Jemfest UK 2003 October 11th London

[weserman]

well, i enjoyed the brief time i was there. I came along with most of my band, but it took us a lot longer to actually find the place that we had anticipated. I didn't realise until a couple of days ago that the football was on the same day as jemfest either, so i was glad that was shown. We had to go after that finished, i would have liked to have stayed longer, but there is always next year.

Well done to everyone involved once again.

[adrianfoden]

Well, Another year.. Another great Jemfest! Here's my mini-review and jemfestalogue....

I was up at the crack of dawn for this fest - 4am. I live in Manchester and London is a good 3 hour train ride away. Travelling down to London on the train used to be a thing of great pain - no more! Superfast 'Pendolino' trains, superb luxury appointments a shop a coffee bar... it's all much improved. The 'in-flight' entertainment was provided by Virgin Rail included Audioslave, Tenacious-D and Miles Davis. Eclectic!

My first howler of the day happened on the train. A smartly dressed lady gets on the train in Milton Keynes, walks down the carriage and sits just across from me, She turns to me and says - in a gentle Irish lilt -

[Lady] Excuse me, which way is the train going?
[Me, Confused] Erm. To LONDON!
[Lady, looking out of the window] No, which way is it going?
[Me, Baffled] Ummm... Forwards!
[Lady, now assuming I'm stupid] NO! Which WAY IS THE TRAIN GOING?
[Me] I point at the front and say That way!
[Lady, Delighted] Oh grand, I can't stand travelling backwards.

Anyway - into the venue at 9:30 am to get things set-up and rolling. Got off to a bad start as the security guy at the venue a) Couldn't speak English and b) wasn't the sharpest knife in the drawer. I had to climb over the security desk and rustle through the mound of papers that had been stuck on the wall behind him. Found an internal memo explaining to the security staff that a 'live music event' was booked for all day and that we'd require early morning access for set-up. So, with new-found confidence and authority I was in!

Got the guitar gallery area set-up and ready, plopped my lonesome PMC on its stand and set up one of the road-test zone workstations with a V-Amp and headphones. Had a little play and was ready for the day before 10:30 am! Bring on the ROCK!

First people to show where Alan Lennon and his band all the way from Ireland. Alan later opened the live performances with a great set and some electrifying playing. As they were very early we just sat about chatting about Jemfest, gigging and other rock smalltalk. Up comes my next Jemfest golden moment....

[Band member#1] So, what part of the states are you from then?
[Me, puzzled] The states? Sorry..... I'm from Manchester!
[Band member#2] See! I F*ck*ng told you not to speak to ANYONE until we get back to Ireland!
<rest of band fall about laughing>

Off they go to Denmark street for a browse around and then things start to unfold.

Paul Cornford brought a handful of interesting guitars for the gallery. A guitar donated to him from Paul Gilbert, Joe Satrianis warm-up guitar, A JS90th and a JemVWH/RG hybrid that was (I think) Jan Cyrkas and had been used by Steve/Joe and Paul in the past. Great stuff and just the ticket for the gallery. I was particularly pleased about the JS as a) We've never had a JS in the gallery at Jemfest before and b) It makes absolute sense to have one of Joes instruments as a debut entry! yay!

As well as his guitars Paul had a handfull of his excellent amps on show for Jemfest and I had a great opportunity to chat to him about plenty of interesting things.... Amp building, manufacturing standards, outsourcing, QC, customer demands, product development etc. etc. Through all of this what comes through particularly well is the calibre of the product and pride/passion employed in building them. Cornford generously donated the loan of a couple of MK50 heads / cabs for stage use as well. Exceptionally generous - thanks.

Bands and gear started arriving on-mass now and things started hotting up. More and more guitars arrived for the gallery. I took several gagillion photos of the whole thing so no-doubt some will appear online shortly.

Jerry Egerton of ibanezregister.com turned up with his DNA, a rare vinne moore guitar, the PAW custom swirl and most impressive of all.....

JEMFEST CAKE!
Complete with whammy bar!

The Dimarzio stand went up (and seemed very popular throughout the day) and guitarpicksuk setup their display too.

The stage setup went together quickly, flags and all! The audience started appearing rapidly, before the first sound-check was complete and we're almost ready for the off. The gallery filled up quickly too - not quite as many as in previous years but still a great showing of interesting guitars.

Surprise of the day was one of the very new RG2820's factory fresh and still adorned with Hang-tags. Pablo McCrone had popped by Denmark st. on his way to Jemfest and GASsed. Splendid chap. Nice looking instrument, perfectly put together and with a superb neck / vine inlay. Heroic.

It's approaching 3pm and it's time for the off.... Alan Lennon and band gave us a great melodic opening number and then just turned up the heat. Stefan Lindholm joined them onstage for a ripping blues improv and the tempo for the whole afternoon session was set.

