Medulla Nocte is a name that I've read and heard a lot about in the last couple of years. They, along with Pulkas and OMS are spearheading the new British metal scene which, although still to take off completely, is beginning to become interwoven with many great bands (most of them aren't getting the recognition they deserve while the few lap it up big time). However having seen Medulla going at it live I can't help but feel disappointed. Dedicating their set to Glasgow's own Confusion Corporation (Well done with the Kerrang! review lads) the band bludgeoned their way through a forty minute set with great relish. First thing to note was the extremely one-dimensional lyrical delivery, which was an instant turn off to me. Secondly the set seemed to lack sophistication with the majority of it played at immense speeds. The riffing was of high quality but like many heavy bands Medulla fall into the trap of more means heavier. Even Slayer have recognised that a few slower and more intricate songs can make you sound all the more brain damaging. When Medulla did decide to slow it down it was in the form of a long, some would say dull, plod that showed promise but never got anywhere. I know that this band have talent and with some much needed attention in the vocal and drum department they could go all the way, still Britain does have a lot better to offer.

Skinlab were a different proposition. Firstly and refreshingly the sound was good and not too loud. The Cathouse often has sound problems due to the sheer volume of the music and for once you were afforded the opportunity to listen to a live band without feeling your ears have been rubbed in gravel. Unlike Medulla, Skinlab have a number of tricks up their sleeves, and can maintain the heaviness while piling up the melody and intricacy. Unfortunately I didn't catch all their set but what I did hear was certainly promising. These guys should be back soon, hopefully with Century Media label mates Stampin' Ground.

However down to the main act of the night. I love Entombed, simple as that. I've seen them live countless times and they've never disappointed. They are one of the few bands who can vary their live set enough to make every show that little bit different. Tonight they introduced some new stuff such as Same Difference, Addiction King, Kick in the Head, Clauses (aired last year at Ozzfest) along with some golden oldies such as Eyemaster, Like This With The Devil and Left Hand Path. However this wasn't the best I've seen the band. One reason is that they are maybe suffering a little by adding tracks from their early years. Although the first two albums are classics, other than Stranger Aeons and Left Hand Path they are possibly too out of place alongside newer stuff. Secondly the band still have to work some of the new songs into the set such as the immense Jack Worm. Don't get me wrong, Entombed were still good, but, as what is possibly one of the greatest live acts around at the moment, they did seem a little jaded. Perhaps the amount of touring the band have done in the last two years is starting to take its toll.

Well our Whitby experience really started on Thursday when with raging hangovers from the night before we went "Fuck we're going to Whitby tomorrow!" and then there was so much to do. Firstly we had to drag ourselves into town to pick up the rest of the new issue of Naked Truth. Lugging boxes with hangovers ain't nice. Then it was run around like mad all day getting things done and sorted and finally hit the sack at 3.30am knowing we had to get up again at 6am....

Friday morning - the bus
After making copious amounts of sandwiches we staggered round to the bus with all our boxes / bags / CD cases / too much stuff. Everyone was on time (even Stevie Moss but maybe his new woman saw to that) and off we went into the lovely April sunshine. The journey was mostly spent telling crap jokes (most of which are now banned for ever!), speculating what had happened to Gavin on Wednesday night and watching Colin & Lyndsey eating their packed lunch of veggie Sushi! And as is tradition the first can of beer was opened at 11am on the dot. On the approach to Whitby the weather started to get pretty dodgy with loads of fog and sort of spoiled the first view of Whitby, the abbey & the sea for the 'Whitby virgins'. The bus arrived and we all helped unload everything and get into our hotel rooms.

Friday Afternoon - Whitby
Meeting up outside the hotels after a half hour freshening up period we all proceeded to the Spa to exchange tickets for the new fangled wristbands and for us to get our backstage / empty toilet passes (for the first time!). Then the rest of the afternoon was spent drinking in the Spa. The Bizarre Bazaar was also on downstairs for the first time on a Friday and the more adventurous of us (and the ones with spare cash) ventured downstairs to see what they could find. Brian and Gary came back with big handfuls of CD's and some of the girls came back with new clothes. We also met up with Wee Dave with his newly blue hair who had been drinking since half ten that morning. Then it was back to the hotel to eat something and get ready for the night.

