If it's the last weekend in May, then it must be time for me to go to Primavera Sound ! Barcelona's premier eclectic music festival, or as I like to call it, only semi-jokingly, my annual trip to Spain to watch Shellac. It seems like I've been going forever now, but when I tally up, I think this year is only my sixth visit. Enough for the memories to blur together somewhat; I'm starting to find navigating around the site confusing; each year there is a gradual migration of stage locations, and a subtle shuffling of stage names.
You can buy early-bird VIP passes shortly after they confirm the dates for the festival, which is far in advance of any lineup announcement. These sell for around the same price as the eventual full festival pass, but confer various privileges to reward the faithful. This year, I was finally smart and planned ahead. and I got us a pair back in July. Ah, hubris. Subsequently we fell pregnant, and had a baby just four weeks before the festival, making a mockery of my forward planning, and invalidating our usual routine of attending as part of an extended family holiday. I ended up scaling my visit right back down to a quick in-and-out just across the festival days, and after a couple of potential takers for my second ticket fell through, I ended up attending on my own.
It turns out Barcelona is still pretty much my favourite place on earth. In a break from the usual routine, I was staying in a hotel out close to the festival site, at the far end of the Avinguda Diagonal , rather than an apartment somewhere more central. The facilities nearby are pretty excellent, if a little characterless, with the large modern Mall development el Diagonal Mar providing pretty much every consumer amenity you might need, including free Wi-Fi. It's still easy to reach central Barcelona on transit during the sociable hours of day, and it solves the problems associated with picking a time to leave the Festival, and locating a means of transport home, once you hit the small hours of the morning on the weekdays. Door to door from the festival to my hotel was a leisurely ten minute walk.
Once again I had a really good time. I had a few reservations heading in. Last year was a bit crowded, and occasionally hard work. Being on my own was is a bit weird. I've done stints working away from home, but they aren't like this. Luckily I did find some people to talk to at Festival; I enjoyed the chance to spend some time with Matt and Anne , and I also bumped into a few friendly groups by chance; Mike and the Canadian islanders, and those nice chaps from Leicester from the Jeff Mangum queue. Hello to any of you who find your way to reading this!
The upside of attending on my own, it meant I was able to watch lots of bands. I overdid things a little on the Thusday, watching upwards of twenty acts in a session stretching from 4pm through to 4am. I subsequently found myself flagging a little through the middle of the session on the Friday, and finally found a happy balance for Saturday. Weather was excellent, probably the hottest Primavera I've attended. I even managed a mild sunburning on the elbows on Thursday, and I rarely sunburn. The VIP passes turned out to be a good bet - subsidised bars, segregated rest and food areas, and easy access to the indoor concert hall for the posh gigs.
Shellac completely owned it, once again. Year after year, always different, always the same. My other musical highlights were Kleenex Girl Wonder, Spiritualized pulling "Electric Mainline" out of the back catalogue in the middle of a perfect festival setlist, the pro-celebrity karaoke festival of the Big Star's 3rd tribute ( Mike Mills! Norman Blake! Ira and Georgia! Alexis from Hot Chip! ), and I need to pass out a special mention for the marathon Cure set. A bedrock foundation act from my indie disco days, they played a 30-odd song set of old fanservice and hit singles, and I nodded along from the VIP lounge, surprised by how much of it I recognised, given that I own precisely one Cure LP ( Disintegration , naturally ), and one single ( Inbetween Days, I'm predictable like that)
Here's everything I saw, replete with aribitrary ratings :
There weren't too many low-lights. Occasional bar queues. The subsidy at the VIP bars meant that the occasional drink bought outside of those enclosures had a costly sting. A couple of occasions of queuing; to collect the passes, and to get a ticket for, and then gain access to the limited entry Jeff Mangum show. Aggravating cancellations , Björk, Death Grips, Sleep and Melvins - acts I wanted to see, and in the case of Sleep, probably my ideal of the biggest single draw of the festival. Luckily I'm a veteran, pragmatic festival-goer, I don't place too much weight on being able to see individual acts. If I hadn't already seen Sleep at ATP vs Fans:2, I might perhaps think differently.
Leading up to the festival I had been wondering if it was going to be my last year at Primavera. Logistically it's growing more awkward to arrange, I've been a serial attendee for years, and sooner or later the charm should wear off. The inaugural edition of the Portugese sister festival had been catching my eye, And then everything worked it's usual magic. I plan to head back to Barcelona for 2013 if I can. Maybe I'll see you there.
Back at the start of the summer, I went back to Barcelona, for a second visit to the very wonderful Primavera Sound festival. I travelled with the rather pregnant Mrs S., and (Uncle) Danny came along for the latter half of the stay, and also joined us for the festival.
Barcelona is still a marvellous city, and Primavera is still my favourite rock festival. While we were out there, Barcelona FC won the champions league . I can't pretend that I have any sympathy, interest, or even understanding of football, but I really enjoyed the electric city-wide atmosphere on the day; silent, tense and concentrating, as countless viewers watched the televised match, suddenly punctuated by sighs and unison cheers as chances were missed, and goals won; culminating in the riot of celebration erupting from every door and window onto the streets when the final victory was realised.
The festival was another success. The personal highlight, for me was the chance to finally see Lightning Bolt , unusually for them, an on-stage performance, that was one of the most exhilarating live shows I have ever seen. Shellac , playing again on the same ATP stage as last year, as good value as always, another chance to see Oneida , and sample some of the "heritage" acts, giving it some legend, like Sonic Youth , Throwing Muses , and Neil Young . A suprisingly energetic Michael Nyman band set in the indoor auditori was an unexpected highlight, as were a couple of new-to-me performances from Andrew Bird , and Gang Gang Dance . I was amused by Sunn O))) , but sadly unable to persuade either of my companions to stay and watch more than ten minutes of their set.
More disappointing were Marnie Stern , who I'd been looking forward to seeing again, seemed to be suffering from terrible sound and equipment problems, Deerhunter transforming a great album into a weak coldplay-lite live experience, an uninspired and frankly routine Art Brut performance, and a generically dull Jarvis set.