During the rest of the performances that day I was busy leaping from gallery to T-Shirt sales to doorman to raffle ticket vendor so I was spread a little bit thin but having huge fun at the same time.

Afternoon highlights for me where....

• Balducci 'warming up' (in more ways than one) the Cornford head. Made a lot of heards turn that did!
  The Lindholm/Lennon 'dual' attracting a bit of a crowd.
  Chats with old friends and new around the guitar gallery.
  A discussion about low-carb weight loss with Rob Balducci. Jemfest isn't all about guitars is it?!!

Talking about Mr Balducci... We had a young fan come all the way from St Petersburg in Russia just to see him! This young guy was a little shy but ultimately very enthusiastic about things. He doorstopped me by the guitar gallery and was bemoaning the fact that 'There was nothing like this 'fest' in Russia. Oh really says I, "why don't you start one then.... '

'Hey - I'm a drummer' says my new Russian pal! Oh how we laughed.

This is one of the best parts about Jemfest for me. I had some cool conversations.... A couple of very young fans pulled me aside over at the guitar gallery... here's a snippet of the conversation...

[fan] Do you know much a about guitars?
[me] A little, yes, what would you like to know?
[fan] Is it actually true that Steve Vai put some of his blood in the paint for this guitar?
[me] Well, I believe it is yes...
[fan] (Wide-eyed) Isn't that a just a little bit silly?
[me] (Laughing Heartily) Well I guess it is...
[fan] (turns to mate, jaw dropping ) WOW! COOL!

At which the pair of them went off bounding around the place and looking very excited. I guess it was a bit of an epiphany for them and I hope they're guitar fans for life.

At times there was a queue of three or four people each waiting patiently clutching an axe for a slot at one of the Pod/V-Amp stations so it was cool that plenty of people got an opportunity to play some cool guitars. A huge Thankyou to everyone who brought a guitar along on the day.

I'm sure you'll get full reviews of each set from other people. I reluctantly had to leave early and was gutted to miss out on Clive, Tony and Rob all doing their thing.

The broad range of international acts is always cool. Performers from Ireland, Sweden, Spain, the UK and USA add a special dimension to Jemfest - congrats to Simon for getting all of the groundwork done for this and a big thanks to all of the performers!

More reviews please!

Ade.

[Jem7RB MK]

Good work Fod,I really regret missing it all again this Year,Next year i'm defiantely on for it,I'm gonna BE there if i have to sell the kids ;-)

Great work for all involved in the setting up,But full marks to Simon from what i've heard and read it was absolutly super fun tastic

Regards

Rob (RootBeer in case your wonderin Fod)

[jerrye]

still no gallery i'm afraid, UK2's ftp server is still down in docklands

it will be online as soon as they get it fixed. i can't believe it of all the days to be down. Arrrrh

[adrianfoden]

Snaps!

Not mine, they're coming - honest. But a big thanks to Paul Simpson for these...

http://myweb.tiscali.co.uk/simpson1976/jemfest2003/

enjoy!

[jerrye]

right UK2 has finally got its self sorted.

the gallery is now up. i'm mixing the video, how do you want it? short snips or a big download?



paul any chance i can re-post to the gallery?

[dot-dot-dot]

Who won the raffle prizes? I had to leave before the draw...

And a big thumbs up to Simon and everyone involved in organising the day. My ears might have been jolly sore, but it was an excellent event.

[hexa-db]

Ok here's a little review of my first Jemfest

We got there a bit late, becaue I was worried about being the first person there! So we arrived about 3-ish and someone who I think was Jerry spotted my case and found a spare bit of table to display my recently acquired Jem 777vbk. I felt so proud filling in that bit of paper with the instrument details
After that we got a drink and sat down to watch Stefan Lindholm play some inhumanly fast guitar. I was kind of in awe and kind of feeling that I should just give up guitar and take up stamp collecting or something I was also a bit confused that he appeared to have a swirly Universe but it had a handle like a Jem..
Then we watched everRain who I thought were really cool. That guy with the JemBSB was very impressive.
Then I had a wander around the guitars again, drooled on a few, and took pictures (which I'll hopefully get uploaded tonight). We then watched Stefan duelling with someone else who I didn't. Once again I felt like giving up!
We went back and sat down to watch Cereal Killer for a bit who were very entertaining A little while after they finished I harrassed Simon and got him to take a look at my guitar (I felt a bit bad about asking, knowing how busy he must have been, but he was the only person who's name I knew). He gave me a bit of advice and introduced me to Dex and Jono who had a more detailed look and gave some good advice. It's always nice to put faces-to-netnames and I'm very grateful for their time - cheers guys
We then watched a bit of Wipeout and decided to head off. Partly because I felt guilty making my girlfriend hang around for hours looking at guitars and listening to widdley solos, but also because I'm an old git and was looking forward to getting home to have a cup of tea and watching Casualty

Thanks a lot to all the organisers, and to Dex & Jono, it was really good. Hopefully I'll get some pics online later tonight.

