The Nightmare Before Christmas: Brief Review

So let’s recap with my faith with festivals having returned from Reading Festival:

“And while the real music fans have been edged out of larger festivals, and turn towards the smaller festivals for their fix of remotely interesting music, such as the ATP festivals, something tells me that the larger festival bubble will surely sometime in the next couple of years burst – while I’m not hoping for collapse of an icon such as Reading and Leeds festivals, maybe it’s for the best interests of real music fans.”

Five months on from the debacle that was Reading Festival, I must say, ATP’s December installment of their Butlins festivals had high expectations for the future of festivals for me. While Reading had the advantage of being able to spend a weekend in the summer with all of my friends sitting around waiting for a good band to stumble on stage, it missed what festivals really need which is a) a variety of music, b) for that variety to be good and c) a good atmosphere to appreciate the variety of said good bands. ATP festivals are renowned for these three points, so it was with much relish we travelled the odd 200 miles to get to Minehead – and while Butlins may seem like a surreal backdrop to the madness handpicked by Melvins and Mike Patton, I can honestly say that this event was one of the highlights of my gigging lifetime (2 or so years, then).

FRIDAY

Melvins (1983 line up)

To start the weekend, the ‘original’ line up of the Melvins performing tracks from the Mangled Demos From 1983 album released a while back. King Buzzo introduces drummer for the set Mike Dillard and bassist “Matt Lukin”, who rather curiously enough is a dead cert for full time Melvins drummer Dale Crover. Hmm. While the crowd don’t whip up into a frenzy, the hardcore side of Melvins is an apt opening act, being an influence for many of the bands to come. Houdini number Set Me Straight was a crowd favorite from the set of otherwise stock-hardcore songs, and there was the general feeling of the set being there for the sense of nostalgia as opposed to music. Regardless, an intriguing look into Melvins history.

Tweak Bird

If I was to be honest, I can’t remember much of Tweak Bird’s set; although what I remember was definately worth chasing up. The White Stripes-esque (in line up, not sound) set up of guitar and drum duo was definately unique in the grand scheme of sludgy duos – the frilly high voice of one of the brothers somehow complimented by the other brother’s beat-perfect drumming and his own guitar work. The merch stand didn’t have any of their CDs. Boo.

Dirtbombs

This band have been described on the internet as one of the best live bands around – curious enough to beat tiredness from the journey, I was, simply put, blown away. Dirtbombs are best described as soul-meets-garage-rock, with two drummers and two bassists. Intense stuff, especially the memorable ending where the instruments and drums were taken off the stage bit by bit while the band were still playing, right up until the drummers had one tom drum and a whistle between them, at which point launching themselves into the crowd. A must see.

The Locust

Having been disappointed by the opening of Torche’s set, The Locust filled in the space admirably. I say “filled”, I mean a more brutal verb like “pounded their way into” – I had expected them to play the standard 1, 2 minute songs, yet while they did do this, they created soundscapes that could probably make glass break, the bass making my spine shake. Their stage personalities also added to the effect, whilst not playing their instruments they remained completely static, eireely twitching like puppets when playing their parts.

Zu

It’s hard to describe Zu to someone not familiar with them – hardcore meets metal meets jazz? Maybe, but that doesn’t really matter; to hear the band is to realise what they’re on about, and while mixing jazz with metal doesn’t exactly seem to be on the top of the pile of great ideas, in practice it is a sight to behold. Filled with energy, the chunky, driving bassline and the saxophone’s booming melody work together perfectly. Who would have thought it?

SATURDAY

Bohren & Der Club of Gore

“Doomjazz”, apparantly, before you ask. While I do appreciate their music, their placement as first thing on the saturday wasn’t exactly inspired; a late night spot would have fit their gloomy, atmospheric jazz happenings much better. Not a very memorable set, but potential is definately there for an excellent show.

Mastodon

While they were a guitarist down, they still managed to make do with a fantastic set that covered all their albums – and although Colony of Birchmen was missing backing vocals, they seemed to sound pretty similar to the four-piece version of Mastodon we all know and love. Blood and Thunder was still the whalecore classic it was the day it was concieved, and the Blood Mountain-heavy set displayed their progressive talents. Now if only they would actually drum the opening to Crystal Skull, then we’d have something to write home about.

Melvins

Pretty much the Brighton show (read review below) but sans Boris, Honey Bucket and My Generation amongst others. Still, a fantastic show from one of the best live shows around, running through some oldies such as Tipping the Lion and Eye Flys, but mostly keeping to (A) Senile Animal and Nude With Boots material. The dual drummers set-up was as tight as ever, while Buzz and Joady kept the guitars and vocals the classic chunky, brooding Melvins style. Ending the set was Star Spangled Banner, met with general confusion by the crowd, yet was still as bone-crunchingly apocolyptic as it’s been previously. The best set was to come on sunday…

Butthole Surfers

Gibby was spectacuarly drunk. Meandering on stage with a bottle of whisky in one hand and beer in the other, the vocal style that ensued actually fit the music very well – opening with 22 Going On 23, the newly-reunited original-lineup of the Buttholes (how’s that for marketable) were one of the highlights of the festival – this is coming from someone who previously was not a massive fan. Tinkering with various electronics, the singer, Gibby, manipluated his voice into a snarling (albiet wasted) monster of a frontman. Another must see.

Fantomas

This marked Mike Patton’s sole contribution to the performance side of the festival (well, alongside Fantomas’ sunday set), and while I did hope for some impromptu collaborations with the likes of Zu or Rahzel, this set billed as a performance of their most ‘conventional’ album, The Director’s Cut, was an incredible sight to behold. Although oh so slightly out of the original order, Patton’s well oiled machine bulldozed it’s way though, ramping up the intensity of the original record sevenfold. Dale Crover replaced Dave Lombardo on drums, however the difference was not noticable on the grand scheme of things. One way to look at it was half Melvins, half Mr Bungle. And I like that view. A lot.

