Jumpstart Trainershoe - new music musings

Reading Revelry

Just a quick one to run through who rocked at Reading - now that the fog has cleared enough for me to remember what happened there.  

This might sound like rubbish but pretty much everyone we saw rocked at Reading because one of my favourite things about the festival is that it's small enough that if you decide you're not feeling a band, you can be watching another one in a few minutes.  Not that this happened very often because another one of the good things about Reading is that the crowd are so up for it all of the time - it's totally infectious and makes seeing bands so much more fun than perhaps at other festivals where people tend to just nod their heads along to the music.

I was there to do a twitter feed of the weekend (along with a colleague Jane) so you can get the gist of what I did by Reading through that - but here are the bands that stood out...

Bands I've not seen live before that I particularly enjoyed seeing:  The Joy Formidable (moody Pixies rock), Flashguns (Wedding Present meets The Monkees sort of), Black Tide (a new Iron Maiden with very, very long hair), Friendly Fires (special mention to them, totally, totally brilliant with carnival dancers thrown in), Esser (great pop going on), Cancer Bats (rawwwwk), Fucked Up (rawwwk with utterly amazing frontman), Santogold (looking and sounding great - NME calling her music genre-buggery is so appropriate), Yeasayer (sooo soothing after the brute force of...), Bring Me The Horizon (more heavy metal, amazing voice), The Whip (fat bassy repetitive beats on a pop tip), Holy Fuck (beautifully hypnotic live), Johnny Foreigner (utterly delightful indie that should be too twee but isn't) and Seasick Steve (drinking Jack on stage, how blues can you get?)

There might be more from the new (to me) stuff but that'll do for now...except for Metallica who'd I'd not seen before but were simply awesome - I can't really say much more than that to be honest.  Unbelievable.  Rage Against The Machine were fantastic but the sound was pretty crap where we were so we just couldn't get the full impact of it...plus it felt like they really lagged after the first few tracks, although admittedly they were back at full steam for the encore.

As for people we'd seen before: QOTSA, Justice and Gallows were totally superb - although Josh's new crew-cut is the subject of some debate.  QOTSA played a fan's set, missing out many of the obvious hits in favour of some longer. more noodly tracks.  Justice did a shortened set which upset Ian (who loves a bit of 'Phantom' but if you watch the video before it goes offline and check out the crowd reaction, you'll see that most people didn't seem to mind). Crystal Castles, Foals and These New Puritans were also as good as ever.

What a line up eh?  It was a great chance to see loads of brilliant music with a lot of people who were up for hearing it - one of the reasons why it remains one of my favourite festivals of the year. 

Roll on Bestival in a couple of weeks! 

Bestival 2007

iLiKETRAiNS
Originally uploaded by remake_remodel

So it's the Monday after Bestival and we're gutted to be back. It was another wonderful weekend with some frankly awesome performances and a lot of opportunity to hang around and have a laugh too... Primal Scream, Beastie Boys and Foals were among the awesome performances - particularly notable from the latter of these given their comparitive youth. They are certainly a band I'll be checking out again live at the earliest opportunity (luckily for me they are playing at Truck, woo hoo!) - it was such an exhilarating and tight performance and just the sort of music I love... Amazing on so many levels...

The Beastie Boys played twice - once on Saturday night and again on Sunday afternoon and played most of 'Check Your Head' over those two sets so I was REALLY chuffed. And the Primals played a varied set and luckily didn't focus too much on their current material which I know is really popular - I just prefer them when they're being visceral and aggressive ;) We just missed getting the same ferry as them home early on Monday morning which is probably a good thing as I have a feeling I'd have just gone up to them and gushed embarrassingly about how I think they are one of the UK's best live bands and that's that. We had Suggs on our ferry who actually invaded the stage during their set to say basically that, actually.

Tuung were beautiful in the idyllic backdrop of the bankstand up on the hill and Bat For Lashes mesmerised the Sunday morning crowd. iLiKETRAiNS were brilliant as ever and seemed to go down really well with the crowd, Dan Le Sac vs Scroobius Pip were still inspiring despite the rubbish sound in the Big Top (which threatened to spoil Mr Scruff on Friday night but didn't quite succeed).

There was lots more besides but yet again it was the friendliness and enthusiasm of the crowd that made the festival for us - as can be said for all festivals, it could do with staying the same size for next year as it's almost getting too big for the intimacy that currently defines it - but it goes without saying that we'll definitely be back next year for more.

Reading Festival 2007

It was all about these boys for me. Gallows. I don't think I've been so excited about seeing a band in years and years, seriously. I mean properly, properly GIDDY with excitement. I was impatiently checking my watch every 30 seconds in the final minutes before they came on. Talking to one of the medical officers backstage beforehand, he admitted they had brought along almost their entire workforce because 'we just have no idea what might go off for an unknown quantity like this'. Well, they totally delivered - but then I didn't doubt it for a second, hence the excitement in the first place. I closely managed to avoid getting caught up in the circle pit whilst wearing inappropriate shoewear (I would compare it to running away from a tornado) and Frank got a tattoo on stage. I wish I was 14 again to be honest.

I was working at the festival this year, mostly to put this stuff together for Radio 1 but I had a helping hand from a colleague so it was much, much easier, even though we were doing two 3 hour shows back to back (compared with one 3 hour show for Glasto). Unfortunately Radio 1 seems to be cutting back it's Reading coverage (even though it's littered with people who are exactly the age group that they seem so desperate to target these days, ho hum) so the bulk of the work needed to be done on the Friday. We helped BBC Berkshire out with some crowd photos on the Saturday and Sunday, but the rest of the time we were able to go and see some bands - a bit of a revelation given my previous experience of festivals.