[dex]

Well it was great.
I want to thank Simon, Jerry, Pete and Adrian for making this possible.
Got to meet a bunch of cool guys and I had a great time.

With it being Jemfest and all I knew that the vast majority of guitars there would be Ibanezes and most of them will have DiMarzios installed so I decided to bring an ESP to the party.
Not only that but also an ESP with EMG81 set installed.
I just wanted to show people that ESP make fine guitars as well and that the 81's are more diverse than people expect them to be.
A lot of people tried it and I hope some of them might consider getting an ESP or EMG's in the future because of me.

All the artists were great and their playing was impressive and not just the guitarists.
Wipeout's drummer was insane.
He did this thing where he went all around the venue druming on dables, glases, on the bar and even on this girl's butt for a bit.
Rob's drummer was also extremely good and his basist was keeping up pretty easy as well.
In fact I would go as far and say that his drummer and bassist were equally as good at their instruments as Rob is on the guitar.
Finally got to hear Clive (earthman) live and the dude delivered.
Great melodies and his note choice is very sweet.
I picked up his CD there and for the past 2 days it's been on repeat in my CD player - there are no words to describe how good it is.
As most of us know people who are profficient on the guitar find it extremely difficult to play slow and to construct melodic songs for the songs sake rather than show off but Clive has achieved this like no other.
Super sweet.

I was also mighty impressed by Alan Lennon.
The dude opened the show with his band and proceded to show everyone how little effort it takes him to play so fast and so clean - it should be illegal.
He never looked as if he was trying too hard - just playing with the greatest of ease.

Paul Cornford himself was there as well.
Very impressive and extremely nice of him to show up himself and also he had a stand with a few amps so people can try them out and on top of that he brought 5 guitars to the party as well.
Top guy.

Great day.
The best thing about it was that I got to meet Simon(cerealk), Pete(welshpete), Jerry(jerrye), Adrian(adrianfoden), Paul(Pablo), Mark(mark_mcg) and Henry(Globbits) again as well as Jamie and Darren from Wipeout.
Also got to meet Rob Balducci, Jono, Steve(Devo) and Paul Clark there as well.
It was great and just to be controversial next jemjam I'm bringing a Jackson with Duncans to the party.

ilia

[jerrye]

new pictures now up, thanks to ilia, (see above)


and Paul simpson ( i took the liberty and ran them through photoshop for you, i can send them back in this format if you like so you can put them up in your gallery as well, Paul.
hope this is ok with you.

[weserman]

Originally Posted by jerrye

short snips or a big download?

big download, i'm not on 2mbit adsl for nothing.

[monkeyboy]

Thanks to everyone who organised the event. Wasn't sure what to expect but it was a lot of fun.

I took about 50 photos which I've stuck here:

http://www.haydn.mowbray.btinternet.co.uk/Jemfest.zip

Feel free to make an album out of them and post them on the jemfest site

I also videod every gig (about 10 hours of video) - it's all sitting on my HD at the moment. Although I took a feed off the desk the mix is a bit distorted but it's all very watchable.

There are a few options for this:

Someone can host them (or part of them) for streaming/download
I can make a compilation DVD of the best bits
I can produce one offs of each of the gigs (and someone else can do what they like with them)

I can slice and dice them in more or less any format so some suggestions please

Here's a short clip anyway - enjoy

http://www.haydn.mowbray.btinternet.co.uk/jemfest1.rm

Haydn

[Gabe Nickelson]

Hey everyone,

Thanks to Simon and all involved with Jemfest. Looks like another successful year! Can't wait to see all the photos and videos. Hope everyone had a great time.

If you have photos or video you'd like Jemfest to host, we certainly can. You'll get full credit on Jemfest.com. Drop me an e-mail if you don't mind us using your photos or videos.

Thanks!
Gabe
jemfest.com

[jerrye]

Originally Posted by monkeyboy

Thanks to everyone who organised the event. Wasn't sure what to expect but it was a lot of fun.

I took about 50 photos which I've stuck here:

Feel free to make an album out of them and post them on the jemfest site

Haydn

ThanksHaydn,
your gallery is now published on the site,

www.ibanezregister.com and follow the link.

i'm editing my video at the moment, will be up later tonight.

[jerrye]

now with nearly 200 pictures the gallery is up.

thanks to Paul Simpson, ilia and haydn.

anymore? ade?