Neil Hamburger

Words cannot simply describe how funny this man is. This man is so unfunny, he’s funny – it’s a taste which is somewhat aquirred. He stumbles around stage with glasses of bourbon, insults the audience repeatedly (“why don’t you go to another stage and watch someone shit on a plate?”) and lacks a certain amount of taste (“Q: WHY did god let Smash Mouth have three top 5 hits? A: It was a clerical error. They were meant to get AIDS”), yet it strangely fits together. Definately watch him if you get the chance.

SUNDAY

Vocal Sampling

Essentially, an acapella group from Cuba that sings both cuban classics and modern hits such as Hotel California and Every Breath You Take. This is how you start a morning – the stage was sparse with only the 5 members of the group and their microphones on stage, but they whipped up the crowd a frenzy – at one point getting the crowd to actually dance, which doesn’t happen enough at gigs in my opinion. It certainly is an experience to hear the Hotel California solo, complete with effects, with no guitar on stage.

Leila

Something went very wrong here. Plagued with technical difficulties, the sound kept of cutting out, and oddly enough one of the singers shuffled on stage before introducing himself with “I want to die”. Enough said really. Probably would have been better if it worked properly.

Monotonix

There’s a reason that this Israeli “freak rock” band are hailed amongst the greatest live bands of our time – choosing to set up on the floor instead of the stage, as soon as the first bangs of the drum hammered in, the lead singer had already gone across the crowd and back again. Although I can see why on record they can be a bit shoddy, they are strictly a live band – hanging from pipes on the ceiling, drinking people’s beer and spitting it around the crowd, crowd surfing the drum kit whilst crowd surfing themselves and playing it… ask anyone who went to go see Monotonix a story about them and they’ll reel out something different every time. At the end of the set, the drum kit was whisked outside, where the gig continued outside (until the security told them to stop). Basically, brilliance.

Melvins (again)

Essentially the same as the saturday set, with the inclusion of My Generation and Boris; maybe Jared was inspired by Monotonix, but the crowd interaction in this show was incredible – during Eye Flys, the lumbering frame of Jared leant into the crowd whilst playing the bass line, a vacant, chilling facade etched into his face, fitting the mood of the song perfectly and giving the song extra creep factor. Then, during Boris, he ditched his istrument in favor of running amok in the crowd; at one point he charged towards my lady friend whilst having the shirt of someone streched over his face while the person still had the shirt on. Doubtless it’s somewhere on Youtube, but his haunting cries during Boris summed up the whole “Nightmare Before Christmas” aesthetic excellently.

Kool Keith

While rap/hip-hop stars always have a sense of ego, I’m sure “Black Elvis” is a bit far for this man. Not much else to say, wasn’t paying much attention. Kutmasta Kurt was good, though.

Squarepusher

So it’s about ten to 3 AM when Squarepusher gets on stage – The Damned apparantly took ages to get on – and we’re all pretty tired and dreading getting up by 10AM. Of course, once he gets into the thick of things, time is no longer a restraint, exhaustion disappeared, and gone to be replaced by frantic dancing to his jazz-IDM frenzies. The first few songs of the set were from his latest couple of releases, Just a Souvenir and Hello Everything, Hello Meow in particular getting crowd attention (the bemused-amused face of Tom Jenkinson when people started to crowd surf was priceless), and by the time he was pulling out the dancier stuff like Come on my Selector half the crowd had surrendered for the night, leaving a small pulse of a crowd lapping up whatever he was pushing at us. Was it worth being up until half 4 for? Yes, yes it was.

And on that note, a Mike Patton quote from the Fantomas set: “I’ve seen more awesome bands in the last 1 and a half days than I have in the last 10 and a half years” – and this rings true. In one place, in 3 days, I was proven that some festivals aren’t souless holes. Here’s to ATP festivals. Shame I can’t make the Jesus Lizard one, though.

 

Melvins: Brighton Concorde 2, 6/10/08

So when those four horsemen inevitably get tired of our meagre little world and decide to stomp it to an uncountable number of tiny little bits, what will happen? A complete drown out at the hands of tidal waves? Comets raining down upon our fettered landscape? The Melvins let rip their new version of Boris? As it turns out, I wouldn’t be suprised if it is the latter; the soundtrack of the incoming armageddon fitting in perfectly with their slightly-faster-but-still-as-heavy numbers off new album Nude With Boots, it’s nice to know Melvins have lost none of their spark over their 26 year long career. Due to the lack of a London date, this writer hightailed it down to Brighton in order to witness this Melvins feast (supported by duo Big Business and noise outfit Porn) – anything less than incredible would have resulted in a two and a half hour moan to the girlfriend along various motorways and a myriad of A-roads. For those less inclined to read the whole of this review, the trip back was spent listening to a newly-aquired Big Business CD and lecturing the girlfriend about why Boris was so good. Go figure.

Kicking off the festivities was the search engine’s nightmare Porn featuring Tom Moss on guitar/effects and the Melvins’ very own Dale Crover on drums – having recently released an album with japanese noise god Merzbow (…And The Devil Makes Three), it came as no surprise that the set boasted noise, and lots of it. For the half hour or so before Tim Moss came on stage a faint siren-on-acid esque noise had permeated the crowd – once he took the stage, this was cranked up to within an inch of the audience’s teeth-clenching threshold. Not to say this wasn’t good; not at all, this was sublime, the melody enough to keep it from trailing off into pure noise territory. Once the bassist and, after a while, Dale Crover take up their chosen instruments, the noise is elevated into the realms of sonic brilliance, the drums giving the piece a sense of pace while the bass (interestingly played with knuckle dusters) gave it a certain amount of oomph. The perfect climax came as Coady Willis (of Big Business and Melvins) joined the drums to give the audience the first taste of double-drumming action. Needless to say, Porn were a triumph, perfectly keeping the balance between being sonically interesting and melodically solid enough to applease the audience.

