything was spot on, the team were super friendly, the facilities were fabulous, set up was smooth, food and bar all high quality and great value for money.

For our opening set, More Human Than Human stepped up to the stage to blazing sunshine and what a great opening set it was, people were talking about it all day / night! This is a 2 piece prog rock metal band who put the ‘heavy’ into rock.

Playing original materials with some atmospheric synth chucked in for good measure and a new album on the way, they definitely attracted attention and new fans. Standout tracks for me More Human than Human and We Are In This Together.

Next up was Skinny Knowledge – their debut album ‘Don’t Turn Out The Lights’ was released earlier this year, and frankly it is sublime, so I was really looking forward to seeing them play live. Only on early in our bill as they were added when we rescheduled to October and they already had another gig later that day. This combined with the fact that the lead singer was recovering from a stinking cold and they had a very new guitarist, what absolute troopers!

Opening with the title track of the album and covering all of my stand out tracks, King of Nothing, Alive and of course, Keep Me Out of It had us on our feet, chucking in a couple of cover from Guns n Roses and Green Day they cemented their top performance to an appreciative audience.

King Awesome were up next, they are an eighties hair metal cover band that are simply second to none, complete with spandex, wigs and outfits – they were party central and got the whole crowd involved in their energised set as they delivered hit after hit, from all the bands we loved back in the day, including serious audience participation for ‘Girls Girls Girls’ and to the band’s surprise, Nothin’s Gonna Stop us Now (Boris take note!) – that was such fun, what a performance, you made the afternoon fly by!

Shades Of Seattle, a grunge covers act followed and belted out a class set that saw a mosh pit form for all the classics, opening with Rage Against the Machine’s Wake Up, Pearl Jam’s Alive and covering a master class of Nirvana’s catalogue About a Girl, Lithium and closing out with Territorial Pissings – what a great addition to our line up!

Onto Ryders Creed, who had travelled from Stoke through rubbish weather to arrive to glorious sunshine and a crowd who couldn’t wait to hear them – their set was punchy, tight with superb musicianship from the opener ‘Memories’ and showcasing the vocal range of frontman, Ryan with Lost Soul to My Life – what a voice, what a star in the making, and with 2 albums under their belt, this band is clearly destined for bigger things.

Our headliner, The Darker My Horizon, earned their legend wings that evening as Paul, the lead singer was in significant pain with a knee and hamstring injury, but decided the band would play regardless, so despite needing a chair briefly and Russ, the drummer, covering a section of vocals when Paul couldn’t hobble back to his microphone in time, this was as ever, a pure class performance.

Truly humbled when the band added my favourite track of theirs to the set, Diablo, not one they usually play live (but they so should)! The whole crowd were on their feet and dancing by the time they invited Chris, (from our stage crew and guitarist with a different band – Bare Knuckle – who unfortunately, couldn’t make our rescheduled date) to join them for Summer of 69.

Closing their set with the classic ‘Still Alive’ the energy was palpable and so was the happiness…. For so many people, this was the first time that they had been to a live music event since Covid wreaked havoc and the utter joy was clear to see.

To everybody who came to party with us, you demonstrated from start to finish what rock family is all about – great people, fun times, new friendships made and old friends reuniting over a shared love of live music with everyone having a ball. We came, we camped, our bands rocked and we partied hard!

Overall, this first attempt at a live music event exceeded expectations – much blood, sweat and tears went into it and I think we pulled it off, team admin were a tad emotional on Sunday morning when we realised it was over. Given the positive reactions we have had, we are already looking at organising something for next year … watch this space.

Review by Karen Clayton

Photos: https://www.facebook.com/LokaLoPhotography

Featured Artist: JOSH TAERK

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Power Plays w/c 9 December 2024

In this sequence we play ‘The Best of 2024′ GRTR! reviewer selections

Featured Albums w/c 9 December 2024

09:00-12:00 The Best of 2024 (Melodic Rock)
12:00-13:00 The Best of 2003-2024 (Melodic Hard Rock)
14:00-16:00 The Best of 2024 (Singer Songwriter)