It turns out that I edited and uploaded my photos to flickr shortly after returning to the UK, but what with all the busying and rushing around re-organising and home renovating, I seem to have forgotten to switch the set to public, at least until now.
I've not posted a gig write up in a long time. One day I might get around to post-documenting some of the backlog. However, here's something very fresh.
Last night I went to see Fever Ray . Fever Ray is the assumed band name of Karin Dreijer Andersson, one half of the strange and compelling Swedish brother-sister art-electronica duo, The Knife .
The ticket price for this one was fairly steep. Seventeen pounds is a lot to ask for an debut act, on a Bristol weekday evening. Knowing the Knife to have something of a penchant for staginess and performance statements , I figured that the cost of admission might indicate a more elaborate performance spectacle than the routine Academy show. It wasn't a terribly full crowd, which may have also had something to do with the ticket price. Luckily my expectations of an interesting presentation were met, more than satisfactorily.
A stage swathed in as much machine-made fog as I've seen since I last watched the Sisters Of Mercy, decades ago. For readers unfamiliar with the Sisters' stage ouevre, let me clarify; this means a lot of fog . The five-piece band only identifiable as bizarre silhouettes suggestive of a dark circus. Improbably tall hats, shadowy pierrot faces, frock coats, hunched shoulders. Karin, stage center shrouded in an enormous cowled cloak , the headress simultaneously suggesting fur and antlers and briar-hedge basketwork, her peculiar outline only really humanised by oversized white gloved hands. During the second song, she cleverly unfurled her cloak a little, a sudden backlight creating a surprising stained-glass panel effect that seemed to shine from inside her.
The whole performance was a meticulously staged progression, slowly opening up the initial murk. At the start the overhead fog was scissored dramatically by a pair of slow moving laser beams. By the second song, they'd each expanded to a pair of fan shapes. Later on these picked up oscillating movement, and eventually traced out colour shifts in the waves of fog. Within the on-stage gloom, the odd sight of a dozen or so standard-lamps, pulsing away in time to the beats through thick lampshades. I didn't have my camera with me, although I expect it would have struggled to capture any of this well. Quite a few people have submitted photos of previous shows to flickr .
As the show progressed, the stage was slowly up-lit from the back with soft blue and yellow glows. The cloak was shed, placed on a stand just behind front of stage, it still loomed, like some kind of shadowy spirit-familiar. Gradually we could see a little more of the performers, jigging around, wildly shaking shamanistic totem-sticks, pounding away on congas and toms, yet still the lighting and smoke effects kept them essentially obscured and anonymous.
The short set stuck solidly to the album, without encores, which was fine by me. My attention didn't wander, nor did I tire of standing in place. My only complaints would be with the slightly murky sound, which isn't that unusual for the Academy, and that the music didn't really connect as terribly live, aside from the vocals; pitch-shifted, yet weirdly still human and very real. I think this was probably down to a combination of the very programmed sounds, and the distancing effect of the theatrics. It was something more like watching a stage-show display set to a musical playback, than a rock music show. I took it as an opportunity to watch something a little out of the ordinary, and enjoyed myself.
The album is ace, and I recommend it to anyone. You can find it on spotify .
The video for "Triangle Walks" gives an impression quite close to the live show. There are some other videos available on the band site which give a good sense of the Fever Ray aesthetic.
As I mentioned earlier , just as I was preparing to head out for Release the Bats, an email came in advertising a once-in-a-lifetime, never-to-be-repeated, world-exclusive, miss-it-at-your-peril set of performances by a reformed Sleep , at one of next May's ATP weekenders.
Now I'm old and cynical enough to realise that very few things are truly never-to-be-repeated one-off exclusive shows in the world of Rock n' Roll, but I am keen on Sleep, and ATP surely know how to run a memorable event. I've always been intrigued by the idea of one of their Minehead weekends, it seems eminently possible that it's a great deal more civilised than the more traditional tents, rain, and cider circuit. It didn't take me that long to make the plunge and book a chalet for two. Team Strickland are going to Butlins !
Aside from Sleep on the bill, we have long-time house favourites Spiritualized , crazy art-rockers Devo , experimental hip-hoppists AntiPop consortium , post-punk legends Young Marble Giants , and several others I don't yet know adjectives for. The more interesting thing about the lineup is the fact that 50% of the lineup will be chosen by popular vote by the ticket purchasers. That means me!
There's a cunning twist. No doubt intended to mix things up, and keep it fresh. You're not permitted to vote for acts that have played an ATP UK festival before, at least not initially. This makes life decidedly more tricky. Lots of my no-brainer instant first choices are on the exclusion list. I shall have to work a little harder.
After falling head over heels for the ATP stage roster, and having my mind blown by Shellac at Primavera this year, It took me about five minutes to sign up for this Halloween show, in London with Shellac headlining. Literally five minutes, the serial numbers on my tickets were #00002 and #00003.
Held at the Kentish Town Forum , which I think used to be the Town and Country club, a venue I was last in to watch the final incarnation of Green On Red in something like '91. Nothing much changed about the place, and I was quite happy to note that there was plenty of milling around room at an event which I think was sold out, indicating a sane crowd capacity limit, a novelty for a London venue.
A varied lineup of bands, the evening kicked off with Lightning Bolt , an outfit I know very little about. Apparently they played from the stage floor, surrounded by the first 500 punters in the queue. Followed by Pissed Jeans a band I narrowly missed seeing at Primavera , but am moderately curious about them, chiefly due to their revolting name. Sadly I didn't show up until just after they'd finished their set this time, as well. Perhaps I am fated never to see them play.
There was a nice atmosphere for the themed night. The crowd was mostly dressed up in halloween garb, plenty of monster makeup and fake blood and wounds. Some of them seemed scarily over-refreshed to me, at least for such an early point in the evening. There were monster mannequins propped up about the place, and model ghouls with flashing eyes suspended over the stage. Most of the bands had gone to great lengths with their fancy dress. Mrs. S. was wearing bats in her hair, but I'm afraid that I let the side down somewhat, opting merely for some magnificently spangly silver glitter shoes.