The good thing about all 3 bands on the bill sharing members and instruments? Short changeover times. For example: the wait between bands at most major venues is anywhere between half an hour and three quarters of an hour (sometimes pushing up to an hour). Here, it only took 15 minutes for Big Business to get on the stage and start hammering away, Coady Willis’ aforementioned drumming getting more of a look in this time around, and boy, that kid can play. Of course, melody is also needed to sweeten the crunch, which is handy, because Jared Warren is a beast on the bass. If you haven’t already (and why haven’t you?), go pick up one of Big Business’ records as soon as humanly possible – I haven’t been this impressed by a support band for a a good few months now (Eluvium supporting Explosions in the Sky springs to mind), and they were the perfect compliment to the Melvins proper. The bass lines driving the beast of a set along like a bulldozer, pushing through songs both old, such as Easter Romantic and Hands Up, and new, such as Cats, Mice, continually keeping the pace up. Eventually Dale Crover joined them on guitar (for the record, the liner notes for Stag says he plays the sitar on The Bit – what can’t this man do?), adding the guitar element to songs such as Just as the Day was Dawning, leading to a chunky and frankly awesome ending to the set.

As much as I would love to get through this review without mentioning token Melvins review words such as sludge godfathers, slow and drone, it turns out token words are there for a reason. However, this is not to pidgeon hole the ever-versitile Melvins into one meagre style of music – opener Nude With Boots is a pristine example of this. Fast, chirpy, but still with the trademark Melvins crunch, it’s a wonder how the crowd largely don’t move around more: movement is basically zero. And after album counterparts Dog Island and Dies Iraea, there’s still nothing (admittedly these are some of the more slower and beefier songs that Melvins have made in the last few years). Oddly, fecal matter only really begins to hit the fan when Civilized Worm broods it’s way onto the set – now we’re talking! Not that I’m not of the belief that gigs need ample amount of jumping and movement to be good, but here… it just fits. The set itself had perfect balance between old Melvins and new Melvins (i.e. post Big Business joining the band), the new represented fantastically by (A) Senile Animal having it’s own string of songs in the set alongside Nude With Boots material – Rat Faced Granny, The Hawk, You’ve Never Been Right and A History of Bad Men so very almost having a run through the set exactly the same as the album tracklisting.

Of course, the Melvins have has a long and incredibly fruitful career, their work varying from the slow drone (sorry) masterpiece Bullhead, to a live album of noise Colossus of Destiny, to the electic (and my personal favorite) Stag. To ignore this would be a crime, and Melvins thankfully stay within Bennett’s Law by playing a healthy dose of the classics throughout the set – debut opener Eye Flys is given the modern treatment, the creeping bassline being backed up by the furious double drumming (which, in case you haven’t heard, is symmetrical. Good fact right there), while possibly their most famous song Honey Bucket is presented the way they left it; frantic, messy and pure brilliance. By this point limbs in the pit were flying, and with good reason. This is controlled carnage at it’s very best. Tipping The Lion is a more stripped down (if it can be called that) affair than it’s electronic-ish album counterpart, with the the beat and libido that made me fall in love with the album version. Not a band to keep things at standard, they even brooded through a couple of covers, taking myself a good minute or two to recognize what they made of The Who’s My Generation. I’m sure fans of The Who would hate it’s chundering, half speed guts, but as an indifferent listener to Pete Townsend’s brigade, I loved it – it’s not often a cover isn’t recognizable from the original, and it’s this freshness which makes me fall head over heels for it. American classic Star Spangled Banner opens as a strinctly acapella affair, their singing backed up only be a series of boos from the audience, to be drowned out by frantic drumming and riffing by the outset of the song. Could this be a statement about modern America? Apparantly not, as Buzz later clarifies in an article it’s strictly neutral. So there you go.

Which brings us back to the matter of Boris. Does this deserve the best part of a paragraph to itself? Yes. This song on the album itself is one of the best heavy songs ever produced in my humble opinion – and to make it even better in every single aspect is a feat that only the Melvins could really pull out of their rabbit hat. The opening was both as devestating as the original and frantic as the newer stuff, with added drums giving the song an extra kick up the backside (see: the middle section of Etna by Sunn O))) and Boris, which is equally as spectacular), while the live setting gave the bass and general meat of it extra beef that the original CD just couldn’t get. And by the middle of the beast, the tempo was changed so they were singing and playing half speed. Half speed. Half the speed and just as brutal. And while the band themselves didn’t interact with the audience much, and the set wasn’t as long as it could have been (this is nit picking, however awesome The Talking Horse and Going Blind would have been), the stellar ending to the set summed up the gig as a whole: simply stellar.

