The final day of the Blast Off Festival saw the action relocating back to Rough Trade. A very tired Gav headed down to hear Thee Girl Fridays and The Launderettes.
Edinburgh's Thee Girl Fridays are the first all-female band of the festival and the first to use a kazoo, proving that maybe The Sonics could have saved themselves some money and not used a saxophone as the kazoo gives a similar effect. Bassist Debbie is originally from Nottingham and this is her first ever home-town gig. Too Much Of A Good Thing sounds like (I'm Not Your) Stepping Stone and songs like The Love Witch ("she's got lotions, she's got potions") show that they have earned their "Thee" - Billy Childish would approve of their Davy Crockett-esque sound. Dracula is dedicated to Christopher Lee, although the portrait they have onstage of him actually looks more like Leonard Cohen. They end with their signature song, The Big Knicker Twist, during which they throw band branded knickers into the audience in a brilliant inversion of the old Tom Jones thing. Will The Big Knicker Twist start the next big dance craze? Only time will tell.
The festival ends with The Laundrettes from Norway, who have spent the afternoon going around Nottingham Castle, announcing "we'd like to come back every week." Their modern take on the '60s sound reminds me of those early Oasis songs where part of the fun was working out which tracks they had cribbed ideas from - you can hear snatches of things in The Launderettes music but they make the songs their own. There are also a couple of covers including I'll Make You Happy by The Easybeats and Nobody But Me made famous by The Human Beinz. New song I Should Have Known sounds like First Aid Kit if they had gone into indie rock rather than folk. The keyboardist plays a few snatches of Baby Elephant Walk inbetween songs, possibly auditioning for the Nottingham Panthers. They end with I Wanna Jump Your Bones, which they introduce as "not offensive, just friendly" as demonstrated by the lyrics "I'm not looking for romance/I just want to get in your pants!" A slightly reluctant encore ends a great set and a truly amazing festival.
One other thing I should mention is just how excellent the DJanes , an all-female set of DJs, have been all weekend, spinning a great collection of tunes.
The Blast Off Festival took place from the 9th to the 12th of November
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