First act up after we arrived were Wooden Shjips , who played agreeably spacy drony krautrock, which managed to keep my interest through to the end of their set, always a good sign for that style.
They were followed by Om , who I find marvellously impressive. They didn't seem to feel the need to dress up at all, but this was perhaps mitigated by the fact that their doomy Sabbath sludge metal stylings rather suit the spooky halloween monster vibe without them having to try any harder than usual. The most fascinating thing to me about Om is just how much of a great metal-ish sound they manage to summon up as a duo - just a Rickenbacker bass, vocals, and a tricksy drummer. My attention did wander on occassion, but when I found myself locked into their ponderous form of groove, it was quite captivating. And unlike in Spain, they were all finished by 10 p.m. so I managed to enjoy the full set this time. Exciting Om-related news that reached my inbox just before I set out for the show. Sleep are to reform for a show at ATP:Fans strike back next May!
Les Savy Fav next, a band I find okay on record, but who have a 'must see' reputation about their live show. They kicked off with a tableaux involving a plague of zombies on stage, battling the band dressed as cops. It was a tad confusing, with plenty of dry ice, but I suspect the cops were overcome, and they then kicked off straight into their set as zombie cops. I can see why they have their live reputation; Tim Harrington is a very unusual looking frontman, and his stage antics are high-energy and engaging, plenty of clambering around the rigging, clothes shredding, fake blood and protracted sojourns into the audience for mass singalongs. Overall, I found them a bit murky-sounding and unconvincing for me.
Shellac of course played a fantastic set. The vocals were a bit muffled, mostly down to Steve's comprehensive home-made mummy outfit, his entire head was wreathed in bandaging. Backing vocals were also indistinct, yet marvellous, Bob was styled as a Frankenstein's monster-type character, and performed the entire set firmly in character, all his vocal parts were strangulated-larynx monster grunting and zombie moans. Very amusing. I think he even performed an onstage Q & A much like they did in Spain, but kept to this completely unintelligible delivery. And Todd was a superbly convincing vampire, with plenty of finely judged cape theatrics and hissing. Shellac are superb, and are still my favourite live band. Go and see them as soon as you can.
I can't provide any photos, sadly. In the only negative note of the whole evening, my camera was pinched by some idiot. I think it most likely was pilfered while I was on the night bus back to the hotel, as I wasn't really paying close attention to my belongings by that point. In consolation though, the camera-lifting idiot didn't get the essential proprietary cabling and charging cradle necessary to make their new toy useable, and I got to pick up a new camera the next day from one of the gadget megashops on TCR. I quite fancied an upgrade anyway. Plenty of photos from the show from others , on Flickr.
An excellent festival. More completely organised than I expected. This came to prominence straight away, when a rather spacey lady handling our tickets failed to give us one of the essential ID cards that pair up with the wristband to allow entry and re-entry. A security guard stopped us from heading back in to point out the error. Anticipating anguish at the gate, and hoping that a single card and a friendly attitude might get us through, we were met by a super-friendly chap, speaking perfect English, who whisked us back to the check-in, where we waited for the woman to confirm that her stack of cards and tickets were out by one, and furnished us with the missing card. And then we were in. Things do not run that smoothly at Glastonbury when your credentials go awry!
The venue is good, purpose built, although admittedly it does have a slight air of NCP car park to it. There are three amphitheatres with banked steps of seating set facing out to sea. These make up the RockDelux , ATP and the VICE stages. The other two stages, namely the CD Drome , and the Estrella Damm stage are set up on the main paved area that links the first three, with the food market between them. There are two gigantic arrays of solar cells, apparently the largest in Europe, which at least made a handy shelter during the couple of light rain showers, even if they sadly aren't used to directly power the festival itself . There is also an indoor concert hall, the Auditori, which I didn't manage to set foot inside once, a combination of not being nearby when anything compelling was happening there, plus not quite being able to figure out where the entrance actually was!
The festival runs over several days, Thursday to Saturday, and keeps to a gruelling schedule, starting at four or five p.m., and running through till four or five a.m the next morning. It's really all about the music, as there is little else to do onsite, other than browse a few T-shirt and record label stalls, eat functional outdoor food, or drink expensive sponsor beer from plastic cups.
It's far less wear upon the legs and feet than the typical British festival, the proximity of the stages, along with the near-universal seating, and paved footpaths rather than clogging mud fields thankfully mean that it's just the marathon running time contributing to your fatigue, not trudging miles around countryside inbetween sets. The climate was pleasantly appropriate, a few spots of light rain but it was mild enough to be comfortable in light clothing all the way through the evening, so you could just stick to the basic set of clothes you came in wearing, not wrestle with lugging around cumbersome outfit changes to cater to changes in the weather.
It may be just a result of the lack of crowding, but the toilet facilites were fine, little queuing, and freshly clean each day. I recommend taking a little dispenser of handwash gel, you can pick these up in the chemists nowadays.
Another benefit of the close site is the number of acts you can practically watch. As the stages are just separated by a minute or two's easy stroll you can mix and match to take in as much, or as little of a set as you fancy. It's quite possible to watch the start of one artist's set for a couple of songs, and then wander around another three stages watching a couple of numbers at each, and still return to the start to catch the final few of the original. This all makes it incredibly easy to sample new or interesting acts on spec without having to miss out on much if any of your must-see sets. Over the three days we easily managed to see dozens of acts, with comparatively little effort.
It would take too long to run through them all in detail, so I'll just group the highlights into some buckets.
Just Superb:
Shellac completely rocked my world. I really only knew their material circumstantially before watching this set, but I'd marked their card, as they don't seem to play that often within easy reach. They were just spellbindingly awesome from the start through to the end of their set. By the time they wound up, they had the largest crowd I ever saw at the ATP stage, it seemed like more than half the festival had turned up. Converted me into a raving Shellac fan on the spot.