Setlist:

1. Nude With Boots
2. Dog Island
3. Dies Iraea
4. Civilized Worm
5. The Kicking Machine
6. Eye Flys
7. Suicide In Progress
8. Billy Fish
9. Tipping The Lion
10. Honey Bucket
11. Blood Witch
12. Rat Faced Granny
13. The Hawk
14. You’ve Never Been Right
15. My Generation
16. A History Of Bad Men
17. Star Spangled Banner
18. Boris

 

Fuck Buttons: Rough Trade East, 1/09/08

Are this duo determined to scare people shitless? As the final beats came to an end, a grateful yet cautious crowd start to plod out of the infamous Rough Trade East, of the vast majority probing in their ears in an attempt to get back their much loved ability to hear, a feat Kevin Shields himself would be proud of. I don’t mean to grate on about the volume, but those relatively small speakers packed a mighty punch – or, more specifically, Fuck Buttons packed enough of a punch to blow one of the speakers and make an entire section of the audience look around in panic and prod their ears, just to check. Formed in 2004, Andrew Hung and Ben Power have been bemusing their audiences with their spiralling sonic collages and heavy hitting percussive hammerings under the monkier Fuck Buttons, and to celebrate their second single, Colours Move, off their debut album, Street Horrrsing, the duo played arguably their most prestegious (although not largest) gig before setting off on tour with post-rock legends Mogwai.

And rather fittingly, prehaps, that it should be held in this tiny 300 capacity shop down an alley at the end of Brick Lane, London – this group are certainly destined to be a live force to be reckoned with, and based on the strength of this show, will surely only become more popular as they play to thousands across the US and UK supporting Mogwai. As one last bang before the inevitable popularity rocket, if you will, and bang they certainly did. As they take the stage, however, this is not an outcome which is immediately expected – armed to the teeth with pedals, dials and sliders, complete with the juxtaposing innocence of a pre-school voice recorder and game boy, they briskly ease in the crowd with album opener Sweet Love For Planet Earth – those who have listened to the album (and for those who haven’t, go do so now) instantly recognise the sweet yet chaotic chirps, a facade for what follows. The opening is reminicent of an Animal Collective gig, at least on the aural level, and prehaps the clothing sense the group have, yet by the time the keyboards roar into life, all these preconceptions are blasted away.

The hour that followed was an examplar way to perform experimental and downright noisy music – Ribs Out, the second song of the set, was particuarly energetic not only through the use of live tribal-esque, truly head-splitting, apocalyptic drumming on a Tom drum, but Andrew Hung’s ’stage’ presence – jumping down from the makeshift crowd, seemingly entraced by the music they were creating, yet also never seeming like the presence was forced. And while a couple of other songs featured similar tribal drumming, the duo showed that they ain’t no one trick pony through dropping some dance beats into the mix, such as in Bright Tomorrow. Admittedly, it wasn’t enough to stir the monday evening crowd into a frenzy, but it’s refreshing to see a group of this nature not relying on looping similar samples through songs in order to seem more experimental – Fuck Buttons kept their set interesting yet never letting the noise relent. Seriously, no gaps between songs, no rest until the very end of the set.

Race To Your Bedroom/Spirit Rise was, however, a whole new ball game; reminicent of noise gods such as Merzbow and My Bloody Valentine, a ten minute portion of noise was added to the mix after Ribs Out, a peculiar choice, yet it sequed well. Having gone to the My Bloody Valentine reunion shows earlier this year, I saw similar scenes of smug head-bobbing by those endowed with the common sense to bring earplugs, and the ol’ finger-in-the-ears routine by a few close to the speakers. An experience it certainly was, and while of course it’s not really comparable to the carnage which is the MBV noise section, I found myself drawing parallels. Fuck Buttons provided tonight with a healthy mix of old(ish) and new songs, loud and really-fucking-loud, and rhythmic and noisy. With this, there’s no real way they can continue on this form and not gain popularity on the forthcoming Mogwai tour… here’s to the future.

 

The Flaming Lips: Lovebox Festival, Victoria Park – 20/07/2008

Ask yourself this: How do you top Goldfrapp’s set at a festival, which incorporated dancing colourful yetis, a cunningly disguised pole along with a couple of pole dancers, and a whole arrary of stuffed critters loitering amoungst the musicians? The answer, for The Flaming Lips, is you don’t; you completely destroy it. Before we get into more detail, let me just say that out of the many gigs I’ve been to in the last couple of years, this was probably one of the most extravagant, over the top and downright fun sets I have ever witnessed anywhere, let alone at a festival (and don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen some of the best at showmanship, for example Roger Waters and Bjork).

Having the band themselves set up their instruments (a rare occassion for any moderately big band, let alone the headliners of a festival) with a crew equipped with a curiously odd uniform of florescent orange worker suits (which parallelled the colour scheme of just about everything on stage apart from the band themselves and the guitars/drums), anticipation from the crowd was soaring as the screen on the stage burst into life and 2 groups of dancers joined the stage from either side, half aptly dressed as Iron Man and half laden in pink (someone correct me if I’m wrong) Imperial Star Wars suits. Ever the showman, Wayne Coyne, ever-enthusiastic frontman is lifted in a giant bubble onto the crowd, and much to the delight of the crowd, begins to roll around gleefully. The expression on his face is pure joy and evident love for his trade – much like a schoolboy in a sweet shop eying up the sherbert flying saucers, Wayne shows his love for his fans (one of whom turned up in a tiger outfit – I salute you). Getting back on the stage, the band tear into The Soft Bulletin opener Race For The Prize, all while setting off confetti “master blasters”, canes which fired streamers and more confetti from the end, and the aforementioned screen in the back of the stage which bizarrely enough showed a japanese game show with girls and alligators – all, of course, integral to the Lips’ quirky charm. Not that all this is a gimmick – oh no, musically, they captured all the magic and sparkle of the record, complete with the cheery keyboard which drives the song.

