Category: Music

The Scare
London Garage
07.06.06

Hey Colossus’ psychedelic drone rock seems out of place on a bill like this, but if you take the time to listen properly, you’ll enjoy losing yourself in their swirling, expansive sound. Unfortunately most of tonight’s punters can’t be bothered, focusing their attention squarely towards the bar instead.

However, their apathy is soon kicked into touch when The Scare hit the stage. This Australian quintet are a revelation; like the bastard lovechild of Gang Of Four and The Stooges at their most fucked-up and abrasive, constantly teetering on the brink of pure sonic warfare. They throw themselves around the stage with wild abandon, singer Kiss Reid occasionally jumping down onto the floor to scream in the faces of the disinterested. Rock n’ roll is supposed to be unpredictable, and The Scare leave many a jaw dropped by trashing their drumkit and then exiting after only twenty minutes onstage. It’s the only suitable conclusion for such a wonderfully chaotic display.

Given that the Drips’ vocalist Matt and guitarist Joby are also members of LA nutjobs The Bronx, it’s no surprise that the Drips take a similarly fast, furious, raw approach to their rock n’ roll. Songs like ‘Downbrown‘ and ‘Triplets’ zip by in a glorious rush of squalling garage-punk mayhem, providing the perfect soundtrack to the sweat-drenched, stage-diving chaos that ensues both onstage and in the crowd. There’s no grandstanding here, no time wasted; just a full-throttle rock n’ roll experience, the likes of which we need more than ever these days.

Alex Gosman

Hyde Park
23.06.06

With a line up that boasted the likes of Sway, Gnarls Barkley, DJ Shadow and Massive Attack, there wasn’t any chance of the day being anything other than brilliant…was there? Well, despite the awesome line up, the abysmal sound set up for the festival meant that the day was certainly nowhere near as good as it could, and should have been.

After a little while mooching about, getting free turns on a PSP and checking out Shorty [I think], we got to the front of the main stage for the chart-topping Gnarls Barkley. Cee-Lo was an awesome front man, waddling around with a beaming smile on his face throughout and finally getting his belly out and telling everyone they loved it. But the problem was that, despite having 3 backing singers, a drummer, a guitarist, a bassist, a keyboard player, a string section AND Dangermouse, you couldn’t hear anything! Crazy was great for the sing-a-long chorus and new single Smiley Faces got some people moving, but it was like listening to a CD in the next room with the door closed.

Moving on, we saw Sway on the second stage. The sound here was a little better because it was enclosed and he ripped through his usual routine of hits and even threw in Parklife [my Blur fanboy radar went off the scale] for good measure. Onto the Myspace tent for Akala and his performance was arguably the best of the day, even though there were only a smattering of people ready for him when he stepped up. I missed him having the whole band backing him as he did at the Barfly show, but he was confident and had fun.

Ignoring Pharrel, we headed back to the second stage to wait for Shadow and caught the end of Damian Marley’s set. It’s amazing how many posh upper-middle-class white people turn into Rastafarians at the mere mention of “Jamaica”. Hearing people with their pink polo shirt collars turned up sing “Owt in de street dey cyall it morda” was entertaining in itself, definitely more so than what was actually on stage. After a 20 minute delay though, and also being crushed into pulp, Shadow came on and I have to say I was disappointed. He didn’t do anything in the first two minutes, save put records on and bop his head. The bass was far too weak and his music suffered as a result, so we buggered off early, back to the main stage.

Massive Attack were the group I went for. The thought of hearing Teardrop, Unfinished Sympathy and Karmacoma live was something I could hardly contain myself for. And yet when they came on and the sound dribbled out of the one set of speakers next to the stage, I knew it wasn’t going to live up to the hype. It’s a shame because the songs are amazing and given the right setting would have stolen any show, and yet nothing sounded as dynamic and forceful as it should. Terry Callier’s beautiful voice was muted and melodies couldn’t be picked out.

This could have been a superb day, and though I had fun, it was more to do with hanging out with my best mate than witnessing brilliant performances. O2 need to get off their mobile phones and get to adding more speakers!

Abjekt
[Photo by Jen Saul]

The Who rocked Hyde Park in front of thousands of people and lifted London into another level. As the sun baked down on a very well organised Hard Rock festival, remaining members Pete Townshend and Roger Daltrey had put together a new look line up that included a replacement bass player for John Entwistle, who died of an apparent heart attack on June 27, 2002 in a Las Vegas Hotel Room, reportedly with 2 hookers and a massive load of chore on the bedside table the day before The Who were to begin a U.S. Tour.

Myself and James Sherry had Access all Areas passes and managed to meet Pete Townshend backstage. Now, myself and James love our music and our tastes are actually quite similar, so it’s not a secret to mention that we both agree that The Who are a band that sits at the top of the pile as our most influential band ever. So meeting Townshend in the flesh after so many years of hearing his music was one of the best moments on record. In fact, we were so happy about it that we decided to sneak into the restaurant area and eat Who-food! And what do The Who eat on a Sunday afternoon? A full Lamb roast, with all the trimmings, profiteroles and merangue of course! Take that! On the way out i managed to bump into Paul Weller whose “Setting Sons” album was my first ever, so the day was going to plan somewhat! We saw a new band called “Rose Hill Drive” support earlier on, definitely ones to watch out for..

With Zak Starkey taking care of Keith Moons most famous drum stool and some wonderfully crafted photgraphy and animated sequences, The Who got off to a fabulous start roaring through classic tracks “I Can’t Explain”, “The Seeker”, “Anyway Anyhow Anywhere”, “Who are You?”, “Baba O’Riley”, and “Bargain” from Who’s Next?.

Visually, the show was as good as the musicianship, constantly changing, inviting the audience to soak up the good old days of good old fashioned punch ups, Mods on scooters filling the streets dressed stylishly on trips down to Brighton which became a legendary seaside town from that era from the scene alone.

Tonight, The Who played a bit of everything, with Townshend in between making sure that the message was clear to youth culture – basically write better songs and you will become more famous. It’s true to say though that no bands of this generation will ever play, write or record music at this level, but they also dropped a couple of newer numbers into the classics like “Real Good Looking Boy” – a new song from 2004 and a brand new song whose title evaded us as we were so high on the whole thing.

The wonderful “My Generation” came with an extended jam on the backend, the crowd were going mental where we were standing! But there was room for more and the set also was made up of “Drowned” and the wonderful “Love…Reign Over Me” from Quadrophenia, “Kids are Alright”, “Won’t Get Fooled Again”, “Behind Blue Eyes”, and “Substitute”, until the final crescendo of “See Me Feel Me”, “Pinball Wizard” and “Amazing Journey” that represented the tunes from Tommy.

It was a magnificant show and you could tell that Daltery and Townshend were in their element here. This will go down as one fo the best shows ever, and if you did not manager to get there, you can tune into www.thewholive.tv and watch thier shows whenever you want.

Check them out as these guys are fully webbed up and waiting for you to drop by.

Z-Ed