Wednesday, 28 July 2010
Festivals? You know the drill. Mud, debauchery, and a BBC film crews living high on the hog. Or is it? Well, welcome the new breed of festivals. The urban festival. Fun for all the family, discounted tickets for the kids , right in the centre of town (give or take a couple of miles) and everybody goes home to sleep in their own bed afterwards. Sounds good to me.And throw in a bunch of half decent bands too...
Athlete are the sort of band where you see them and suddenly realise you know all the songs, you just didn't know it was them. With a crystal clear sound Athlete are tight, solid and don't disappoint - even if they don’t think so. With a drafted in last minute replacement bass player called Steve and their first gig in five weeks, its almost the perfect festival set, with songs you'll be singing along too before the first chorus is over. Athlete are a band far better than their commercial stature belies - any one of these songs could have been - probably should have been - massive. Just one song the strength of "Yellow" could have made them stadium fillers - but instead they've got lots of songs just as good, just not as well known. File Under:Should be Huge.
Even if you don't know The Noisettes, you know The Noisettes. You know more of their songs than you think. From the opening "Don’t Upset The Rhythm" to the closing "Never Forget Me" - via songs from Charlie And The Chocolate Factory and the Buzzocks - it’s a jangly faux 60's show band, all sparkly glitter and outrageous show outfits and hooks big enough to land any fish.
Alas, it's soon clear their ambitions and limitations. When you set the bar so high - the legendarily tight soul revue bands of Live At The Apollo - any flaws are wildly exposed. And indeed they are. Despite the pristine Showgirl presentation, it’s a replication of something which very few people can even place the origins of anymore - because as time moves on, things pass into history. Hardly anyone now would know how tight those sixties soul revue bands are, no matter how much coverage they get in back issues of Mojo, and what we have here is the definite new sound of something old - an almost slavish imitation of something so long ago, memories have faded and people can't compare them. Hell, Lenny Kravitz made an entire career out of nostalgia for an age that never existed, complete with a bank of Vox AC30 valve amplifiers .
None of which sounds very original - and it's not really. Sadly though, the band sound somehow empty and hollow. Unlike the superbly produced records, the live sound leaves alot to be desired. But the sound and quality of the songs shines through.
Afterwards, the announcer says "On the next stage, Terrorvision. If you don't know who they are, ask your dad". Man, that's not nice.
I've seen Terrorvision many a time, mostly through accidental support slot than by design. Tonight is no real difference .
Terrorvision are a band that have hit after hit after hit. A dozen tracks, almost all top forty singles. Big hooks, huge choruses, and they were Britain's brightest metal hopes.... once. But despite Tony Wright, the singer giving it all like England's very own David Lee Roth, it never really sparks the fire. Perhaps playing a small stage at the bottom of a field to a crowd of five thousand isn't quite the right enviroment to rip the roof off this joint - ater all, Its difficult to do that when there is no roof....
Opening - rather predictably - with "Alice, Whats The Matter?" the performance is full of hit singles that you didn't know you already knew. If you were alive in the nineties, you heard them everywhere. The only thing is that the bands biggest blessing is also their biggest curse - the novelty radio hit "Tequila", played tonight in a version most of the crowd don't recognise. Its the sort of huge hit that a band can't recover from - the Ebeneezer Goode effect, where the hit becomes bigger than the band ever were. Every song here, you can sing along to - or in the case of "Friends And Family", swear along to.
A million miles away from their slick, produced radio friendly sound, tonight Terrorvision are a unrefined, raw rock beast.Rough around the edges and with a sludgy sound and despite a set crammed with almost a dozen hit singles, massive big choruses and huge hooks, here they are playing second fiddle to Calvin Harris, in a field, in Nottinghamshire with a small stage, a few lights, a three quarter hour set, and a curious crowd five thousand strong. It never really clicks - never has that moment. The songs are there, but whats the matter? Tony gives it his all - clambering up the side of the stage only two songs in, singing from the top of the speaker stack twenty feet into the air, and working the crowd into a frenzy with a set that’s sloppy and under rehearsed. With a sound that sludgy, they are a band whose back catalogue deserves a far better treatment than this. Massive riffs get lost in the middle of the field, and no matter how much the drummer looks like he's enjoying every damn second - he looks like he should really be in a far heavier band. Novelty clothing and a skunk haircut won't necessarily help you on the reformation circuit.
Its only really when "My House" kicks in that the crowd starts to go a little bit wild. And for anyone who wants to get thrown out, Its crowdsurfing time. But its the songs, not the performance, that makes them rock. Terrorvision are under rehearsed, sloppy, and not really together. Which is a shame, because they have songs to kill for and more hits than you can throw a stick at, and its not the crowd going mental that's letting them down, just a terrible sound and a lacklustre performance.