Devo were a complete surprise. I only knew the two or three obvious Devo tracks, and I figured they'd be an entertaining novelty for at least a couple of tunes. They were far more tight and enthusiastic than I'd expected, great fun to watch, and had a surprising amount of the crowd singing along to pretty much everything. As the Friday evening seemed to have more Spanish attendees than I noticed at the other nights ( the festival audience seemed to be at least 30-40% English speaking foreign types like us, I'd reckon ), I was forced to wonder whether Devo had been absolutely huge in Spain back in the day. An unexpected joy.
Dr Octagon aka Kool Keith aka The Ultramagnetic MCs . Another legendary name I'd be unlikely to see in any other context, who seemed worth at least a look, and kept me there for the whole of the set, and certainly provoked the most enthusiastic and sustained dancing. Kutmasta Kurt set it up brilliantly with the warm up DJ set, and Keith must be one of the few rappers I've watched who seem to rhyme as sharply and clearly onstage mic, as they do on record.
Okkervil River. I really liked The Stage Names , when I got it, and I went along assuming they'd be one of my favourite sets of the weekend, but they far exceeded my expectations, with great sound, lots of audience interaction, big songs, and impeccable manners, including banter and songs in Spanish. They're playing the Trinity in a couple of weeks.
Great:
Boris: One of my shortlist of must-see bands, I've really been enjoying Boris' varied output lately, and this live set didn't really disappoint. Conveniently loud enough to be heard starting up over Portishead 's set on the adjacent stage, this was high-volume, high-energy noise rock, with added spangly costumes, extravagant percussion equipment and crowd surfing.
De La Soul : De La Soul do their thing to perfection, every time I've seen them. It's amazing how well they can conjure up a party atmosphere in front of a giant outdoor audience, with all the call and response, and hands in the air, and picking people out of the crowd to shout out the words (wrongly as it rather embarassingly happened in the case of one young lady). Essential.
Caribou : (Formerly Manitoba), I hear a lot of Beta Band in this intriguing Canadian outfit. Had to miss them at Dot To Dot the weekend before, but made sure to catch the majority of their set in Barcelona. Loops, multiple drummers, folky vocals and an excellent light show.
Man Man : Crazy monkey energised tribal circus jazz , with no track breaks, instrument swapping, and leaping over drum kits.
Fuck Buttons - loud noise loops, distressed vocal monkey dancing, synchronised bowing and drumming fuelled more by enthusiasm than precision. Rather a one trick act, but it's a pretty good trick played large, at volume by the seaside, aside a Spanish sunset.
Not Great:
The Go! Team , are party by rote, second time I've seen them, and they don't do anything for me.
The whole 'Legends of alt.-rock' segment, with Dinosaur Jr. , Buffalo Tom , Sebadoh etc. just left me cold, reminding me of why I never really cared much for that family of bands in the first place. I'll let the Bob Mould band have a free pass though, as I like quite a few of his songs, and he rocked.
Likewise, I think Portishead don't really bear up to repeat viewing, on stage I find them dull rather than atmospheric. Beth Gibbons was on the same EasyJet flight we took back to Bristol, disconcertingly, which made me feel a bit embarrassed to be wearing a Primavera T-shirt.
Disappointments:
Tindersticks were boring, and seemed unenthusiastic. I wasn't that surprised, because I've struggled to get much out of any album since 'Curtains'. I don't think they really suit a large outdoor show, especially with sound spill from noise bands on adjacent stages.
Om were a bit of a let down, I think a combination of my high expectations, along with a difficult slog through to wait to the start of their 3:30am slot, and the fact that they seemed to be playing much more briskly live. I only managed a couple of songs. I may try and catch them at ATP release the bats 2008 , later this year ( Shellac! ).
Public Enemy just looked a bit panto to me, with all the marching and shouting and uniforms. They weren't helped by an extended intro set from the Bomb Squad that was really excellent, leaving them a bit upstaged by their own DJs when they finally arrived.
The Vice stage was a bit of a pain to get to, with the steep steps down, narrower than most of the linking pathways forming a bit of a bottleneck. The setting was nearly worth it, a stage surrounded by water, with sailing boats cruising past the acts as they played, but it was a tiring climb, and tended to clog up with people just deciding to take advantage of sitting on the steps, as the evening marched on.
On balance, it's a superb showcase for the live music, and so long as you're mostly motivated by that, I'd recommend it to anyone. I'm already making sketch plans for 2009! If you're more interested in soaking up some outdoor festival ambience, then not so much.
It took me a while to figure out the best approach to a city festival like this. I was still a bit consumed by the idea of kitting up trekking out to a remote site, and staying onsite and within the compound for the duration. I think a better approach may be to attend in two or three waves. There even seemed to be a few natural pauses in the lineup, a couple of times around about 8-9pm on various days, I found brief windows where I was wandering between completely empty stages.
It's trivially easy to pass in and out, assuming you have the pass card with it's barcode for scanning, it's just a breeze through the turnstiles. The site is incredibly easy to get to via the underground train. Even though it looks like it's on a remote stop, it's really just ten minutes or so ride out from the centre and the trains are very regular. You could easily manage an early session catching the opening acts for a while and enjoying the sun, wander off for refreshment, dip back in for a couple of hours, take a break again, and then head back to dig in for the headliners. You can get transit tickets that cover ten journeys of any length on trains and buses from vending machines in the metro station.
Getting home at the end initially seems more tricky. The event runs through till 4 or 5 am in the morning, but the handy metro stops at either 2 am or midnight(on Sunday), apart from Saturday night which has a 24 hour service. There is a night bus system, but I didn't manage to figure out either the routes or the numbers. A definite mistake was trying to walk back along the coast - although it's not a huge distance, and the early morning climate is accommodating, the terrain is not very friendly at all, it's a poorly lit mixture of rough tracks, unpaved land, and arterial roads.
