The night before Coldplay headlined
Sunday at Glastonbury 2016, Coldplace,
a tribute to Chris Martin’s group, took to
the stage at Carterton Fake Festival – an
event that also played host to Blondied
(Blondie) and Kazabian (Kasabian).
Fake Fest celebrated Armed Forces Day
and welcomed visitors from Swindon,
Farnborough and Essex in addition to
those from Carterton.
As well as the big tribute acts, five local
bands performed on the day, melodic
metal group Reveller being one of these.
Drummer Gavin Hobbs and bassist Ryan
Clayton, a week prior to their gig at the
Battle of the Bands final in Cannock, sat
down with the Crier to talk about the day.
“We played a great set,” Ryan says. “The
sound was amazing, the crowd got
involved, it was very interactive – we
couldn’t have asked for a much better
set to be honest.”
In a festival all about tribute acts,
though, it can’t be all that easy to play
as an original band – as Reveller (due to
record an EP with Romesh Dodangoda in
September) are.
“It’s hard to work out what an original
band is about,” Gavin says. “You come on
and people expect you to play covers.
Then you do your own stuff. People get
shocked at places like this where they’re
used to having tributes. But people took
it pretty well and enjoyed it.
“Our vocalist has a really insane voice (he
gets compared to Geddy Lee from Rush,
and he’s kind of Bruce Dickinson-esque),”
Gavin states of Mattias Winchez, claiming
such a voice “went down a treat.”
Lead singer of Kazabian, Eddy, who
embodies Kasabian’s Tom Meighan on
stage, also acknowledged the enjoyment
of the Fake Fest audience.
“That’s ultimately what we’re here for,” he
says, “to make people enjoy themselves.
“Kasabian are a band that performs and
engages with the crowd,” he says. “There
are not many other bands that do it as
well as them; this makes it easier for us
to do it as a tribute.”
But what if Eddy wasn’t doing Kasabian,
who else would he want to be a tribute
act for? He told the Crier that he did
think about creating an Arctic Monkeys
tribute before joining Kazabian, but
judged Alex Turner’s ability on a
guitar too good for him to handle. “It’s
something I couldn’t quite do myself
although I do love the music,” he humbly
says. “But I have to say since being Tom
in Kazabian, there’s no-one else I would
actually want to be.”
Fake
Festival
© Stephens Photography
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