Mud? Glastonburied...

So, it turned out to be either thick sloppy mud and rain, or scorching sunshine - 2011 was a glastonbury of extremes. Which doesn't make it easy when you're carting musical equipment around the site through the throng, but going up on stage at the Avalon Cafe to play to a rammed 600-strong audience definitely makes it worth it! Of our gigs at Glastonbury 2011 this was definitely our highlight - thanks to Lisa at Avalon for giving us the slot, and I suppose we also need to say thanks to the Huckleberries for cancelling as we weren't expecting to play there this year!

We don't have and footage of us playing, but here's a clip of our crowd! http://www.urusen.co.uk/avalon-cafe-glastonbury2011.html

Our slot at the Avalon Cafe took place on the Thursday afternoon and our next official gig was not until Sunday night at The Bandstand, but we managed to fit in a backstage gig at the Acoustic Stage and also do a radio interview with Worthy FM where Ben, Kieran and Pete performed a couple of tracks live on air. We were also played on BBC Radio Bristol as part of their Glastonbury coverage - apparently our songs make people cry! But, in a good way….we hope! technically it was an exclusive too - the first radio play of any of the new tracks done with Steve Osborne.

So, it was a bit of a working weekend, but there was plenty of time to get involved…Highlights: Elbow - for awesome crowd singing (plus the sun had finally decided to show its face), Paul Simon - a total legend (and yes he did play You can call me Al), the Treetop Flyers (definitely a band to watch out for) on after us at the Avalon Cafe, and seeing our good friend Pete Roe playing with Laura Marling, who was excellent on the Pyramid Stage. Oh and Shangri la and Arcadia…still nuts, and still amazing.

Thanks to everyone who made it along to see us - it was awesome too to see lots of familiar faces. And keep an eye out for us if you're at any other festivals this summer as we'll be doing a few more, including Secret garden Party and The Big Chill.

As for Glasto, next year is a fallow year - probably just as well after most of the site this year been trampled into an unrecognisable lake of mud, it deserves a bit of time to recover…as do we ;o) Even so, roll on 2013...

Whoa there, what's all that racket?!

...its the sound of us being REALLY busy! Lots of stuff going on of late in Urusen land, quite a few good gigs (where were you?!) and then lots of meetings and planning and practising and recording and...and...I'll tell you all about it!

So since the last blog, we played at the single launch of our friends Trail. it was in North London and was lots of fun and there are some lovely pictures from the night that are up on our facebook page (not group - that's closing soon so if you're still using that, get with the programme, the changeover is coming!) so have a look, some great ones of Nick and Jay - helps when your playing 100 year old beautiful instruments!

We also recently made our debut at the renowned South London venue, The Bedford. The venue is genuinely one of the most special small venues in London, with a startingly good sound system and lighting rig. The gig went really well and it was lovely to see some faces not seen for a while - we've already confirmed to go back in February so hopefully see you again then.

Last night, we we're back on Pete and Ben's home turf, playing at the infamous Moles, supporting up and coming indie-folksters Stornoway who are currently touring in support of their new single Unfaithful. We met Rahul from the band at the Larmer Tree Festival in the summer, so was great to see him again, and the night was really good all round, bpth bands on top form. Thanks to Steve and 13th floor, and everyone who came down, hopefully be back again soon.

Lots of other things going on behind the scenes at present, but nothing too set in stone yet unfortunately so will let you all know when it all gets confirmed.

In the meantime, check out this - nothing to do with us! But if you stumble across any funny urusen-themed links then please let us know!

WOMAD (by Ben)

This week Urusen played at WOMAD festival. It was a last minute booking from the organiser. A new stage had been planned in the Real Ale Bar and the organiser, Paula Henderson, had sent us an email inviting us to play. Sunday night, 7.50pm, in the bar. Cool! Work cancelled, shifts moved, and we were good to go, except of course Nick, who couldnt shift the due date of his and Ellie's baby, so we were playing as a 4-piece for this one.

I arrived on Saturday afternoon, catching a bus, then a train, then a bus, then another bus. I was feeling quite smug as I had just bought a trolley and bag for all my gear. Except that the trolley adds another 10kg to the whole wait, and Chippenham train station is ALL STAIRS. The nice bus driver wished Urusen well as I disembarked for the long walk to the Artist's camping area, same as normal camping, just a lot further. Having hoisted up my little fake tee pee I then realised I'd left my phone behind, so for the next 24 hours it was going to be a big wander, as the rest of the guys weren't arriving till Sunday afternoon. What an idiot!

A cider, well, three, later I finally bumped into someone I knew. Sarah, who I went to school with since I was 5 years old. She was heading for home with her children but gave me a hot tip to look out for purple and pink wigs in the Sian tent which were donning her sister Kathleen and mum Caro. Sarah's family actually RUN Womad so I felt pretty chuffed to be hanging out with them for the rest of the evening. Had a retro-boogie-reminisce to Peter Gabriel and was blown away by AMAZING beat boxing later that night.