On the main stage, Calvin Harris, hits the ground running and accelerates. Its a massive, massive, party ready crowd. a field jumping at one, full of hits and hooks and an enthusiastic, bonkers response. For a dance producer only two albums old, it feels more like 1995, not 2005. You know some bands are almost perfect, festival bands? like Faithless, or The Chemical Brothers? Calvin Harris is in the same league. Tall but deserved praise. You know the hits - the sexist (not sexy) "Girls", the up and at 'em "Acceptable In The Eighties", the closing "Ready For The Weekend". He may be new to the game, but he's a seasoned pro who knows the moves and gets everyone moving.
If you ain't grooving, you ain't moving. Impossibly infectious from the top to the bottom, Calvin Harris sets the field on fire and then gets even more incendiary as the set goes on.Energetic,infectious, and unmissable.
Some might say there's a time and place for Shed Seven - and that time was 1995. And they'd be wrong. Shed Seven are a band with a bad rap and a terrible name, but are far far better than you'd be led to believe. Shed Seven are a band that I've never managed to see before, due to reasons unknown, and despite technical problems that plague their set, deliver a solid set full of hits. Songs that even if you didn't know, you knew them. They never had the overbearing moment of connection that Oasis had, never had that one big hit - but they did have many a song that seemed to nudge that same stratosphere. Its a back catalogue full of Supersonic's rather than a single Wonderwall. But when they shine, they truly shine.
Practically every song is a hit - from the opening "Dolphin" to the closing "Chasing Rainbows", with the only exception being the old bside "Around Your House". But even that turns out to a be a set highlight, morphing into the Stone Roses "I Am The Resurrection" half way though.
Two songs into Shed Seven, and the thirty something guy behind me leans forward, and empties his stomach on the sodden grass feet feet away. He stumbles off… and Ten minutes later, he's behind me again - with two full pints of alcohol.. He's lost the battle of the booze. Some people should know when they are done.And still insists, like a sucker, for more punishment.
For the rest of the set I'm watching him like a hawk, as he wobbles around like a drunken clanger, praying to god that he doesn't end up repeating that act of vomiting over me, or falling over when the score reaches too many beers to nil. Him and his lairy mates, acting like kings for the day as if they themsleves are the rockstars, constantly shouting out for the same song over and over again.The same song they always end the set with.
And people wonder why festivals get a bad rap eh?
The problem with Shed Seven is that their audience are a bunch of lairy, beery idiots. Tight, professional, passionate and with a set full of hits, they blow Terrorvision off the stage. This band would go down a storm in a sleepy seaside town like Folkestone where there's nothing to do but drink or fight, and they deserve so so much better than that.
Shed Seven aren't cool, and I don't care - they never were. Yet they have a back catalogue full of hits and deserve far better than being the musical sideshow to a bunch of drunken idiots, where the music is just secondary. From the joyful melancholy of "On Standby" and "Chasing Rainbows" to the seventies discofunk of "Disco Down", Shed Seven are an almost forgotten gem of Britpop. Like Terrorvision, they have a backcatalogue filled with hits - but unlike Terrorvision, they are actually some cop live. Together, tight, and top of their game, they own the field. Even if it does slowly thin out in anticipation of the headliners...
Running across at high speed, and the Pet Shop Boys are about to take the stage. Its a peculiar thing, the Pet Shop Boys. Imagine kraftwerk mixed with Gilbert and George ; the Pet Shop Boys are the finest living pop group in England. And you'd be a fool to pretend otherwise. Lashings of dry irony and wit whilst maintaining the tradition of British eccentrics is a tight wire to cross, but they do it style. Even if the group of ten year olds in the audience are emulating the silly hats era...
Its a nonstop Pet Shop Boys Extravanganza. A full on megamix Party.Almost two hours of the Pet Shop Boys playing their own hits megamix stylee. Practically every song is rejigged, reworked, turning old familiar textures into new and exciting shapes. the same song in different structures and sounds. if you like, it the same picture in a very different frame. And such is the strength of their back catalogue - its peerless, with some forty hit singles, that they leave out more hits than they can possibly play. With the songs reworked from the inside out, verses of one song merge into the chorus of another and back again. Its truly a radical, unpredictable, but highly satisfying set.
