Glastonbury Festival 2009
After a Thursday night spent tragically missing East 17, wondering from field to field in the rain, catching great sets my Kap Bambino and Metronomy and having the news of the King of Pop’s ™ death gradually filtering through from “blatant festival rumour” status to a full on “Oh Shit!” reaction (through the haze, I somehow remember sitting at the Stone Circle at about 5am adamant that it is actually a fake death by MJ to escape the crippling debt, child molestation accusations and massive workload of the O2 residency…seriously, mull it over! Well, it sounded ok at the time….)….ANYWAY, after all that and much more besides, it’s time for the festival proper to kick off with the full music schedule.
Fiction
Fiction are a new four piece collective of musicians from London. Boring part over, let’s now delve into what makes them really quite a fucking exciting band.
Firstly, they manage to feature the combination of the unhinged yelps of the dearly missed Joe Strummer with the sardonic tones of a young, smirking David Byrne whilst, all the while, sounding fresher than a newly leaked report on an MPs extravagant expense claim.
There are times when I actually forget how much The Clash means to me. They were the first band to show me that music could be intelligent and political, but that it could also be worth rocking out to, too. I finally managed to buy a copy of Live at Shea Stadium, albeit two months after its release, and it caused all those feelings bound up in The Clash to come flooding back to me, nearly making me cry. I suddenly felt younger and more idealistic again; I felt that I could fight with The Clash resonating in the pit of my stomach again. Their gig opening for The Who at Shea Stadium in 1982 is often regarded as their peak before their dissolution (though small cracks were beginning to show with the replacement of Topper Headon with Terry Chimes). There’s no doubt that this performance sees The Clash at the top of their game, but I often think that it also signified an irreconcilable paradox for the band, especially Joe Strummer.
When I tell people I’m in a band, I get a couple of textbook reactions. The most common is “Are you the singer?” and another is “Is it an all girl band?” The numerous occasions I’ve heard a guy tell...
Photos from a recent FOE gig - a friend of our friends Hold Your Horse Is - she’s gonna be big!!! Read the gig review after the jump.
Shots of North Carolina’s folk-rocking Avett Brothers’ stop in Glasgow - 22.08.11
Read the review of the gig here.
Take a look at the acts and art on offer at this year’s Latitude Festival in Suffolk. Included are the likes of Fight Like Apes, Lykke Li, Sea of Bees and Seasick Steve. Photos from our own...
Good time with Bad Guys. Photos from the May 29th gig at the Old Blue Last. Read the review by the Bad Guy himself, Stuart London after the jump.
Artrocker.com exclusive: for fans of White Lies and Crocodiles we’ve got some fresh pictures from their UK show at the Shepherd’s Bush Empire earlier this month, courtesy of Alessandro...
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