The set mostly featured from their more recent albums, Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots and At War With The Mystics, although it did feature choice cuts from their more noisy, psychedelic albums pre-Soft Bulletin – an unusual choice was a cover of Led Zeppelin song The Song Remains The Same, which was preceeded by Wayne reminicing about his own memories of the song, namely that of everyone in the crowd running around naked to the summery tune; obviously craving audience participation, he used every opportunity to draw the audience in and make them feel part of the show. Free Radicals, The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song and Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part One all had Wayne demanding a good ol’ fashioned crowd singalong, and that’s what he got; “FANATICAL , FUCK!” and “YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH YEAH” impressively loud enough to perhaps grant Wayne’s wish of it reaching the White House and changing their delerious ways. The real clinch of the package was their ability to combine crazy and downright ridiculous on stage actions with mature songwriting and lyrics, yet combined with the singalong factor the band seems designed for (although the maturity doesn’t come out in the two singalong snippets I wrote).

The band managed to maintain an impressive balance between their newer, lush and fuller compositions and their older, sparser tunes; songs such as The W.A.N.D. and Pompeii am Götterdämmerung were the newer crowd pleasers, showing an arrary of truly powerful hooks and lush riffs (which garnered an odd amount of popularity given that the festival was more dance orientated, given Roni Size and Goldfrapp’s appearance earlier on in the day, not to mention the good few dance stages dominated by DJs), while songs such as Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part One and Vein of Stars were more stripped down and fragile, especially Yoshimi, which was turned from it’s album personna of glitched up acoustic guitar and full blooded song to one played on two pianos, relying on the audience to sing along to it – one of the more memorable moments of the evening out of many. Of course, the older consistency of the back catalog begged for a visit, which was delivered by In a Priest Driven Ambulance’s Mountainside and Transmissions from the Satellite Heart’s She Don’t Use Jelly – both of which went down a storm with the crowd. Both She Don’t Use Jelly and Yoshimi’s Fight Test featured especially fantastic visuals in the background – Fight Test having clips of children being beaten and kicked in obviously fake ways (no need to call the social services just yet), giving a humourous backdrop to the song, while She Don’t Use Jelly was backed with a woman in a bath filled with tangerines, holding toast, an apt nod to the song itself.

Set closer Do You Realise?? amalgamated all the elements which made their set fantastic – fantastic visuals everywhere on the stage, streamers left right and centre, even more confetti, and of course the song – all encompassing and introspective, it served as the perfect closer to one of the most downright perfect sets I have ever seen, full stop. While it may have been a little bit on the short side, it was fantastic visually and musically, not to mention that this was a festival, where spectacles such as this are not readily expected save for the most extravagant festival, which Lovebox certainly was not (this is not a criticism, it was superb). Which makes me wonder; if their festival set is this good, just how good are their solo shows?

Setlist:

Ta Dah
Race For The Prize
Free Radicals
Fight Test
The Song Remains The Same
Mountainside
Yoshimi Battles The Pink Robots Part One
Pompeii am Götterdämmerung
Vein Of Stars
The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song
The W.A.N.D.
She Don’t use Jelly
Do You Realize??

 

Roger Waters: O2 Arena, 18/05/08

At sixty-four years old, you’d be forgiven for thinking that Roger Waters has sailed past his peak of rock-stardom, resigning himself to celebrity reality TV spin-offs or sitting miserably in vast riches where others who have tasted success as massive as Pink Floyd have. At the first of his two night residency at the newly rejuvenated O2 Arena, a rock spectacular featuring spacemen, pigs and giant laser prisms begged to differ.

Boasting a 20,000 person capacity, the O2 was a bursting metropolis of shops, cinemas and restaurants that surrounded the arena itself – tonight it was filled with a whole range of different people, young and old, showing that Roger Waters is still immensely popular not only to the people who were there for Pink Floyd’s original gigs, but also newcomers to the legacy such as myself. Walking in and taking our seats, the sheer enormity of what was about to come hit us – 3 screens took up pretty much the entire width of the O2 at the stage end, while a whole wealth of sound techs were situated in the middle of the floor, ready to fine tune the sound and pretty much pull the strings on the visual side of things. Before the show itself begun, the middle, biggest screen was occupied by that of an old vintage radio and WW2 model plane, complimented by whiskey and cigarettes – reminicent of all Pink Floyd work from The Wall onwards, the music played changed as a hand delved onto the screen and fiddled with the radio.

Promptly at 7:45, Roger Waters and his band strolled out on stage to overwealming reception from the audience, who greeted him with a standing applause well into this first song, In The Flesh. This was possibly met with somekind of dismay for a couple of thousand people who were still spilling into the seats by the time the third song started; the O2 is by no means quick to get into, taking about 15 minutes from when you entered the dome, through security checks and finding the entrance you were told to go into. However, the steady stream of people did little to detract those already seated from the spectacle Roger had started – at one point in the song, spotlights probed the audience as Roger sang “Are there any queers in the theatre tonight? Get ‘em up against the wall! And that one in the spotlight, he don’t look right to me. And that one looks Jewish, and that one’s a coon! Who let all this riffraff into the room?”, while a camera pointed onto said spotlights and showed the person being filmed on the two subsidary screens – cue person pointing and laughing at themselves on camera. The finale of the song played out as the sound of a crashing plane spiralled around the surround sound system and ended as a seemingly impossible amount of sparks and pyrotechnics erupted on stage: Waters was here.

As a stark contrast, the acoustic guitar was pulled out for another Wall classic, Mother. This returned to the vintage radio seen before Waters got onto the stage, and pulled the camera around the room it was situated in: fans of the film adaptation of The Wall would see a striking resemblance to Bob Geldof’s character in the film, smoking and looking at all kind of nudie mags, which was an eiree conterpart to the actual song – although the visuals lacked a real kind of climax to accompany the spiralling solo, the backup singers and Waters himself managed to keep the stadium transifxed. After this, a massive CG rendition of the sun loomed down onto the screens, which marked the first appearance of the night of a Syd Barrett-era song, Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun. Greeted by an enormous roar of approval, the visuals led the audience from the Sun and space to stills of old Pink Floyd videos Arnold Layne and Scarecrow, both of which feature Barrett in promince. The song seemed to take on a fiercer, more powerful personna than on the record, which by comparison was more spacey and psychedelic – this song alone is proof that Waters still has it in him to command a powerful tune.