There's a festival sponsored bus service that takes you from right outside the gate to the Plaça de Catalunya, every fifteen or so minutes. As well as the terminus for all the unintelligible Night Buses, this is fairly central. We did this one evening, and then walked back through Barcelona to our apartment, which was far easier going than the coastal route. Too late to take advantage of it, we realised that the Metro opens for service again at 6 am in the morning, I would say that the easiest option may even have been to hang on through to the end of the event and then wait for the metro to start up again. If I go next year, I'll definitely give it a try.
Appearing as part of Dot to Dot , an excellent city-wide music hullaballoo, spanning multiple venues. As the schedule didn't really sit very comfortably with my travel plans, flying out to Barcelona the next morning, I didn't really get a chance to see many sets, just some of Fight like Apes ( excellent ), Montreal's We are Wolves ( good stage moves ), Two Gallants ( dull enough to make me wander away and play Sonic the Hedgehog tennis on a nearby X-Box demo machine. Two thumbs up for Sonic Tennis, though ).
In fairness, the latter looked like they might be quite interesting, given enough familiarity with the material, and I'm tempted to chance an album, but I wasn't really feeling it. And the main reason I was actually in the Trinity, was to catch the headliners, Spiritualized, one of my all time favourites.
I thought they played a blinder. The Trinity is fast becoming one of my favourite Bristol venues, great sound, good bar, and it's incredibly handy to reach on foot. And they keep booking my favourite artists.
The band were really together, there's the welcome return of the gospel backing singers, excellent lightshow, and J. Spaceman is looking great and singing better than he ever has, at least to my ears. New album out now-ish.
It's been a few years now since I last went to Glastonbury, and the last few summers have been festival-free for me, save for local city-wide affairs like Venn . I came very close to attending the 'End of the Road' festival last September, tempted by a very me-friendly line up, but it wasn't very compatible with school term dates, and last summer's terrible run of weather just left me procrastinating about it until it was far too late to bother.
In the U.K. there's almost too many to choose from now, spread right across the summer, with something happening seemingly every single weekend from May to September. This means that it's now becoming something of a stadium tour circuit, and with a depressingly production-line feel to the majority, it's increasingly hard to differentiate them.
End of the Road didn't seem to have as many must-see bands this year, and so my attention wandered a little further afield. A couple of years ago, I noticed the Primavera Sound festival, in Barcelona had a line up of acts very much in tune with my way of thinking. I've wistfully looked at it every year since then, and this time around I've actually decided to go.
Like every festival, it's sure to be pointless attempting to programme any kind of strict itinerary. Events will indubitably conspire to wreck it. Given my estimate of at least 70% of the acts being the sort of thing I'd go and check out if they were playing locally, I think the best policy is to be mostly be guided by serendipity. Suggestions for things to check out are welcome!
The festival site is next to the sea , and just a couple of km out of Barcelona itself. We're going for the whole week, flying out on the 24th and returning on the 1st of June. I've rented an apartment, right on the waterfront in Barcelonetta , which looks like it ought to be within fair walking distance of the site. This gives us a few days preceding to acclimatise, relax and see the sights before the festival properly starts.
Three bands in one evening set, Bristol Carling Academy. Headliners NYPC on the rise currently, they do kind-of-dance music with guitars and sort-of-rapping. They may even be associated with that new-rave movement that's been sweeping the nation. I'm afraid I'm too old to conclusively comment about that. A song of theirs, the one about ice-creams was in an advert once. The fact that I can remember the song from an advert appearance, but have no memory about the visual components or the brand or product, ought to be the sort of thing to give pause to people commissioning expensive television branding campaigns. For bands awaiting a breakthrough and wanting to be noticed though, it seems like a grand idea. Wikipedia tells me it was a campaign for Intel Core Duo processors . I quite like those.
In person the band sounds much like the record. A little too much perhaps, in that there's not much differentiation between their songs. And for an act that's mostly rythmic, and drawing on dance styles, to my ears they could have done with more going on with the drumming, which seemed a bit weak. An enjoyable set though, and the crowd, although slim by Academy standards responded well to it. I applaud the fact that one of their members looks a lot like Howard Moon . I'll probably pick up the album at some point.
Immediately preceding them were the Ting Tings ; a two-piece, inverse White Stripes, with a robustly proficient male drummer, and an enthusiastic, but rudimentary, female guitarist, along with a fair amount of sequenced help. I'm sure I've seen them once before, at some multi-band event, but I can't really place it. It seems like it ought to have been British Sea Power, alongside Morton Valence , but the more I think about it, the more I'm sure that it wasn't. They were pretty good fun, high energy, got the crowds dancing, and a short set ensured they couldn't outstay their welcome.
Starting off the evening, the first support act, and the actual reason I was there: Black Affair , the latest incarnation of Steve ( Beta Band, King Biscuit Time ) Mason, and the first time I've had a chance to catch up with this latest material. Performed as a two piece, just him and a bass player, it's funky, electro-pop, lots of squelchy keyboards and sequenced drums , with those unmistakable vocal melodies still anchoring everything with a nice sprinkling of familiarity. I enjoyed the short set hugely, and so did some of 'the kids' who were enthusiastically dancing away. Mind you, as they continued to bop with vigour through every successive band set, I did wonder if perhaps they'd been eating some of those special dancing sweets.
Later on, Mr. Mason and bass playing friend then came out and watched the NYPC from the back of the hall. Embarassingly enough this meant they were standing immediately behind us . I couldn't really avoid a brief chat and a handshake as we were leaving. I somehow managed to avoid gushing too much, and extracted the pleasant news that some singles are on the way, and there's an album complete awaiting a subsequent release date. It's good to have him back.
The show I waited ten years for. Back in 1997, excited by their then recent 'Vivadixiesubmarinetransmissionplot' album I bought tickets to see Sparklehorse at the Fleece and Firkin . Me being me, it wasn't until a couple of days after the show that I noticed that I'd forgotten to go. Bummer.
