Sometimes the Sun (part two)
Today we continue this sprawling and hopeless review of Sundae on the Common from August 7th, following on from part one.
British Sea Power
Oh shit. I am going to struggle here after writing four hundred words for Yeti. I barely paid attention to British Sea Power, who were next up the bill, so this review may be a little threadbare.
To distract the reader, then, I will indulge in a little sleight of hand and start at the end. BSP came to their roaring finale, teasing ever more protracted noise from their beleagured instruments as the ten foot bear shambled around the stage to ambush them. As the climax swelled and finally waned they rode on a wave of cheers and fists that couldn't stop punching the air. They were having fun and looked for all the world like they deserved their ending here. Nobody would begrudge them this moment.
They left the stage and the world's worst compere returned. The fists in the air became, as if compelled by some supernatural force of filth, the traditional English mime for wanker. All the energy that was on the Common was destroyed by the appearance of this one man. Yes, destroyed. Fuck the first law of thermodynamics.
This was beginning to bother us. This man, this prick of a man, was he really asking us to perform a mexican wave on cue? The useless son of a bitch. He was! And...oh god...he was telling us to "make some noise". For what? In celebration of his vomit-coloured pastiche of the bad dance DJ patter that polluted Radio One in the nineties? No. Band comes on...we like band...we cheer. That is how it works. Prick comes on...we don't like prick...we make wanker signals. That is also how it works. Now kindly leave the stage.
But no matter how hard he tried, the memory of the British Sea Power performance remained. Except for me, who had stumbled off mid-set, faintly bored, for a piss and a buffalo burger. I had never seen the band before despite wallowing in a hundred column inches about their music. They had intrigued me as apparently crafting clever and literate songs that held in their hands a sense of history, art and occasion, bearing repeated listening to appreciate what they were trying to convey.
With radio friendly guitar bands I tend to have more luck with the albums than with live performances. Perhaps this is just fall out from university where the combination of endless guitar bands and free venue entry permanently fatigued the part of my brain that appreciates this stuff. Although...perhaps I genuinely do not give a toss and are doomed to indifference in the presence of this genre. A terrible thing to realise two thirds of the way through a review of such a band, but what the hell...let us attempt, at least, to be objective.
BSP, on the strength of this performance, are a force and deserved their place here today, even if their summery credentials are dubious. They were confident and had no problems putting on a show for their audience...to the extent that in the middle of one particularly drawn out song, we were stood in our little encampment somewhere in the crowd when we noticed that one of the band was wandering past, banging a drum. The crowd cheered and clapped him as he marched onward, which in its own way was a testament to the good-natured spirit of this event. If this was Reading he would have been doused in piss and has his drum nicked before he made it past the mosh pit.
But no matter how many times the guitarist leapt from his amp and the guy in the yellow hat went AWOL, there were two unassailable problems they had to face here today... the wrong atmosphere and the wrong sound set-up.
The former was the timing, the curse of a hundred mid-bill festival bands. BSP are not a band to watch in the intermittent sunshine of an August afternoon, where the lighting rig seems lost and the crowd are at peace. The latter was because the sound system was too damn quiet, presumably for legal reasons...many houses look directly out onto Clapham Common. This was a genuine problem for this band; we cannot be overcome with massive swells of music if the tide is out.
So I found myself reacting not with disappointment, but with indifference. Soon, I hope to listen to the albums and wallow in the atmosphere intended, perhaps when the rain and wind lash at the windows whilst I sit inside with a good fire and a single malt. But over a few three quid cans of warm Carling on Clapham Common? Pshaw.
Ye gods, so much for struggling to write enough. And Alabama 3 were next and they were fantastic and god only knows whether I'll ever be able to stop writing about that one. We will find out together shortly.
British Sea Power
Oh shit. I am going to struggle here after writing four hundred words for Yeti. I barely paid attention to British Sea Power, who were next up the bill, so this review may be a little threadbare.
To distract the reader, then, I will indulge in a little sleight of hand and start at the end. BSP came to their roaring finale, teasing ever more protracted noise from their beleagured instruments as the ten foot bear shambled around the stage to ambush them. As the climax swelled and finally waned they rode on a wave of cheers and fists that couldn't stop punching the air. They were having fun and looked for all the world like they deserved their ending here. Nobody would begrudge them this moment.
They left the stage and the world's worst compere returned. The fists in the air became, as if compelled by some supernatural force of filth, the traditional English mime for wanker. All the energy that was on the Common was destroyed by the appearance of this one man. Yes, destroyed. Fuck the first law of thermodynamics.
This was beginning to bother us. This man, this prick of a man, was he really asking us to perform a mexican wave on cue? The useless son of a bitch. He was! And...oh god...he was telling us to "make some noise". For what? In celebration of his vomit-coloured pastiche of the bad dance DJ patter that polluted Radio One in the nineties? No. Band comes on...we like band...we cheer. That is how it works. Prick comes on...we don't like prick...we make wanker signals. That is also how it works. Now kindly leave the stage.
But no matter how hard he tried, the memory of the British Sea Power performance remained. Except for me, who had stumbled off mid-set, faintly bored, for a piss and a buffalo burger. I had never seen the band before despite wallowing in a hundred column inches about their music. They had intrigued me as apparently crafting clever and literate songs that held in their hands a sense of history, art and occasion, bearing repeated listening to appreciate what they were trying to convey.
With radio friendly guitar bands I tend to have more luck with the albums than with live performances. Perhaps this is just fall out from university where the combination of endless guitar bands and free venue entry permanently fatigued the part of my brain that appreciates this stuff. Although...perhaps I genuinely do not give a toss and are doomed to indifference in the presence of this genre. A terrible thing to realise two thirds of the way through a review of such a band, but what the hell...let us attempt, at least, to be objective.
BSP, on the strength of this performance, are a force and deserved their place here today, even if their summery credentials are dubious. They were confident and had no problems putting on a show for their audience...to the extent that in the middle of one particularly drawn out song, we were stood in our little encampment somewhere in the crowd when we noticed that one of the band was wandering past, banging a drum. The crowd cheered and clapped him as he marched onward, which in its own way was a testament to the good-natured spirit of this event. If this was Reading he would have been doused in piss and has his drum nicked before he made it past the mosh pit.
But no matter how many times the guitarist leapt from his amp and the guy in the yellow hat went AWOL, there were two unassailable problems they had to face here today... the wrong atmosphere and the wrong sound set-up.
The former was the timing, the curse of a hundred mid-bill festival bands. BSP are not a band to watch in the intermittent sunshine of an August afternoon, where the lighting rig seems lost and the crowd are at peace. The latter was because the sound system was too damn quiet, presumably for legal reasons...many houses look directly out onto Clapham Common. This was a genuine problem for this band; we cannot be overcome with massive swells of music if the tide is out.
So I found myself reacting not with disappointment, but with indifference. Soon, I hope to listen to the albums and wallow in the atmosphere intended, perhaps when the rain and wind lash at the windows whilst I sit inside with a good fire and a single malt. But over a few three quid cans of warm Carling on Clapham Common? Pshaw.
Ye gods, so much for struggling to write enough. And Alabama 3 were next and they were fantastic and god only knows whether I'll ever be able to stop writing about that one. We will find out together shortly.
posted by Jamie at 9:15 AM
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