Frontloaded with songs from the new album which easily prove a match for anything they've done - "Did You See Me Coming" for example, sounds like it could have been written twenty years ago - it soon turns into the greatest electro-pop disco you've ever experienced. Fragments of songs run into one another with astounding invention - "Paninaro" is represented by the opening Thunderbirds drum pattern, repeated through the stunning "Go West" - and even the much neglected "Two Divided by Zero" finds itself overlaid with samples of Kraftwerk before turning into a heartfelt "Why Don't We live Together", including snatches of verses from New York City Boy and Left To My Own Devices. "Opportunities" later on turns up, albeit as a three second drum sample. Seriously.
A set that surprisingly light on hit singles, instead reinventing and revisiting old album tracks which stand up to as proudly as anything they've ever done. Whilst even the most casual listener could name a dozen favourites they don't hear, what we have here is an ebb and flow of a show that's almost futurist in its sound yet retro in its nature, playing and mocking the conventions of a normal gig. I've never seen Roadies in white lab coats pretending to be mad scientists before.
The staging isn't like any rock gig you've seen in years. Part stage furniture, part backdrop, part projection screen, its very... cubist. The story plays out on the screens as well as the stage - the fighting lovers in "Jealousy" dancing around each other flirtatously yet ferociously , and yet the stage is being rebuilt, redesigned as the show progresses - much the same as it did on the 2006 tour, when suddenly a third of the way in it suddenly went widescreen. But at this point, its secret prog rock influence seeps through. All its missing is the marching hammers, as the relentless, pounding industrial drum pattern recalls Pink Floyds "Empty Spaces" and the same, white, cubes comes toppling down. And any song called "Building A Wall" can't help but invoke memories of the such a floydian slip ; merging from "Integral"'s paranoia atmosphere of security and protection into that shows the arch irony and synchronicity shining through.
"Do I Have To?" is the obligatory B-Side, and easily stands as tall as anything else all night. Tonight sees many a rarely played track from the early years - when was the last time they did "Kings Cross" for example? - and it flows perfectly.
I've seen many Pet Shop Boys shows and they just keep on getting better and better. No two hundred foot high claw required, they make the back of the field feel just like the front. 20,000 dancing bodies and singing voices - and about the only concession to stadium rock is covering Coldplay's "Viva la Vida". Its an unusual set from the perspective of Pet Shop Boys fan - heavy on songs from the new album and lots and lots of early songs, and nothing from 2006's magnificent "Fundamental" album or 2002's "Release" - save a 30 second fragment of "Integral".
There's very few bands that can hold a candle to the Pet Shop Boys - Englands finest living pop group ; and on the basis of tonight, its proof positive that they bring a show that feels stadium sized to a smallest stage which clever uses of multimedia and performance together in perfect unison. The Pet Shop Boys have a set of classic songs, a classy show and if you didn't see them, you truly , genuinely missed out on one of the finest acts England had ever produced. Darling, they were wonderful, they really were quite good - scratch that, they were excellent.
As festivals go, its almost a perfect set. Closing with a succession of huge hits such as "What Have I Done to Deserve This", "It's A Sin" and "West End Girls", and then like the day itself Its over all too soon.
Splendour by Name, Splendour by nature. A lovely day out with friends, good bands, fine music and a lovely atmosphere. Splendid day out. Anyone want to join me next year?
Setlists:
Athlete:Salvador / Superhuman / Hurricane / You Got The Style / Twenty Four Hours / Half Light / Westside / The Getaway / Wires.
Noisettes:Don't Upset The Rhythm / 24 Hrs / Saturday Night / Your Imagination / Ever Fallen In Love / I Heard You Say / Every Now And Then / Sister Rosetta - You Really Got Me / Never Forget You.
Terrorvision:Alice Whats The Matter? / Celebrity Hit List / Friends And Family / Tequila / My House / Oblivion / Discoteque Wreck / Joesephine / Do You Wanna Go Faster? / Middleman / Pretend Best Friend / Perseverance.
Shed Seven:Dolphin / Where Have You Been Tonight? / Speak Easy / Going For Gold / She Left Me On Friday / Bully Boy / Around Your House (Inc I Am The Resurrection) / On Standby / Disco Down / Getting Better / Chasing Rainbows.
Pet Shop Boys:More Than A Dream - Heart / Did You See Me Coming / Love Etc. / Intergral - Building A Wall / Paninaro - Go West / Home Computer- Two Divided By Zero / Why Don't We Live Together inc Left To Our Own Devices / New York City Boy / Always On My Mind / Closer To Heaven - Left To My Own Devices (full) / Do I Have To/ Kings Cross / Jealousy / Surburbia / What Have I Done To Deserve This / All Over The World / Se A Vida E - Discoteca / Domino Dancing - Viva la Vida / Its A Sin
enc:Being Boring / West End Girls
Pictures by Donna Nicoll and used with permission (c) 2010 Only registered users can write comments.
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