Friday Night - The Spa
Greig and Colin returned to the Spa early so they could hand out flyers for Naked Truth at the door and managed to hand out hundreds within the first half hour! Then we thought we had missed the first band This Burning Effigy but when they came on half an hour later it seemed we hadn't. So it was some traditional Goth rock that opened the Whitby Weekend band wise. After the band we went outside again to discover that Caleb had met another Goth baby about the same age. The other baby was really cute (with a little purple velvet shirt on) and him and Caleb were standing facing one another and it was like the Cable & Wireless ad with this baby pointing at Caleb and really gently touching his face going 'Baby' until Caleb wacked him one and had to be taken away when the other baby started crying! Then it was time for the Denise & Ed Alleyne and we watched a bit of their set. They were very much 'Thunder & Consolation' period NMA which wasn't surprising but she had a pretty good voice a bit like Julianne Regan. Ventured outside again to get another pint and had to get Joe P & Rob into the venue as they hadn't arrived in time to get their tickets changed to wristbands. Then the final band of the night were The Last Dance who were in a better setting and hadn't had at least 12 hours flying on the same day as they were playing. They were really good and got the crowd going in a traditional Whitby manner. Then as everyone was completely knackered and really pissed most people went home about 1am. The all new lads however Ruth, Lorna & Susan managed to last till the end of the night causing mayhem & malarky and so were christened the Ladettes!!

Saturday - Morning & Afternoon
Had to get up earlier than everyone else in the hotel as we had to go and set up the Naked truth stall at 9am. So it was an early breakfast for us and off struggling with boxes with hangovers again to the Spa. Set up the stall with the help of Ollie (ex Redemption) who curbed our hangovers a bit by feeding us Fanta from the drinks machine. We're going to try and get hold of a drip next time! Then while we sold the magazine a constant progression of the Glasgow crowd kept stopping by showing us the things they had bought. First off it was Brian with his second catch from the Resurrection stall which acted like a magnet to him all weekend. Then it was Eddie, who hadn't made it out the night before, with his Stages of Cruelty stuff to put on the stall. Colin's Lyndsey spent the whole day finding bargains and managed to buy more than the rest of us put together. We're going to take a shopping trolley for her the next time!. Naked Truth continued to sell well and we got to meet lots and lots of people / bands we'd only spoken to on e-mail / through letters before.

We also got asked by lots of bands for Glasgow dates which is always pretty encouraging. Brian rolled by again starting to look very pale and it transpired that he had been up drinking rum with Rob & the Philips brothers till 5am and had left shortly before the landlady had told them (very politely) to shut up at 5.30am. Eddie took over the stall for a while around 2pm so we could have a break and our first pint of the day. Lyndsey by this time had appeared with a cat clock and Brian in his hungover state was distraught at the thought of this and kept going "a clock?, a clock, why did you buy a clock? I could have given you a clock?" Went downstairs again to the stall . Sean Cronin of the Marionettes arrived quite late in the afternoon to pick up his copy of Naked Truth and informed us he had spent a large part of the previous night snogging a transvestite and was pissed off that none of his friends had told him!! Relieved when he enjoyed the humour poked at him in the new NT we agreed to sell his new album on the stall for the last hour or so of the bazaar. Shortly before the end of the bazaar Resurrection Records (London), Void Clothing (Nottingham), Vagabonds (Cardiff), and Morgana (Wakefield) all came round to pick up their copies of NT to sell in their shops. Then after packing up the stall we went for a quick pint or three in the Little Angel and then dashed back to the hotel to munch down a Pot Noodle.

Saturday Night - The Spa
Arrived almost exactly in time to see the first band of the night Star 80 featuring Jude & Tim (ex Sins of the Flesh 2) Mike from Nervosa on drums and another bloke. The band were really good in a poppy Goth way reminding me most of Placebo and The Bolshoi. Next it was Manuskript who were as always excellent and who showcased their new album 'Devil's Advocate' which down very well with the crowd and did a cover of Hunting Venus's 'Starburst' as their last song. Last up for the weekend were Switchblade Symphony and we watched the first few songs before deciding to get a breath of fresh air as things were getting a bit hot & hectic inside. This is when we noticed two locals sitting on the beach in the complete nude waiting on the tide washing over them and then two of their friends ran down and joined them and stripped off too. At this point we decided it would be the best time to make our excuses and leave! Went back to the Spa to sit with the Glasgow crowd and spent a large proportion of the remaining evening chatting.