Continuing the theme of Syd Barrett, the next song was the first half of Wish You Were Here epic Shine On Your Crazy Diamond. In case the Barrett tribute wasn’t obvious enough already, Shine On featured a journey through stars and space, all the way to stylised portraits of Syd Barrett himself. The music itself was flawless – the spacey keyboard intro, the guitar solos, the saxophone which characterises the track… at times, it was almost like watching a film – yes, the ride may be fixed on one set path, but hell, it’s a wild ride, and while Roger Waters lacked intimacy with the lack of any real on-stage banter (and of course the enormity of the venue), he really utilized the space he had in order to create the most spectacular show many in the audience had witnessed. And don’t get me wrong, I’ve seen the likes of Bjork fire lasers off walls, Animal Collective dazzle the crowd with pugnant, powerful lights, and The Aquabats create a mosh pit with beach balls and rubber dingys, but of all of the gigs I’ve been to, Roger Waters was the one that really pulled out all the stops.

Along with this, he also knew which songs would really get the crowd going: following Shine On were Have a Cigar and Wish You Were Here, which formed a tryptch of songs from Wish You Were Here. Needless to say, the crowd loved it – Have a Cigar’s bodacious bassline matched with equally spectacular precision lighting onto the stage and images of city life and, you guessed it, cigars, while Wish You Were Here was presented in it’s original, stripped down form, using two guitars, keeping the audience mesmerised. Following these were Southampton Dock and The Fletcher Memorial Home, both of which from The Final Cut, which is pretty much ugamiously the weakest of Pink Floyd’s discography. While these songs did little for me on record, Waters managed to create whole new beasts on stage, the dynamics of which were incredible – he could change from moving to powerful within a few bars, while the visuals showed WW2 veterans in homes from the old, a moving and poignant accompaniment to the music showing Water’s distaste for current politic problems in the middle east; graffittied quotes littered this home for the elderly, such as Stalin’s famous quote, “Death is the answer to everything – no people, no problem”.

Now, despite being a big Pink Floyd fan and being at a Roger Waters solo show, I had unfortunately neglected to listen to the man’s solo work beforehand. However, I got the feeling that most of the crowd probably had – the reaction to Perfect Sense (Parts I-II) was probably one of the biggest of the night, and you can see why: alongside the usual sprawling solos and tight saxophone work, it became apparant that a giant imflatable spaceman was, in fact, floating across the arena. After this, the screen turned into a stadium filled with water, in which a submarine fires a missile at an oil platform, and then, I kid you not, a miniature explosion goes off on stage, which the heat I could feel from my seat a good 30 or so rows back from the front in block B. Obviously people were far more accustomed to his solo work than myself, as, by the end, people were standing up and victoriously singing, arms spread wide open. Continuing with his solo work, Leaving Beirut was introduced by Roger explaining the backstory behind the song – a teenager travelling across the middle east (if I recall correctly), his car breaks down and he is forced to hitchhike back to England. Oddly enough, once the song starts, a giant comic book esque setting appears on the screen, in which presumably the real actions of Roger Waters are played out in comic book form. Now here’s the real quirk – when he sings a line, a fantastic speech bubble appears on stage, and then a smaller version appears above the backup singers! The song itself went on for about 10 minutes – this is by no means a bad thing, not at all; the song takes many progressive twists and turns throughout the song, filled with many an epic solo, yet also being very politically charged, and not in the Green Day-esque “fuck you, Bush”, but real criticisms of the system – although it did feel a bit… outdated, namedropping Tony Blair.

Ending the set on a politically charged noted, Waters brought out the now infamous pig for set finale Sheep, the only song represented from Animals. It’s hard to say that the pig didn’t completely stole the show – OK, I’ll go right out and say it, the pig completely stole the show. And if that wasn’t enough, the entire arena was rained down upon with confetti and bits of paper with the word OBAMA and a tick box next to it – although the message is probably falling onto deaf ears as, well, we can’t vote for Obama (well, I can’t vote for anyone anyway), his dedication to Obama is admirable. Despite the pig, the song itself was incredible – the keyboards, the bass, the guitar… everything driving, pounding to the finale of the set, in which Waters declared a 15 minute break before the Dark Side of the Moon set.

Building up to the Dark Side of the Moon set was, fittingly enough, a moon, coming closer and closer on the screen, until the end of the break where the famous heartbeat started, and people flooded back to their seats again as Speak To Me / Breathe started (do people not learn?). Taking on a very similar layout to the P.U.L.S.E. Pink Floyd DVD, most of the DSOTM set’s visuals took place in a circle in the middle of the stage screen, sometimes bursting out of the circle, creating a spectacular colourful visual experience. However, the visuals were at times tired and repetitive when compared to the first set – some songs just used different coloured moons, and Money had the potential to be so much better. But back to Breathe, the first real song of Dark Side of the Moon, introduced by Speak to Me - the first startling difference to the first set and, indeed, the record itself, is the fantastic use of surround sound – the sound effects used all over the album took a new dimension, characterised in Speak to Me by the man speaking, the innane laughter, the screams… things were taken to a terrifying, dynamic new high.

On The Run, the real electronic track of the record, took on a modern new personna on stage, and, much like the previous songs, was slightly terryfying – for the first time in the set, the colours were truly alive and jumped out of the circle. The sonic assualt swirled around yourself and took you to a different, colourful, psycedelic place… before being innteruppted by the roar of trains – this was oddly the most terrifying moment of the evening, and it was a dimension of the song I hadn’t felt since listening to the record for a first time a couple of years back. I’d imagine that many people in the audience felt the same, but some having listened to the record for the first time nearly 3 and a half decades ago no doubt, I can only imagine either the sheer nostalgia or the sheer terror they were experiencing.