Sparklehorse is effectively a one man band, Mark Linkous accompanied and augmented by associate musicians. The sound is hard to describe. All the albums I have to date ( including the brand new 'Dreamt For Light Years In the Belly Of A Mountain' , they're good at wordy titles ) are clearly drawn from the same well, somewhere between lo-fi americana and the Beatles' 'White' album . There might be banjo. It's intricately put together work, great for headphones, ranging from engagingly delicate and fragile, to loud and clanging, with a rich variety of timbre and texture, speech fragments and radio static popping in and out on occasion. The sort of records that really reward repeat listening. It's all stitched together with excellent effected and distorted vocals and guitar.
This time around, I remembered to go. An unfortunately forgettable support act aside, it was an excellent night. The start wasn't promising. Mark ( surprisingly tall ) was striding around the bar beforehand, looking quite worried, and the opening song crashed ruefully to a halt and had to be restarted. Once they hit their stride it was fine Some of the more delicate songs seemed doomed to fall to pieces at any moment, but this effectively conveyed some of the woozy, broken-radio flavour of the original recordings. It was a rich set, that covered all the back catalogue evenly, as well as the new release. A very partisan crowd, with lots of requests shouted, and audience singalongs cheerfully encouraged from the stage.
The only disappointment for me was the lack of any merchandising. I did sign up an email address with a marketing type who seemed to be doling out promotional badge packs, but he'd run out. Well, I suppose my T-shirt drawer is a little overful. I'd also have really liked to hear them play 'Cow'. Still, I'm glad to say there was no anticlimax, even after such a ridiculously long wait. Hopefully it won't be another five years between albums.
Another gig, another new venue. I'm not entirely sure of the provenance for this unusual setting. It was billed as a Club Sea Power event, and perhaps was chosen to suit the quirky band identity that BSP carefully cultivate. It's one of the things I like about them, this sense of a personal culture, and they project it well, through clever use of consistent typography and graphics, and with recurrent visual and lyrical themes. On this occasion, the merchandise stall, in addition to a generous half-dozen T-shirt designs, and 'British Tea Power' mugs, had sew-on patches, badges, branded soap and hair pomade, set out amongst selections of biscuits. This private mythology is infused with elements drawn from wildlife, nature and cartography, combined with a good deal of post-Imperial British militaria, a juxtaposition that conjures up much of the ambience of a well-stocked army-surplus store. I spent a good deal of time exploring similar outlets in my youth, my old scout troop was entrenched in post-war army cast-offs. In fact it struck me on entry that the Polish Club, with it's basement setting, was just the sort of place you'd expect an urban Scout troop to use as a meeting hall. Sporting trophies were hanging alongside unfamiliar embroidered flags on the walls, fold away tables and benches, evidence of plentiful equipment storage. A low stage at one end of the hall, a bar with unfamiliar labels of vodka at the other. The performance itself was a bit disappointing. The sound wasn't great; after the first couple of songs I retreated from a position fairly close to the front, to hover around the mixing desk where the sound is often more balanced. Sound trouble continued throughout the set, and they ended under the threat of an early cut-off, following noise complaints. Perhaps because this, the band didn't really seem to engage with the crowd. There wasn't much dynamic range, it was all loud and earnest from the start, and didn't really deviate much in tempo or mood. It was entertaining enough, but I felt somehow detached from the whole performance. The stated purpose of this mini-tour was to break in new material intended for a forthcoming album, and it did feel like the majority of the set was unfamilar to me. Still, it was a good opportunity to see a popular live act in a very intimate setting and I enjoyed it on those terms. The support band on the other hand, were huge, huge fun right from the start. Morton Valence ,a seven piece outfit, at least by my count. Lots of energy, bass guitar chords, analogue synth abuse, handclaps, maracas and loud hailers. And a cover of 'Word Up', sung in what I think was Chinese. I hope I get the chance to see a headline set sometime soon. They don't appear to have any recordings for sale, other than the 7" single that was on offer on their end of the merchandise stall. Vinyl might be cool, but I have no way of playing it these days. They do have a range of mp3 demos on their official site , and streaming from the inevitable myspace page . I'm particularly fond of "Sailors" . Do go and see them if you get the chance.
Second time I've seen the Secret Machines now. They played our stage at Glastonbury last year, upon which I noted 'they make music almost scientifically designed to appeal' . That much hasn't changed.They have a new album out, which moves them into a slightly more poppy, slightly less belligerent mode, without deviating too far from their fundamental style.
One thing that does irk. When a band is touring in support of a new album release, I try to purchase it ahead of the show, so I can be more familiar with the new material that usually will make up the bulk of the set. In this case, the album in question, 'Ten Silver Drops' was only availble to purchase at that time as an 'iTunes exclusive'. I don't like buying albums on iTunes, I think that it's too expensive, especially considering the restricted nature of the files. I'd rather buy and rip a CD. In this case, fanboy that I am, I bought the download, and I expect I'll buy the disc as well. pwn3d. But slightly annoyed.
Another slight downer is the Bierkeller itself. It's a horrible hole, with murky sound at best. The layout is peculiarly flat, with a very low stage, minimal space for a lighting rig, and large open seating and bar areas adjacent to the audience pit. For no reason I can ever fathom, these seem to collect milling crowds whose persistent smalltalk reverberates, often audible over the sound of the band.
I can't really understand why anyone with little or no interest in a band would shell out ten quid or more to go hang around in a toilet and attempt to shout conversation, perhaps drinking expensive, poor quality alcoholic beverages. I'm obviously well on my way to being part of the older generation. Almost as puzzling, there was an indie disco night scheduled for after the gig, although this does seem to be the prevalent modern trend. Presumably all these hangers around had either paid silly-money to turn up early for this affair, or had managed to blag their way in free en masse, for the same. Whatever the reason, it seems to be a constant at Bierkeller shows, and it's a real spoiler.
The band had a very early start, hitting the stage for around 7:45pm, with no support. I don't know if this was the normal plan, or was scheduled to facilitate the disco shindig afterwards, but I think it surprised a lot of punters, as the place seemed half-empty for the first three or four songs. The sound was as murky as ever, which the band seemed to decide to attack with volume, which was probably a wise decision given the ambient noise and sound reflection.
