Echo & The Bunnymen fail to impress as replacement headliner

Saturday began for us by going to see Pearl & The Puppets who come from Glasgow and provided a nice opening to the day. And the lead singer is very pleasing on the eye and also just stays down the road from me!

And then probably the hardest working festival band took to the stage, as 3 Daft Monkeys played the usual crowd stomping songs such as 'Social Vertigo', 'Faces', and 'Hubbadillia'.

Next for me was Attic Lights who are another great up and coming band who seem to be at all the festivals this year. They are based in Glasgow and are doing a fair sized UK tour next month so please do try catch them as they are one of the better new bands I have seen this summer.

Decided to give The Rascals a miss, but did hear some of their set from outside the tent as myself and a friend had an interesting conversation about Loopallu and festivals in general with none other than the regular compere for the festival Janice Long. It was great that she took the time to talk to everyone and even got involved in a game of 'Tig' with the kids (and adults!)

The Family Mahone are a regular at this festival, playing every one apart from the initial year and if reports are to be believed, are usually still to be found in the village still drinking during the week after. Fronted by Radio 1 DJ Mark Radcliffe, this band was originally formed around 10 years ago as a tribute to The Pogues and are still going strong with their legendary drinking songs.

Closing the stage on the Saturday were late replacements for Travis who had to pull out the festival a few weeks before it, so the organisers got Liverpool band Echo & The Bunnymen who have been on the go now for 30 years. Now the last time I seen them was at Belladrum Festival a couple of years ago and I wasn't impressed then. It seemed the front man Ian McCulloch has a thing about complaining about the sound/lights and again he did the same at Loopallu.

Personally I think it was his voice that sounded terrible and not the sound, but hey you can't like every act at a festival and they definitely got the Worst Act award from me and several others as the tent was half empty long before they closed things off.

So that was Loopallu over for another year, apart from an act we seen in the Caley Bar late on Saturday night called The Lorelei who after being told to finish once the pub was shut, kept on playing so eventually they all made their way out onto the main road with their instruments and played a couple of numbers to an appreciative crowd who were dancing in the streets.

Thanks to Robert Hicks and everyone else involved in putting on this amazing festival, early bird tickets went on sale at the festival and are going well.... be fast if you don't want to miss 'The Little Fest in the West'.

See you in 2009 Loopallu.

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