festivals

Next Gig – a Film Festival!

April 9, 2023 — Leave a comment

Festival season is starting! The Verinos’ second ever gig was an audition to play at a festival called Glastonbudget. We played there last year in a massive marquee to about 30 people.

We made a T-shirt to show how quickly it all happened.

But this year we’re playing at a film festival! The Verinos have been asked to play at Phoenix Arts Leicester as part of the REAL Documentary Festival. The festival has sessions for documentary film makers and industry people as well as showing films to the general public. There’s a big selection of award-winning films, works-in-progress, exhibitions and a few premieres.

Where do The Verinos fit in? We’re playing live on the evening of Thursday 20th April after the film ‘I Am A Cliché‘ is screened. It’s the story of Poly Styrene (real name Marianne Elliot-Said) who grew up in Brixton and formed the band X-Ray Spex after seeing Sex Pistols play on her 19th birthday. Although the boy band punks are usually cited as the important ones, Poly Styrene’s original style, lyrics and presence as a bi-racial young woman fronting a punk band are massively important.

Tickets for the film, a Q&A discussion with director Paul Sng and The Verinos gig in the new bar area of the Phoenix are just £5, but be sure to book early because it’s going to be popular!

Glastonbudget today!

June 2, 2022 — 1 Comment

Last year The Verinos passed an audition to play at Glastonbudget Music Festival in Leicestershire. It’s mainly a tribute band festival, with some of the best UK tribute acts playing. But there’s also a stage for little local bands playing original music and today The Verinos are going to be playing there!

It is such an important thing for us; rock history has far fewer women involved and there are all sorts of stereotypes about what female artists should be like. The Verinos crash those expectations – we’re older, rawer and more fun than a lot of other bands and we’re all women. We represent the punk idea that anyone can have a go and it’s a lot of fun. You should try it!

The Verinos play the Loco Stage at Glastonbudget Festival at 9.15pm today 2nd June 2022. We have some of these T-shirts – ask us if we have any free ones left!

The Verinos second gig

November 20, 2021 — 1 Comment

The Verinos played our second gig at The Soundhouse Leicester last month as an audition for the next Glastonbudget Festival in June 2022. The audience really loved it and we’ve now been confirmed for our first festival.

The Soundhouse Leicester - Visit Leicester

The Soundhouse is a cool music pub painted blue that hosts open mic nights, local bands and touring acts from the UK and overseas. Promoter Muz had been so positive about the idea of The Verinos, that we felt we’d be welcomed. We know we’re not as technically skilled as some of the usual bands that play there; our instruments are cheap or borrowed and we haven’t had much live experience.

But what we do have is confidence and energy!

Here we are hanging about before the gig. The other bands that were playing were really friendly and let us use their drum kit. They were interested to hear about what we’re trying to do, and very encouraging – old-fashioned sexist attitudes really do seem to be changing in the world of music!

We had a little soundcheck, which sounded good and there were fabulous stage lights and then it was time to play. The small stage meant that the fun and energy of the band came across even better – several of our songs involve band members shouting out their thoughts or joining in with the singers!

After we finished, there were dozens of great comments from people we don’t even know. Most frequent comment was “Brilliant songs!” followed by “Amazing energy”. So we think it was a great success, and want to go on to do more … especially festivals next summer! And today, apparently we’re featured on the BBC News page. Amazing! Please follow/subscribe to the blog to get news about The Verinos.

The Verinos go for it!

November 18, 2021 — Leave a comment

Yesterday The Verinos heard that we have been picked to play at Glastonbudget Festival in June 2022. Also BBC East Midlands broadcast a film about the band in their news reports throughout the day, so we were buzzing with people congratulating us and wanting to find out more.

You can see the evening BBC news slot here – the piece about The Verinos is after 22 minutes.

Although most of the bands at the festival are tribute acts, there’s a small stage for local bands and that’s where we’ll be, but hopefully we’ll be well known enough by then to get a good crowd!

The Verinos are now looking for more gigs in the local area; the unglamorous music project is also working with more women to create more all-female bands to play for fun and to record and play live. Get in touch if you’re interested via the comments or by emailing unglamorous music@gmail.com.

Getting a Glastonbudget Audition

September 24, 2021 — Leave a comment
Preview: Glastonbudget returns with the best tribute acts around - COOL AS LEICESTER

The Verinos had done one rehearsal when we decided to apply to play Glastonbudget Festival. It’s a big festival in Leicestershire consisting mainly of tribute acts. Over the last 16 years, it’s built up to be a big deal with multiple stages. Next one is 2nd-4th June 2022, and some of the less-well known bands are picked via a talent contest audition process at Leicester’s Soundhouse venue.

There will be loads of very competent bands and artists auditioning to play Glastonbudget, but how would a brand new all women garage band do in the process? On July 3rd, we emailed the Director. The argument for having more women in bands at festivals is obvious, but that generally means young women just out of music college, or girls who have a musical parent in the wings. It doesn’t generally mean a bunch of ordinary women only just starting to learn how to play. But that’s us – The Verinos. We’re not bad for a 10-week old band.

But did we get the audition? The first response from Glastonbudget was encouraging:

I like this idea, it sounds like a terrific and inclusive project.

Lets talk more about it, and see what we can do.

Follow The Verinos to find out whether we get to play an audition gig, despite having never played a gig.