Indietracks Christmas Twee (Phil Wilson / Horowitz / Mascot Fight)

The Christmas Twee is a one night event run as an off shoot to the Indietracks festival held in the summer, and what a contrast it was. Back in July there wasn't a scrap of shade and people were physically melting under the heat, tonight we braved the iced-over car park wrapped up with woolly hats and scarves.

The backdrop to the whole event was a rather surreal marquee filled with festive lights, dancing animatronic teddy bears and of course a Christmas tree.



3 bands were on the bill: Mascot Fight a local band from Derby, a 2 piece known as Horowitz, and Phil Wilson.

Being based at a steam railway the night couldn't take shape without featuring a certain something, and beyond the marquee through the ticket office (complete with mulled wine and a log fire burning) was the train herself, also known tonight as the bar, toilets and yes there was an indie disco in an old mail carriage... wow!

After several line up changes over the past few weeks the first band to place themselves in front of the Christmas lights and animatronic teddy bears were Mascot Fight, their sound is compared to Pavement and they kick proceedings off well, as if the festive backdrop wasn't enough we had a singing snowman in the band although I think he regretted the carrot nose after nearly taking out the microphone more than once.

The marquee wasn't full but all that has attended were obviously hardcore Indietracks fans, in a somewhat surreal setting. Mascot Fight were there to have fun and ‘Terry is the Chicago Sun’ got my feet tapping, and I hope the forthcoming album features ‘You Don’t Need Your Dangerman’.



After the band, we had the pleasure of a forty-minute long train ride on board the lovely steam train, again all decked out in Christmas glory, and if you have a phobia of tinsel then this isn't for you. If you love Indie discos then you are in heaven. The DJ played back-to-back tracks throughout the journey, although you could move further down the train to just simply enjoy the ride.

After alighting back at Butterley, Horowitz took to the stage, they mix their catchy pop tunes up with twee indie guitars, everyone in the marquee is swaying in some form, there's even people dancing near to the entrance, ‘Tracyanne’ going down particularly well.



Another Train ride then onto Phil Wilson, who is no stranger to Indietracks due to a previous venture June Brides. Teamed up with Arash Torabi on bass Wilson declares he is here to make people dance, and belts out a superb rendition of a Go-Betweens cover ‘Lee Remick’ as one of the opening tracks, more Indie rock than Indie pop the dancing now starts in earnest and it's easy to see how Wilson gets branded as an Indie God.



It's all over far too quickly and as the raffle is drawn, the disco kicks back into life and I head back to the car over the frozen puddles feeling very festive.

FUTURE GIGS

sorry, we currently have no gigs listed for this act.