GIG: Cyferdyne (Lancaster)

But for the fact that we were in Manchester the night before to see Tarja, I doubt we would have traveled all the way to Lancaster to see this, but I'm glad we did as it was great fun and is currently our gig of the year so far.

We managed to get a parking space in the car park opposite the 'Yorkshire House' pub and on entering quickly realised that this was not a place in which to enquire about a wine list. Indeed, there seemed to be no wine on offer, although we later realised there was a wide and varied selection of wines made from fruit, just not any made of grapes.

So we ordered a couple of very flat cokes and listened to someone covering Judas Priest's 'The Sentinel' on the jukebox (possibly Machine Head) while we waited to be let upstairs. Finally, just after 9pm the door opened and we climbed the steps to be greeted by Andy McBain of Cyferdyne, who said hello, commented on my Shiv-R shirt and disappeared. To be fair he seemed to have a lot on his plate. He looked rather different from the last time we'd seen him (at Resistanz) since he's lost his trademark Cyferdyne haircut!

We sat on some bar stools near the bar for a bit and then moved a bit nearer the stage, finding another little table that was festooned with glow sticks and lolipops. We struggled with the glowsticks and eventually managed to secure them around our wrists and people watched for a while. A few people started arriving including a couple of older Cybergoths who were dressed quite unusually and we struggled at first to decide if it was two women or a man and a women (fairly sure it was the latter), then it was time for Cincinnati Box (comprising Andy and Ste of headliners Cyferdyne).

It was (apparently) largely unrehearsed covers in an electro-pop style. We didn't recognize a single song and I'm not sure anyone else did either. Actually I thought the music was quite good, but the choice of songs and the vocals were a bit lacking...

Jay Android had to cancel so the band drafted in a last minute replacement called 'Leth'. This was some mildly nutty character who announced that we were about to hear 'the biggest load of unrehearsed bollocks' we'd ever heard... which may be true.

It was certainly nothing like anything I'd ever heard and I loved the fact that he had a whacking great backdrop, that just made it all the more surreal. Leth is kind of like electronic folk with the delivery of a Shakespearean actor. It sounds horrendous and it kind of was, but at the same time it was kind of endearing and shot through with sufficient oddness to make it 'interesting' for a while.

Leth included in his set 'Runaway' by Del Shannon and an impromptu version of 'Don't You Want Me Baby' by The Human League. Most of the crowd remained largely indifferent it has to be said and no one was particularly sad when the set drew to a close. To be fair to Leth he apparently only had one day to prepare and he clearly committed to his performance.

This was the third time we'd seen Cyferdyne, and I'd have to say it was probably the best. Whereas at Resistanz they looked slightly 'amateur' in comparison to bands like Grendel, here they reveled in the atmosphere of playing in front of people they know and performed a blinding set. 'Clockwork' was an obvious buzzkill, but that aside Cyferdyne went down extremely well and launched themselves to the top of our gig chart for 2017.