A great day all round. I managed to get in the photo pit for most of the bands, and the resulting pics will appear here shortly.
Unfortunately, I missed Jaded Heart (well apart from the last couple of songs) as I was late getting in but what I heard didn't sound too bad.
Crunch sounded OK but I just couldn't get the image of John Candy out of my head, watching thm on stage. I think they have a definite image problem for this kind of music.
Valentine were a revelation. Much much better than I was expecting. The band look a class act on stage and Hugo has a superb voice. He also seems to be a pretty nice guy with it. After their set he spent the best part of two hours outside chatting to fans, signing autographs and posing for pictures and stayed until every last person who wanted to speak to him got a chance to do so. Well beyond the call of duty.
Jorn played a competent set, although on an occasion like Firefest I would have expected them to play less cover material. They could also have been a little more professional about the mic failure, theatrically trying every mic on the stage and then stopping the song altogether.
Harem Scarem are a band who for some reason I've never been that familiar with. As other people have already commented, their set was a little disjointed in that they played stuff that obviously they wanted to play, rather than what would probably have appealed to more of the audience. As their last show, I suppose that is their prerogative, and they certainly enjoyed themselves on stage.
Tyketto were the band that, primarily, I was here to see (and photograph). As usual, Danny led a storming set. If he could harness that energy he has on stage he'd never have to pay another electric bill. Tyketto played the songs that people expected to hear on their penultimate show - and they got a great reception from the entire house.
I've managed to edit and upload the photos I took of Tyketto and you can see them here...
http://www.martymoffatt.com/tyketto2007firefest4What I saw of FM sounded good, but unfortunately I had to leave before the end so I can't really comment on their set.
I will have photos of the other bands (well most of 'em) up online soon, and will post a link here.
Marty
www.martymoffatt.com