After the sheer power of On The Run, Time had a lot to live up to. And, for the most part, it was indentical to the CD counterpart. Which was the main problem of the DSOTM set – it all seemed very similar, if not identical to the record most people had listened to in the arena countless times, the only real difference being the admittedly spectacular visuals on stage and around the arena. However, with all credit to the band, for this to be possible, they had to have been perfect with their instruments – and they were, Time taking on the classic song encompassing live, death and the entire world in a mere 5 or so minutes. Breathe (Reprise) was along similar lines, taking back the set to Breathe, before wisking away to The Great Gig In The Sky, which showed off the backup singer’s impressive array of singing to a backdrop of a saturated sky, while still engaging the audience.

Ah, the audience. Despite the relative age of the audience (and I mean no offense by that), they were, on the most part, really getting into it, some more than others. The most enthusiastic you could truly see getting into the music, and it was obvious that they were here to hear the record they had heard all those times in the flesh – dancing, singing, arms outstreched, some people truly were engaged. Of course, the most people got up and got truly enthusiastic during arguably Pink Floyd’s biggest hit off DSOTM, Money. The sound effects on this one were truly breathtaking – the sound effects that made the introduction so famous swirled around you and sucked you into the show. While the green hued lights all the way through the song were a smite uninspired, the backdrop of the record spinning and various different money clips was a perfect accompaniment to the swirling, famous saxophone solo and the bouncy bass riff which opened the song.

Us and Them was one of the songs which I felt was slightly underpowered compared to the rest of the set – it’s not the greatest song on the album in the first place, but the jazzy saxophone juxtaposed with the awe-inspiring chorus was still a formidable effort by the band. This can be compared to Any Colour You Like, which is my favorite song on the album – take this with a pinch of bias, but live, it is even more incredible than I could have ever imagined. For this song, they created the iconic prism, but made it out of light lasers – they then had another coupld of long, wavey, colourful lasers, which complimented the colourful and equally spectacular visuals on the stage. Of course, the musicians for this were at their peak – the effects laden, psychedelic guitar effortlessly joined with the equally trippy keyboard parts to create a colourful musical canvas. Behind Sheep, this moment alone was my favorite moment of the night.

Any Colour You Like eventually gave way to Brain Damage, another favorite off the album. Continuing the colourful trippy visuals which accompanied the previous song, this number featured computer generated visuals of brains, stars and pills opening into the infinates of space – epic does not describe it, it was the penultimate sing which pulled the set along to a grand climax in Eclipse. The prism was fully turned on, and fired out lasers which made it look like a full, giant laser version of the iconic album cover which still, to this day, graces the top album cover lists. This was greeted by the crowd as the driving finale to the show, as the entire arena stood up to show their appreciation to the creator of such classics – the screen similarly summed up the entire set’s visuals, visiting parts of every bit of the entire show, creating a moving retrospective of the entire album, moving the audience to a stunning standing ovation which lasted well beyond the final bow.

Although we had to leave before the encore in order to catch a train, I have it in good faith that after The Dark Side of the Moon, Waters and the band played a few The Wall era songs, including Comfortably Numb and Another Brick in the Wall Part II. I can just turn on the MP3s and pretend I’m there. Awesome.

Setlist:

1. In The Flesh
2. Mother
3. Set the Controls for the Heart of the Sun
4. Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts II-V)
5. Have a Cigar
6. Wish You Were Here
7. Southampton Dock
8. The Fletcher Memorial Home
9. Perfect Sense (Parts I-II)
10. Leaving Beirut
11. Sheep

1. Speak To Me
2. Breathe
3. On The Run
4. Time / Breathe (Reprise)
5. The Great Gig In The Sky
6. Money
7. Us & Them
8. Any Colour You Like
9. Brain Damage
10. Eclipse

1. The Happiest Days of Our Lives
2. Another Brick in the Wall (Part II)
3. Vera
4. Bring the Boys Back Home
5. Comfortably Numb

 

The Mars Volta: Brixton Academy, 14/03/07

Formed from the ashes of the now-defunct post-hardcore band At The Drive-In, The Mars Volta have been pushing the boundaries of the aged formula of progressive rock through an injection of Latino beats and jazz improvisation for nearly seven years now, quickly progressing from album to album; starting with the mostly song based De-loused in the Comatorium, the eight-piece headed by former At The Drive-In band-mates Omar Rodríguez-López and Cedric Bixler-Zavala quickly progressed their style to the now signature jazz-tingled prog rock fusion jamming evident on Frances the Mute and Amputechture. Now, in 2008, The Mars Volta having released the latest twisting, turning, furious offering, The Bedlam in Goliath, Omar and Cedric have affirmed their status as the new kings (perhaps even the saviours) of prog rock through the sprawling 3-hour, 10 track trip that managed to win over even the most stubborn people in the room.

Choosing to have no support act is a bold move for any band, but from the moment the band strolled out onto the stage in all-black apparel to the sound of the classic Fistful of Dollars theme, it was apparent to all in the audience that it was going to be special, characterized with the grins plastered over pretty much everyone’s faces; starting as they meant to go on, fan favorite Roulette Dares (The Haunt of) from the debut album opened the mammoth set, which was greeted with the crowd immediately igniting and dispelling any fears that through making the last few albums they’d have lost an ounce of their ferocity.