As the inevitable rain eventually passed over us I headed to sleep, carefully positioning my mat between the four puddles that had already strategically collected themselves under the window's of the tee pee. It was a cold, wet night.

Skip forward 13 hours and the first car to arrive was Jay and Little Pete, slightly shaken from a high speed chase through the back streets of Kilburn as they were coming out of London. "Never talk back to aggressive drivers" is the lesson. But if anywhere can relax you, WOMAD can. Despite the rain, the atmosphere is warm. With some cider and food inside them, we swayed to high-octane bass clarinet by the BBC 3 stage. As the clouds drew in we headed back to meet Kieran who had just arrived and load our gear into the Real Ale Bar. It was one of these huge long marquees, could probably hold about a 1000 at a push, but the poet before had meant it had emptied a little. But then, as a way of a gentle push, the heaven's opened, and people flocked back in to drink. The drum kit was missing a floor tom, so while the sound engineer Steve ran off to find one, I lugged Peter Gabriel's stage piano into place which we were using. (Thanks Peter!).

After a surprisingly nice floor tom arrived (more on that later!), we sound checked, beckoned the crowd forward and set off with 'Now that she has flown'. It always takes a song or two to get the levels right, warm up our voices, but each song flowed. The crowed cheered, and cheered. I spotted Rob from Realworld (our lovely publisher) and his wife in the middle. I think I even saw him dance, just a little. During one song I saw a guy running across the front of the stage with a another floor tom. Didn't think anything of it. We played all the new ones, except Step off the Train, arguabley the most delicate song we do. We thought the mood was too high for a slow quiet one, and Nick has a nice little solo which we couldn't replicate. The set ended with 'From this country' and we filed off the stage to much applause, which I have to say, feels great. The crowd pulled us back on, so we went with Train Song as our encore and made sure we got a big cheers for Nick, Ellie and the forthcoming baby. It actually feels like a good song to end with.

After the gig lots of people came up to us. It was quite funny (and nice). All the organisers from the big festivals we'd played at seemed to be there. First came Lisa from Avalon at Glastonbury festival. She apologised for not seeing us when we played there, but gave us all a big hug and said she really enjoyed it, and see us next year for sure. Then Amy from Larmer Tree Festival came up and echoed the sentiment. And of course Rob, representing WOMAD came up too (rumour has it Dave T, one of the head honchos of WOMAD was their too). Big smiles all round. I wonder if Peter G made it too?

Kieran came up to me afterwards. He had had a great gig, but there was one moment when mid-song I guy had come up a switched floor toms, virtually mid-beat! Apparently Steve had mistakenly taken a floor tom from the Main Stage kit, worth about £1500, new skins and all. Whoops! Still, we had a great floor tom sound for at least half the gig. Steve made good by giving us a recording of our gig, which we'll pop up some tracks from soon on myspace.com/urusen.It had gone way better than we could have hoped. Great crowd, great gig. Apparently we'll be "as big as Stornaway by next year!" We all retired for a nice cider, except poor Kieran and Pete who had to drive back, for work the next morning.

Jay and I finished off the evening wandering around with Jay's girlfriend and her family, watching WOMAD slowing down as the night drew deeper, and the ever more manic attempts of the WOMAD revelers to catch the last glimpses of each tent, trying to find that elusive bar that stayed open those few minutes longer. People didn't want it to end. Happy and tired we all eventually headed to our respective tents. I crept into my tee pee, dodging the creeping puddles that would chase my foot every time I put it down into the groundsheet. I lay down onto my mattress island and fell into a deep dream filled sleep.

The next morning it was back to reality. I waved goodbye to Jay, and then tramped across the fields, out the wrong exit and onto the main road, walking along the verge crushed up against the nettles and thorns as the lorries tor by. A little wake up call, don't get above yourself Ben. No limo here. Finally I reached the bus stand heading home, happily munching away on the best bacon sandwich I think I have ever eaten in my life. There were two ladies standing in the queue behind me, chatting about what they had seen at WOMAD, their highlights, what CD's they had bought. I stood there eating my sandwich thinking. Hmm, wouldn't it be nice if they mentioned us, little laugh at myself and continue munching away. Back to reality Ben. But then... "oh, yes, and there was this band called, umm, Urusen. I saw them at Larmer Tree last week, twice. They were amazing! Then I saw their CD in the WOMAD shop and had to get it as they had sold out at Larmer. You should check them out." Ha ha, maybe REALITY is starting to change after all!

Just a quick note to say we're featured in The Independent newspaper today in their 'Ten best gigs' section under 'Jazz, Blues, World and Folk'. This is due to us being the opening act of next weekend's Tolpuddle Martyrs Festival, celebrating the 175th anniversary of the Tolpuddle Martyrs. You will see on the picture that the 3rd event listed is the Larmer Tree Festival, which we are incidently also playing at - how on it are we?!?!
Seriously though, very cool to be mentioned, and hopefully see some of you down at the festivals. Next weekend promises to be fairly manic with 4 performances at 3 festivals across 4 days, so look out for a full report and pictures and the like!