As usual, the festival clash-o-meter dealt me a poor hand with the two bands I REALLY wanted to see clashing horribly - Gallows and Nine Inch Nails overlapped by about 50 minutes. I did manage to catch the end of the NIN gig and saw 'The Hand That Feeds', 'Head Like A Hole' and an awesome version of 'Hurt', so it wasn't all bad really. But I also saw some other great stuff - I finally saw Maps and was very impressed, Klaxons were awesome as ever (although the enthuasism of the crowd probably helped), Interpol were as moody and dramatic as ever (against a beautiful sunset) and I finally got to see Arcade Fire. OK, yeah they were good but I'm afraid I still don't quite 'get it'. I did get to watch them whilst stood with one of my Radio 1 DJ heroes (one of the ones that spurred me to work in music) so the whole thing was rather surreal in my mind... I got to meet Ty from NYPC and I still do fancy her in a weird way (even though she was in a bit of a grump) and Ian took a photo of his heroes Young Knives in all their suited glory. The weather was brilliant, our team was awesome and lovely as ever - all in all, one of my favourite festivals this year - even better than the ones I've paid to go to! We won't go into what happened in Little Man Tate's dressing room though...

Rock Werchter woo!

!!! (Chk Chk Chk)
Originally uploaded by remake_remodel

Hooray, we are back from Rock Werchter! We had a very relaxing time and saw lots of bands on very good form so it ticked every box really... Bjork was simply awesome, we nearly lost our voices singing unfashionably along to Pearl Jam, we kicked off to Klaxons and we felt REALLY sorry for LCD Soundsystem who were put up against the almighty Chemical Brothers on Saturday night. Queens Of The Stone Age were simply epic and the sight of Josh Homme on the big screens was something that will stay with me for a VERY LONG TIME. To be honest, even though the choice of bands was limited (which was kind of what we wanted so we would 'RELAX' rather than run around fields for 4 days), we didn't see a bad band all weekend.

The one weird thing is that the only alcohol on sale on the WHOLE site (and believe me, we searched it high and low) was Stella (made nearby) and cherry Kriek beer. Water was available in little half pint glasses for a couple of euros. Needless to say, our kidneys bloody hurt after 4 days of such abuse but it was all good.

The Belgian (and Dutch) crowd were really great too, unashamedly cheering, clapping and whooping at 'the good bits' in songs rather than just nodding appreciatively in that 'too cool for school' fashion that beseiges London gigs generally. So this all made for a really happy atmosphere, despite the 'wifebeater' on sale which should have threatened violence.

I didn't really take many photos as it was raining most of the time (well it was Ian and me at a festival, what else could it do?) so these ones of !!! are about all there is - plus one of me eating a Belgian breakfast with a dangerous amount of sugar in it.

Right, I'm going back to downloading Jamie Cullum and Michael Buble for my brother's wedding cd - gawd help me!

Back from Glastonbury

Well I made it, working at 3 festivals in about 7 weeks :o/ I am pretty knackered but Glastonbury was good fun (mostly) even though I didn't see many bands really. I did collect a lot of wristbands though...

Editors were the best for me, and many others from what I heard - they seemed visibly overwhelmed by the audience response (which was the most rapturous I'd seen from what had been a relatively lacklustre Glasto crowd up until that point) and it was sweet to see Edith Bowman on the TV coverage also get quite emotional about it. She still didn't mention the fact that she was Tom's lady, even when Colin Murray started taking the piss out of him, heh...

Super Furry Animals and Young Knives were also really good - I got to see TYK from the side of the stage, here's possibly the last photo from my crappy phone before I finally get around to the upgrade.

Working there was very surreal at time - I got to see Arctic Monkeys and The Enemy play acoustically in a room of only a few people. I actually got to stand on the Pyramid Stage while waiting for The View to come on. I saw Amy Winehouse up close and wasn't *that* scared and I forced Ricky Kaiser Chief into conversation because I was bored. I also saw Harry Enfield 3 times, Kate & Pete, Thom Yorke and the new girl out of Doctor Who - but I did not see David Essex :(

We're off to Belgium on Thursday for Rock Werchter festival which will be great because I'm not working and therefore there is a chance I might actually see some sodding bands this time. Then I've got a few days off before my brother's wedding which is all v exciting.

As for new music in the meantime, it's been pretty horrific at work due to illness from colleagues and the 3 festival syndrome - so I've not been as diligent as normal due to chronic fatigue. However, in a VERY quick run down, my current faves are New Young Pony Club (finally this album is out, it feels like I've been waiting for years!), Alloy Mental, Beirut, Queens Of The Stone Age, Bjork and the new Super Furry Animals - all bloomin' marvellous. On that note, I should mention the amazing Furries gig at the ICA last week - simply awesome. They played 'Zoom' and me and Rachel cried.

OK, I'm signing out before inevitably drowning in Belgium. At least the beer will be better.

Still dead from Download...

...but had a wicked time on Saturday with Sinead, John and E at Wireless. New Young Pony Club were brilliant as ever and I'm still in love with Tahita.

Download was a bit of a disaster while there but I'm reasonably pleased with the results - there is some stuff I'd have like to have done that is missing, but I don't expect anyone would notice. Anyway, I'm still pretty bloody knackered but I should be better just in time to go to Glastonbury on Thursday morning and do it all again :) There is far less pressure than Download though as I'm not producing so hopefully the only disasters from my point of view will be weather related. I've got a LOT of walking to do with the role I've been given so wellies will be essential if the weather forecasts are in any way accurate.

Once back from Glasto, we're off to Belgium for Rock Werchter festival as punters (can you imagine!) - here's hoping by that point that the sight of tents doesn't bring me out in hives... Mind you, Josh will be there so I'm sure I'll cope ;)