Burnt to the Ground report

Burnt to the Ground was a lovely afternoon out, very chilled and pleasant. I heard a few people saying how much it was like D.Percussion used to be, before it was overrun with menacing scallies and scarily wasted people. Plus when you paid your donation you got a nifty orange sticker that said "Are you the God of Hell Fire?", which I loved.

The few bands I saw were good, though the DJ area (with one bloke doggedly dancing solo) was too close to the main stage, Stevie Square not being all that big really, and if you hung out in the middle your ears were hurt by clashing-music-din. And watching the skateboarders take turns on the ramp trucked in by SkateMCR was strangely mesmerising.

There were older people, younger people, and even plenty of kids there. Loads of kids, in fact. In the middle of Broke n'£nglish's set of full-on Manc rap there was a tiny little boy sitting on the ground in the middle of the bouncing crowd filling a notebook with painstaking drawings of superheroes and video game characters. It was the kind of place where that could happen, and it would be okay. Though after talking to my friend Hazel, I'm half-convinced that the only reason some people bring their kids to these things is so they can smuggle in contraband beer in the stroller (apparently they never check 'em.)

Sadly, I missed out on Arthur Brown's performance, because I was eating what I now firmly believe to be the best dim sum in Manchester over at Pacific. But yes, he did bring his awesome flaming helmet. Wish I'd seen it! The above picture comes from laptoppingpong. Spinneyhead has loads up too.