Bido Lito!

Day 2 - Grohl, Graffiti and Freebies

Well then! What a start to the day: it's not raining, our heads are nice and clear (thank goodness), there's an acoustic guitar quietly playing outside our tent and when we go in search of breakfast there's Bold St.Coffee. It's absolutely brilliant to have a little slice of Liverpool here, particularly with the coffee they're known for and we couldn't be happier to see them.

Plenty to do this morning, but first things first we're going to walk about how glorious the sunshine is today! Sunglasses are parked on our noses and it looks like the only time we'll even think of removing them is to ensure that we don't get go-faster stripes.

By the time we get to the NME tent it's onto being too warm really but the tent continues to fill in its flocks to watch OF MONSTERS AND MEN. If you don't know them and their hit Dirty Paws, they're an Icelandic outfit with quite a substantial arrangement of band members. From looks they're reminiscent of Arcade Fire, but from sound they're an aurally pleasing mix of Cat Power and Edward Sharpe & The Magnetic Zeros. Straight on lovely really and after having a chat about it we decide the male lead vocalist looks like he gives good hugs.

With this friendly thought in our minds we run off to the main stage for BAND OF SKULLS, and get chills of pleasure when they do a cheesy guitar solo. Yes, they do that a lot and it does make us want to play guitar hero but Sweet Sour is an absolutely class song - no denying it.

Seasfire

At one point we're dandering about feeling a bit sad about DJANGO DJANGO's flat performance (gutted) when we stumble across Bristolian band SEASFIRE on the BBC Introducing stage. Standard band set up from first glance but they have a pianist basically playing classical scores on top of their sound, rock/pop/hip-hop. They're a multipack of genres but it seems to be working so we're not going to knock it!

Taking a bit of a break from music we go tagging pink exclamation points around the guest area. It doesn't take long for people to start asking us for tags and the pink pages word to spread, and we meet some lovely people including local man Len Horridge - absolute hero he is. Just going to drop in here as well that we stumble across wunderkin Rae Morris' brother, Will who is keen on getting a tag and talks to us enthusiastically about SoundCity and some of Liverpool's best live venues. He also shares his curry with us, what a gent!

Rob Rodgers, Maria Hills, Kate Conway, Catherine Hills - you have been tagged

After feeling underwhelmed with TALL SHIPS at this years SoundCity, we're keen to see them tonight to change that opinion, as their following is credibly massive. Thankfully we're not disappointed. It's the only time all day that any of the stages have trouble with mic/speaker feedback and the boys get it bad. But, they manfully power through and get raucous cheers and applause after playing new single Gallop.

We turn then to the main stage, yes, we've caved and we're dancing and singing along with Dave Grohl. Say what you like but when a man is that age and still that energetic, you've got to respect it. Also the 15 year old version of us is still a little bit in love with the drummer and we just can't deny ourselves that silly little pleasure.

The rain has given out at this stage and it's continuing on through to this morning. It's sort of good though as we know our tent is definitely waterproof now - there's always a worry isn't there - and we're just back from having a shower. Yes, a hot shower! At a festival!

So it's fresh bodied and clear minded that we're readying for going to watch PALMA VIOLETS today at the Festival Republic stage. If they're even half as good as their show in Leaf last month we'll be thrilled, bring on the music.

Oh, the freebie in the headline there was the chips one of the catering staff gave us after we Bido Lito! tagged him. Get in.