Saturday and the campsite was packed and I spent the morning wandering around the many stalls and taking pictures of the bikes rolling into the arena. It was much more relaxed and it was good to see so many families at the festival. In the afternoon after the Tattoo Competition I headed over to the indoor stage to catch The Ramonas, the only all girl band on this weekend and I wasn’t disappointed. After which I left the tent to the cheers of the guys watching the pole dancers ringing in my ears. Then it was the turn of the Custom Bikes to take the stage, and even the sun made an appearance which just about made it a perfect Saturday afternoon.

By the time I headed over to the main stage early evening to catch Are You Experienced, a very good Hendrix tribute I could see the crowds already beginning to gather for the Vampires Rock Show. As I jostled for a place with the other photographers I could feel the excitement and anticipation build. There seemed to be twice as many people this year. And boy were we treated to an extravaganza. Steve Steinman as The Baron and a wonderful Emily Clark as Pandora were joined on stage by Toyah as the Evil Queen as they belted out all the favourite rock anthems.
I was lucky enough to meet up with Toyah briefly backstage and grab a couple of quick photos before heading back to the Grand Finale of the weekend The Wet T-Shirt Competition…surprisingly all the male photographers had disappeared, but there was no shortage of guys asking if they could swap places with me!
All in all it was a great weekend, this Rally just seems to get better and better and I can’t wait to see what next years brings….Roll on 2011

Laurine Clifford

Friday...
Festival season is well underway as I head off to Draycott in Derbyshire for the third annual Rock & Bike fest, I was here last year for one day only and it was cold and wet for most of that day. This year though I’m here for the duration and although there’s plenty of heavy showers around on the Friday accompanied by strong winds, it is warm temperatures that greet the ever expanding crowds of happy campers as the tented ‘village’ of festival goers begins to take shape. Draycott House showground is an ideal setting for a weekend of rock music and custom bikes, Thursday night sees a couple of bands start proceedings on the indoor stage, I confess to missing this as the pub was calling my name. Midday on Friday and I’m on it, probably the highlight of the weekend for me is the return of Nottingham’s NWOBHM legends Dawn Trader playing only their second gig in a quarter of a century. I’d byforgotten how good these hard rockers were, I can remember seeing them at Heanor Miners Welfare back in 1982 as well Rock City that same year, they sure woke up the crowd at Rock and Bike and started the ball rolling for the weekend. The thing with festivals especially ones with more than one stage is you can’t be everywhere at once, coupled with the fact that this one is local for me so I can’t move an inch without bumping into someone I know this means I’m bound to miss some of the bands.

The next band of note I catch up with is Toxic Federation, these young guys played here last year and are back by popular demand, they play a lot of gigs locally so most folk have already seen them before but boy do they put on a show. After playing a lengthy set the crowd were practically eating out of their hands by the time they came off the stage.

Back indoors sheltering from the showers it’s time for some Motorhead madness down the front, Motorkill take the stage and deliver a quality rendition of Lemmy and the boys playing all the classics, the mosh pit is fearsome and yours truly lingers around the edges of this mayhem. Motorkill come from the west midlands and to my mind are the definitive Motorhead tribute band in the country and they’re a bloody great bunch of chaps off stage too. I don’t catch much of Guns For Hire or Quadrophonia but I know if you watched them ‘you won’t get fooled again’ as they both put on a good show. Headlining the Friday night out door stage is the afore mentioned T-Rex, now I’m not too sure how many bands can officially call themselves T-Rex these days but this band surely is one of them. Playing all the familiar Bolan songs these guys and galls put on a ..Stirling.. show now under cover of twilight as the rain has bogged off for a bit.

With the headliners on the main stage finishing up around eleven thirty or so this leaves a logistical quandary and my first gripe about a wonderful festival, where was everyone gonna go at the end of T-Rex? Yeah that’s right into the indoor arena to see the Friday night finale AC/DC UK well the reality is there just isn’t enough room, a concern that needs to be addressed for next year.
After a mighty struggle your intrepid reporter does manage to get down the front for one of the UK’s best AC/DC tribute bands, playing till around 1am when the curfew is called AC/DC UK shoehorn a lot of ‘classics’ into their set finishing up with for those about to rock thus sending everyone back to the camp site happy.