I was never closer than about half way to the front, but although there was no real detail to the sound, it was an impressive racket, and combined with plenty of pretty colours and stobe lights to good effect. I even managed to grab some rather impressionistic photos on my Tesco Value digicam.
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The band really put in the effort, with a long set. I would sum it up was an enjoyable show in a poor venue, pretty much what I was expecting when I bought the tickets. Much as I dislike the Bierkeller, when a band I admire is coming over from the US to play a show in my home town, it's very much a case of beggars choosing gift horses. I think on balance this was one of the most enjoyable performances I've attended there. Certainly cheaper and less exhausting than making the run up to Shepherds Bush.Â
dEUS . Belgium's finest jazz-grunge-art-rock collective. I suppose it's a sign of aging, favoured bands from your younger days reforming and pulling a comeback. This might well be the first of many such events for me, as time marches relentlessly by. It felt like a peculiar novelty at the time.
I first encountered dEUS on a stage, as the support act for P.J. Harvey and John Parish . I was terrifically impressed. Stretching the then still-current quiet/loud alterna-rock template into surprising new forms, with counter-vocals, and violins, noise freakouts and obvious, but not too obvious musicianship. Searching to find points of comparison I was hearing Pixies , Velvets , Magic Band , Tom Waits and strains of other delightfully challenging jazz-styled wank-rock. Love at first sight really. I ran out the next day and bought their first album -" Worst Case Scenario ". And played it to death.
The second " In A Bar Under The Sea " was released shortly afterwards, and extended the palette a little further, amidst changes in lineup. Perhaps a little of the harder, wilful oddness from the first CD had been smoothed away. Some of the tracks verge towards ballads, usually injected with surprising instrumentation. Singles were released, and bothered the UK charts a little. I saw them at least twice touring this CD, and all my misgivings were annihilated; they were at least as exciting on a stage as before. Maybe more so.
More of a wait before their next release, " The Ideal Crash" . Personnel changes again. This time I saw them playing the set before I'd had a chance to buy the CD, and they were powerful and exhilerating again, the new material fitting in place alongside the old . The CD was a shock. Mellowed further, very clean, almost AOR production with conventional sounding hooky song structures. Programmed percussion and more prominent synths than before. I probably only listened to it a half-hearted handful of times before consigning it to the bottom of the stack.
And then the band split. No more dEUS. A good innings. I find myself giving 'Ideal Crash' one more try, more and more often. As I paid it more attention I realised that most of the elements I looked for in dEUS were entirely present; dissonance, counterpoint, surprises in rhythm and harmony, all blended skillfully into a mix that seems to proportionally reward careful listening. Today, it's maybe my favourite dEUS CD, depending on the day of the week. A real grower.
After sensibly allowing me all this time to appreciate their legacy work, they suddenly reform, with a suitably amended line-up There's a handful of festival gigs I can't make, and an internet-only single that's incompatible with my computer-lifestyle-choice. Then a full European tour is announced, preceding a new album. No way I can avoid this, even though it's another trip to London to the Empire.
New CD " Pocket Revolution " seems to continue with the now-predictable streamlining of the dEUS sound. I've learnt not to be too hasty this time, I'm reserving judgement till I've had a good time to let it stew. Arriving at the concert was a little ominous. Not much of a queue. Touts outside selling at lower than face. European accents predominante in the scant queue.
Concert is a blinder though. Support from " Red Organ Serpent Sound " - who came across as a good glam blend with interesting visual appeal. Shades of Manics and Ziggy, they had one of the best t-shirt designs I've seen, amusingly only available in kids sizes. Trepidition before the main act. I really don't want this to suck. All my fears are misplaced, they're as strong as ever. It's an enormously successful set. They present most of the new CD, with a generous sampling of older material. The crowd, obviously partisan, surprisingly young, love it all. dEUS are back, it would seem. Predictably, unpredictable; pretty much exactly where they left off.Â
I recently had some technical hitches that prevented me from being able to update this site. In the meantime I attended a couple of noteworthy gigs without passing comment. Here's a back-dated update.First up, Sufjan Stevens and the Illinoisemakers. He now seems to be shifting CDs by the barrow-load, and deservedly so, but I sort of stumbled on him by accident through emusic . You've probably heard the soundbite - recording a concept album about every state in the US in turn, which is a conceit that will either make you joyfully bound towards it with a willing embrace at the ready, or cower on reflex, and make some kind of wrinkly cynical sour-face and double up. Myself, I'm firmly in category one - but given that I still secretly think that Peter Gabriel-era Genesis is some kind of pinnacle of western rock music, that's not really very surprising.
So it's prog-folk-whimsy-art-rock. With Christian overtones, and very heavy on the banjo. Somehow this assembles to something dramatically better than the sum of it's parts. Musically dense, complicated, honest yet cryptic, genre-spanning, awe-inspiring stuff. To me, anyway. Enough to make me throw silly-money at tickets when I discovered he was playing a single UK show; already long sold out by the time I met with the bandwagon.
Luckily, given the expense, and the struggles getting there, it was a great show. Largely seated, which I hadn't realised ahead of committing, I was quite relieved to find out that both my tickets were for the rear stalls, fenced off to form a raised standing-only section, at the rear of the venue. As the front stalls were correspondingly lowered and seated, we were able to lean against the bar staring through to a clear uninterrupted view of the stage framed below the optics. A novel vantage point, and one that I'd be happy to repeat.
The act was framed in terms of a cheerleading routine, with the band dressed up in orange and blue uniforms, engaging in call-and-response and coreographed routines to introduce many of the songs. They also formed a human pyramid, twice. The majority of the set was taken from the 'Illinoise' album, which forms the second installment of the scheme, the predecessor covered Michigan . There would seem to be a theme song for the 50 states project as well, which the band use to introduce the set. They emerge performing it, somewhat in the style of a marching school band.