Fifteen minutes into the gig and they’re still playing the same song, neither audience or band having lost the opening enthusiasm – at the point, the band’s live trademarks are out there in their full glory: singer Cedric Bixler-Zavala is a man possessed, leaping around the stage, thrashing/dancing like a madman, swinging his mic stand around… you get the picture. Meanwhile, guitarist Omar Rodriguez-Lopez is similarly under some kind of spell, managing to keep the pace up on the guitar, while acting as a kind of composer – sporadically signalling to the rest of the band, it’s obvious that he is the key driving force in the instrumentation, and you can’t help but to marvel at how he does this while pulling off the most engaging and simply dazzling solos I’ve personally seen since… well, ever!

Keeping up the unrelenting pace, Viscera Eyes, the only single off 2006’s Amputechture was next up on the set, effortlessly seaming the songs together, never breaking the enchantment that the band created. During the songs themselves, the entire band are seen jamming along to Omar; at one point, brass player Adrián Terrazas-González duels with him, each taking their turns on belting out a quick-fire phrase of their intstruments, amalgamating in an intense greeting of brass and guitar, kept up to pace by the rest of the band all backing up the battle.

In a rare moment in tonight’s show, the group tear into a rendition of The Bedlam in Goliath’s Wax Simulacra, which follow’s the album track length of about three minutes – even though it’s not long (by tonight’s standards, anyway), this ruthless number features the warmest reception of all the new songs that rocked Brixton, backed by drummer Thomas Pridgen’s simply transfixing drumming skills – first seen by a brief solo back in Roulette Dares, the first of the material which he drummed for on record drives the entire song and shows how skilled this man really is – not only does he have the necessary speed to keep with the pace of the songs, but he also has the endurace and the sheer power to pull it off; all night he keeps up the sheer power which which he hits the drums, it’s a small miracle that the drums didn’t just give way or burst.

Next on the set was another song from the lastest offering, this time Goliath, which for me personally was one of the highlights of the album, so when it came to hearing it live, the result was incredible – the key lines of vocal in the song, namely “Never heard a man speak like this one before… watch me now” were delivered as powerfully and perfectly as on the record, and obviously other fans agreed with me, as those lines garnered possibly the biggest post-Comatorium song singalong of the night. Keeping true to it’s name, Goliath was a sprawling, multi-part jamming session which was at times as brutal as it was technically outstanding, keeping the mosh pit as happy as the people standing at the back just absorbing the experience.

This was then followed by Tetragrammaton, the 17 minute monster that dominated Amputechture – it’s meandering, disorientating way of stopping and picking up a new musical thread on the record was mirrored on stage, and by this point, which was at least halfway into the 3 hour mammoth gig, the band had not relented on their antics up on the stage; Cedric was still seemingly possessed, drinking out of a mug in between jumping off drum kits and throwing his microphone around, while the rest of the band still played with the ferocity and enthusiasm which had opened up the gig.

Ouroborous and Agadez from The Bedlam in Goliath followed, and while the songs themselves were excellent as the previous songs had been, the audience at this point were starting to visably wear out a bit for the jamming sections that preceeded the two songs – while some moments were undeniably moments of brilliance, some of the jam did seem to drag on a bit and I do admit to, at one or two points, thinking “I wonder when they’re going to play the next song”. As I said, the songs were absolutely brilliant, especially Ouroborous and it’s uncompromisingly face paced percussion and bongos interlaced with some superb guitar again, and once the songs were in full momentum nothing was going to stop the El Paso eight piece.

The only song that represented 2005’s Frances the Mute was, for me, the real highlight of the set: Cygnus… Vismund Cygnus, the opener of the record, not only got the crowd worked up, but managed to keep them engaged and riveted on the performance for around a good half an hour, an impressive feat in anyone’s books – getting rid of the quiter section which ended the album version, the live counterpart not once let the pace slow down. People were dancing without a single grain of self-consciousness, letting the music take them wherever their body would take them, which is really what the point of the music tonight was – to relieve people of reality, and, for one night, to show them another place completely. The whole band were still working together perfectly, a well oiled machine that never once faltered, and this perfect fusion of all the instruments summed up the night.

Bedlam opener Aberinkula was the penultimate song of the set, continuing the momentum brought forward by Cygnus, and translated pretty much exactly from the record, and was essentially a build up to the set closer, Drunkship of Lanterns, another fan favorite for De-loused in the Comatorium. The exact time that this song went on for I am not sure, but it’s something in the region of thirty to forty minutes, a massively epic ending for a massively epic show. The song brought together all the parts of The Mars Volta which makes them who they are; after over 2 hours and 20 minutes, you’d expect the sheer energy of the band on stage to wane, however instead it was the exact opposite – drummer Thomas Pridgen was given a good 5 minutes drum solo, his stylish yet brutal drumming coming together in a solo which consited of machine gun fast hits to the snare and bass, displaying again his skill and why he is as renowned as he is. All the band looked as lively as they could of, grinning immensely as they pulled off collectively the most intense ending to a set Brixton has possibly ever seen, with the lights flashing and swinging in time to build up the set to a spectacular climax, creating an incredible sensation for both visual and audio: this was one of many unforgettable moments in the gig.

As all gigs have to, it eventually finished: Cedric gave his thanks and apologised for not coming to London for near enough to 3 years, which was greeted by a roar of applause which continued long after they had left the stage. The audience left stunned, dazed, yet all knowing of the marvel which they had just experienced: this gig alone proves prog rock is still well alive, and The Mars Volta are the forerunners of the latest generation.

SETLIST:

1. Roulette Dares (The Haunt Of)
2. Viscera Eyes
3. Wax Simulacra
4. Goliath
5. Tetragrammaton
6. Ouroborous
7. Agadez
8. Cygnus… Vismund Cygnus
9. Aberinkula
10. Drunkship of Lanterns