With a new album freshly released via the phenomenal Rocket Recordings and a triumphant headline set at this weekends’ Liverpool Psych Fest under their belts, the almighty behemoth that is Goat make their way in to Newcastle in high spirits. But first, the not so small matter of Lay Llamas who, apart from being a photographer’s worst nightmare, these guys don’t half know how to make some noise.

This Italian duo, backed by a hefty psychedelic army, are also fresh from a triumphant set at Psych Fest and boy does it show. They bring Newcastle to their knees. The bass punches you in the stomach as these guys hammer out some pretty heavy psych rock; they can only be described as a gut wrenchingly brilliant support act for the impending madness.

With little relent a set packed full of high octane guitar riffing, we were not left with much time to wait as Goat’s masked crew clear the stage ready for their impending arrival. The majority of the band enter the stage first and fire up their instruments before the two front ladies bound on to the stage in particularly spectacular fashion as always.

Opening up with the lead track from current LP Commune ‘Talk to God’ is a long sprawling psychedelic jam, as both ladies bound around the stage often edging toward the crowd baiting them. Before dancing away. The lights dance almost as fast as the ladies on stage, creating a tripped out feeling as this Monday night crowd looks on in awe at the amazing band before them.

The shamanistic nature of the music lends itself to a ritualistic head nodding from the crowd. We look round and we’re not the only ones who are completely mesmerised and entranced by Goat. They’re not holding back this evening and ‘Disco Fever’ is a krautastic cosmic disco trip, their inimitable style could only be likened to Fairport Convention on a ton of hallucinogens; they flit through the musical landscape, space and time with little regard for convention.

There is something so special about Goat that it’s hard for us to pinpoint exactly what it is, perhaps it’s the mystery behind the masked individuals or perhaps it's their aforementioned disregard for any convention. That said we’re not overly bothered we’re having far too much fun completely giving ourselves up at the alter of Goat.

What we should praise them for though is their impressive array of songs with Goat in the title. Our personal favourite being ‘Goatman’, perhaps the wildest of the goat-based tracks, the awesome swirling guitars that precede the ever-brilliant chanted vocals. With the drums and the percussion it gives off a brilliant tribal feeling; a mainstay in so many of Goat’s songs.

There is however, one track which stands atop of them all, the mighty ‘Run To Your Mama’ from their first album World Music. This track sums up this evening that tribal feeling is ever present the chanted vocals. It has every member of this packed crowd chanting along with them as the band get up to their usual crazy antics bouncing around the stage.

Words cannot express the brilliance of Goat, they’re on of a kind in so many ways they have their own style their own niche. What a fine niche it is to, they command respect and their stage presence is faultless the two front ladies put in an awesome shift at every opportunity this evening. Leaving with our jaws firmly on the floor at the phenomenon we’ve just experienced we cannot praise this band enough.  

A couple of months later than normal, due to the opening of the Unity Works venue and it being a sensible idea to make use of the place's great facilities as the showpiece venue of the event, Wakefield once more played host to Long Division over the weekend of September 12 - 14.  Our reporting here is limited to the performances on Saturday the 13th as we were unable to get a writer in to see The Cribs play on the previous day - a welcome sign of the festival's growing popularity (as was the fact of there being a fringe event on the same day at The Hop. Fawn Spots put in a good show at that).

Graziers (one of the event's other new venues this time around) was our first point of call for some good loud, local indie rock delivered al fresco by Alpha Shallows. Later in the evening Knuckles were on in the same marquee, managing to keep the guitar & drums duo thing interesting with some ribald banter along with their full-on sound characterised by the likes of 'Ejector Seat' and 'Dirty Pearls'. 

Warehouse 23, scene of last June's Fall performance in temperatures of sauna proportions, didn't get a lot of attention from us this time around but we caught the opening couple of numbers by local rockers Gunnarson, who have an element of the Hellacopters about them, albeit with less convincing vocals.

Gruff Rhys was the first act we took in at the Unity Works, midway through the afternoon. Concentrating solely on his current American Interior work his set was unfortunately affected by early technical issues and despite some funny banter the audience were clearly less than fully engaged with the overall performance or the core idea behind the journeys that inspired it. Patterns, ILikeTrains, TOY, headliners The Wedding Present and then Islet made up the other acts that we took in either in the venue's excellent main hall or in it's smaller performance space on the top floor.

Of those we were probably too tired to properly enjoy Islet in their post-23:00 slot but they did enough to make it clear that seeing them again in the future is a good idea. Patterns were enjoyably melodic and clean-cut whilst ILikeTrains didn't come over as I'd expected from their records but were a good watch with probably the best light show of the day. TOY also pulled off a good, in your face, performance for which the bulk of the audience were unjustifiably static. As headliners The Wedding Present didn't fail to pepper their set with the requisite number of old favourites ('My Favourite Dress' etc.) as well as brand new song 'Secretary' which got its first live outing.

Act of the day for me though were Theo Verney, playing in the odd location of 'posh' nightclub Panama and separated from the audience by a distance of at least 8 feet before a line of crash barriers provided something to lean on. Witnessed by a tiny crowd that can be happy they made the decision to wander along the trio belted out their set as if their lives depended on it. Personable lads they were clearly amused at the levels of security in place to protect them from the baying horde and also the Death Star-like mirror ball that was (uselessly) suspended above them. Both Theo Verney & Islet will be on at the Liverpool Psych Fest this coming weekend so a re-visit with both is definitely on my to do list.