Musically, they never failed to disappoint the material, which is possibly a challenge considering the musical depth, especially the vocal complexity, of the perfomance they are combining with theatrics. While the showbiz elements never really climbed higher than the sort of thing you might expect from an endearingly ramshackle school-play, the music was performed and presented to a quite flawlessly high standard, still managing to be raw enough to be obviously a live band at work. It was an excellent and inspirational evening's entertainment, I'm really glad that I managed to catch them before they went gigantically global.Â
I'd not actually been to the Louisiana before, though I thought I had. I also thought it was in a different part of town. It's a young person's pub, the venue is a tiny room upstairs with a barely raised stage at one end, and a bar large enough to serve maybe three people at the other end. Official capacity is 120 people, this show was a fast sell out.
King Biscuit Time is Steve Mason, former front singer with the recently split Beta Band . On this occasion accompanied by another multi-instrumental gentleman, providing bass, extra percussion, keyboards, and other flourishes. KBT existed already as an ongoing side project distinct from the BB, now presumably it's his main gig.
The back catalogue is modest, just two 'EPs' to date; the liberally named 'Sings Nelly Foggit's Blues in "Me and the Pharaohs"' from around 1998, then a followup 'No Style' from around 2000. Tip to the would-be purchaser, the 'No Style' CD EP contains the previous EP as a bonus disk, buy one, get both. And now there's a single 'C I AM 15' , which is good fun, and presumably the reason behind this current micro-tour.
It was hot, and packed close. Support was from Pip Dylan , in a pedal steel and fingerpicking solo-folk-country sort of set, which bored all but four of the punters to find other distractions, prompting complaints about the conversation noise from the stage.
The main set was around an hour and a half, almost entirely new material, save a couple of highlights from the 'No Style' EP, a pair of subtly chosen Beta Band songs chucked in in the middle, and the single, twice ( well, it was being released the following day ) . And a surprising reggae-lite reading of 'Anarchy in the UK' which brought a smile and didn't outstay it's welcome.
It all sounded great, a big sound from what may have been a duo (I have a suspicion that there was a drummer tucked in in the back, but I couldn't really see much, having loitered towards the rear of the crush where there was a pretence of aircon). Regardless, it was a full sound, and all the songs were focused, melodic, and quite possibly radio-friendly, given sufficient promotion. I'm not sure if there's a big media campaign planned, although we were informed during some stage banter that he was shortly going to be filming a contestant appearance on 'Never mind the Buzzcocks' alongside Lionel Blair .
On the way out, I picked up the customary t-shirt from the stand from a familiar looking vendor. It was Pip Dylan, who advised me against the pink, and also sold me one of his own CDs. Low-key, and presumably low-cost, touring. I think the the first King Biscuit Time album is scheduled for sometime in the summer of 2006. I'm looking forward to it.Â
Freakish weather catastrophes, great music line up. Probably one of the best I've ever been to.Â
I was onsite Wednesday afternoon, with only a few minutes to spare before my first shift. Working away from the fearsomely hot afternoon sun proved to be a blessing, by the evening time it was pleasantly cool and I enjoyed myself as a spectator, marching around the fringes. Thursday proved to be even hotter, and I gave up after the morning and spent the rest of the day hidden, baking under canvas with a radio tuned to long wave, listening to us struggling towards a loss against the Australians on TMS . I worked the evening shift that day, and mostly filled it with the second half of the one day game and Guardian Quick Crosswords.Â
On the Friday morning the rains came. Sequestered away in the compound with the backstage bar, I watched it quickly develop past the obvious point at which we were going to be granted another mud-heavy year. For a while it looked as if it wasn't ever going to stop, and I watched the lightning storm show with a bit of a sinking feeling that it would be another disappointing wet year. It was fairly obvious that there were direct lightning strikes all around the site, there were a handful of ominious explosive noises that followed these now and again. The Vodafone mobile phone signal disappeared on cue right after a particularly loud bang. Things weren't going according to plan.Â
At around 10 am there was a gap in the rainfall, and I ventured out, waterproofed, to find a fair amount of ground water and mud and tales of lightning-struck stages and evacuated fields. I made it back to the John Peel bar just in time before it all started up once again, only this time with seemingly double the rainfall. The JP stage enclosure became something of an island, surrounded by a wide lake, several feet deep. We were stranded. I have to say it almost seemed like an ambition fulfilled for me, to be stranded on an island with a well equipped pub, and so accompanied by some happy members of a band called "The Boyfriends" and some of my party, we opted to get the beers in and prepared to sit it out. On very comfy dry sofas. Cheers.Â
News filtered in, all the other main music stages, bar us were closed for various reasons, the dance village had been evacuated, Radio 1 had lost power, people were swimming out of drowned campsites. Turns out The Boyfriends had been the only act playing on site at the time they were on, and the reason they were so happy was this had probably netted them more media coverage than they ordinarily might have expected. I like to imagine they completely deserved this extra attention, for they were jolly nice people. Â
Eventually the storm abated, our moat quickly drained away. The rest of the day was overcast, but dry. The next two were progressively hotter once more. The mud made random wandering a bit too much of a trial, so I mainly concentrated on hanging out with friends, catching performances, and rubbernecking at the casualties who'd come under-equipped or camped naively expecting no weather trouble. Bless. I do think it might be helpful to offer basic camping tutorials on arrival to many of these people.
I had a great time.Â
Things I saw, grouped into in vague quality buckets
The Great
Rilo Kiley - as quirkily brilliant and thought provoking on stage as they are on CD
Art Brut - Top Of The Pops ! Best thing all weekend, according to me.
The Magic Numbers - one of those career-defining gigs where you watch a band hit the big time right in the moment. Never seen a crowd react so warmly. Lovely.
The Secret Machines - they make music almost scientifically designed to appeal to my listening template, I was an easy win
Stewart Lee - if not the best stand up I've ever seen, definitely something very close to it. About the twentieth time I've seen him make the same jokes funny
