surprise guest set on the second stage at belle & sebastian's 'bowlie weekender'
during '24 hours' stuart read the lyrics from "touching from a distance", the biography of ian curtis, written by ian's wife.

reviews/comments

from kevin swann:

may be of some interest to know that the 'gwai were the mystery guests this weekend at the bowlie weekender festival in camber sands... and of course they were fantastic.

we managed to see stuart in the queue on the first day drinking cheap white wine with his girlfriend. his hair has grown back a bit now, and it's approx the length of renton in trainspotting now (ie. ewan macgregor then). i saw dominic in the bar and was *really* happy that he recognised me from the time i met him and john in new york. he seems really happy - the band are doing absolutely nothing at the moment, and they've been just lounging around and drinking back home recently (except for the ice hockey game thing).

they played on the saturday at around 8pm as mystery guests. the hall they played in held around 750 and was completely packed out. stuart sang on 'cody', which is the first time i've heard that live. they opened with 'kappa' and kept the set pretty short - around 6 songs - but went down really really well. one of the songs involved stuart reading poetry from a book which i 'think' was about or from ian curtis of joy division fame...

on a kinda funny note, on the friday dominic had a full beard and sideburns. he got really wasted on the friday night and somehow shaved his beard off on that night, leaving only the sideburns and few other bits but looking very strange! by the time sunday came around he shaved all of it off, so now dominic looks exactly like he used to pre-cody except for a cowboy hat which he wore constantly saturday.

in case anyone was wondering about the rest of the festival, it was amazing. highlights were definitely mogwai, belle & sebastian, sleater-kinney, cinema and the delgados. godspeed you black emperor also played and from what i heard went down really well, but i was too transfixed by the belle's.

thats about all i can remember on the 'gwai front. i asked dominic if they had any possible singles up their sleeves but he seemed pretty sure they wouldn't be any releases in the near future.

they were introduced by a guy who called them 'the best unsigned band in britain'. anyone know anything about this, or was it just a large slip up???