Sunday - Morning
Everyone had breakfast together and tried to decide what to do for the day. We ended up in Colin & Lyndsey's room with Colin, Brian & Stevie in bed together (and we have photos to prove it!) and us all talking complete nonsense as you do on the Sunday morning in Whitby. After watching a bit of comedy on the telly we decided we would meet up outside and go for something to eat before the pub. Ended up by passing the food angle and settling for the pub where we met Eddie who had already been there for two hours on his own. Stayed in the pub and Eddie managed to sell yet more copies of Naked Truth until it was time to go and get something to eat and get ready for Sexy Sunday.

Sunday Night - Sexy Sunday
Arrived at The Metropole at 6.45pm to set everything up for the night and had managed to get everything working by the time to PA people turned up to show us. All that remained was to turn down the house light before everyone arrived. And then we realised that the house lights weren't on and the roof was made of glass! So we had the very odd situation with people arriving to a still quite brightly daylit hall with disco lights flashing and loads of dry ice. Very school disco like! But we persevered and by about eight o'clock had the dancefloor full. Thanks go to wee Gary and a mad Belgian girl who danced to every song . Things went pretty amazingly again and I hear that we actually got MORE people than last October and considering there were 2000+ at the weekend then and only about 800 at this one I think that's pretty good. Hazel (Sexy Sunday organiser) expressed concern about the number of people who had gone to the 80's night. We played a lot of newer music this time (including Stages which got people dancing) and it all went down very well in between the older stuff. The night flew by as usual and at the request of Hazel we played 'Starburst' by Hunting Venus as the last song at 1/4 to midnight. Then something very strange happened. When the last song finished we got booed! And we thought 'What' and then the stamping on the floor started and the shouting for 'more, more, more' and we realised people had booed because they wanted more!!!!! What a strange feeling! Then wee Gary went flying round everyone giving them Naked Truth flyers. What a star. Then we headed home and met the ladettes sitting on a bench in the park. It transpired that they had been playing football with an orange and had to sit down cause they were knackered!! Went back to the hotel and had a bit of a party in John & Beki's room and Caleb was in great form dancing to everything. Retired quite soon after that as we were just knackered and drained!

Monday - The Return
Monday morning we all grabbed a quick breakfast before throwing everything into bags and clearing out rooms. Then it was off to the pub for opening time and soft drinks all round to settle our stomachs. But then the drinking got started and it was a good laugh to see everyone together and so tired. Headed off to get the bus at half two and then it was goodbye to a fog enshrouded Whitby. Everyone was in really good form and bus journey was looking to be great one until about 20 miles outside of Whitby the bus almost crashed. The fog was really really thick and the driver was going pretty slow and then we came round this corner and a lorry had jack-knifed on the road so he had to swerve sharply while slamming on the braked to miss it and then this red car came out of nowhere and we almost hit that too and ended up on the verge. We had come upon a big accident that had only just happened and we think a van had been trying to pass someone and met lorry coming round the corner he hadn't seen for the fog. The lorry had jack-knifed and was right across the road and the van was pretty badly smashed up. We had to sit and wait until the police cleared the road until we could continue and the fog was unbelievable. After we passed the accident site there was a queue of traffic for about six miles and we counted three minor smashes that had happened in the queue and another pretty serious one at a roundabout a couple of miles up the road. After this naturally the journey was quite subdued until wee Gary lightened up everyone's mood by pointing to the window and going 'look at that bunch of tubes' to a passing lorry filled with tubes!!! And so we arrived back home in Glasgow and after dumping our luggage most of us went down to Quigleys for a couple of pints to round off the weekend. And then it was off home to bed for a well earned kip.

And so another Whitby bites the dust. We'd like to thank everyone who came and made the weekend so great. It was the best atmosphere we'd ever had at Whitby and everyone was in brilliant form. We're looking forward the next one already.......