CocoRosie – The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn
Dan pointed me to CocoRosie and it took me a while to get the hang of their previous album Noah’s Ark which could shine with its odd combination of low-fi singing and strange electronic bits particulaly in K-Hole, Beautiful Boyz and Noah’s Ark. And while I remain a bit sceptic about the whole ‘folk’ and ‘ethnic’ hype that journalists distill from their press kits, their new album doesn’t disappoint.
The sound in The Adventures of Ghosthorse and Stillborn is a bit richer than that of Noah’s Ark (maybe a bit overproduced for my taste) and has a light hip-hop sound to it (or whatever too much bass in the beats and people speaking is called). Luckily that’s not enough to make me feel uncomfortable.
The album’s fourth chapter, Japan (Life is like a rollercoaster / it does flip and roll you over
), is somewhat childlike, despite its lyrics much fun and contains a weirdo opera piece. And my favourite so far is – naturally – chapter 7, Werewolf which is followed by Animals mentioning everthing from a solar eclipse to baby dinosaurs…
A final, positive, note should be made on behalf of their record company, Touch and Go Records who shipped the LP with a code that let me download MP3 versions of the songs for my iPod from their site. Just as things should work…
!!! – Myth Takes
!!!, a band with a name so ungooglable that they have to write chk-chk-chk along with it everywhere to make it more accessible. Their music mixes instruments with a hint of electronics which I started liking a while ago. In a way their current album Myth takes may be the album going where I would have liked The Rapture’s Pieces of the People we Love to go. Enjoy the disco-ish Heart of Hearts and the full eight minutes of Roll over Beethoven.
And if you ever needed an excuse to get a record player, this album may be it. It’s cover and sleeve art is such a finely detailed drawing that I doubt printing it in small CD size does it any justice.
Patrick Wolf – The Magic Position
Patrick Wolf released his third album, The Magic Position. In his case this means a third hair colour: After blond for the fantastic Lycanthropy and dark for his sophomore effort Wind in the Wires
we now arrived at a red that is brought into a somewhat childish context by the album’s cover art. As the image suggests, the album comes along more brightly and with a good helping of pop – in the album’s title track, say. A bit too much pop, people – including myself – might say.
While the album hasn’t lost the charme of Patrick’s style and mixing of electronic weirdness with proper instruments, I found it – particularly the first half – too far on the light and shiny side and thus lacking some of the power the previous albums had in songs like Tristan, Paris or even The Childcatcher. I guess we’ll have to wait a year to see whether this lightness is his new way or was just an escapade. Currently he seems to mix both happily. I’ll take bets for the new hair colour until then.
Kings of Leon – Because of the Times
Kings of Leon released their third album as well. I really liked their first album Youth and Young Manhood and their second album Aha Shake Heartbreak had a few good songs as well, so what about their current album Because of the Times?
I’m not sure to be honest. To begin I thought the album’s name was about the lamest you could have. And, while looking nice, the cover art just didn’t fit in for that kind of album. And the music is partially on the dull side as well. But it still contains a number of songs I enjoyed like McFearless or particularly Fans. A bit overdone perhaps, but good enough.
Arcade Fire – Neon Bible
Arcade Fire’s second full album Neon Bible definitely was one of the most eagerly awaited new albums for me in the past months. Their previous CDs were fantastic, seeing them live was outrageously good, so hopes and fears for the new album were high.
And while Neon Bible may not be as much of a revelation as its predecessor was, it is a solidly good album. The songs are good. But they have become quite boastful and pressing rather than keeping the understatement found on Funeral. My inner conspiracy-theorist is tempted to blame things like mixing and marketing for that, and I am curious to see how those songs work out when played live.
Neon Bible and Intervention are my favourite songs on the album so far and I am rather irritated by them putting No Cars Go from their first EP on the CD as well. Perhaps it’s just because it comes from a different context, but I keep thinking it doesn’t fit in.
When getting the CD, I knocked myself out and spent a few extra Euros on getting the ‘deluxe’ (or whatever they call it) edition. I can now recommend not doing that. The box it comes is too thick for what’s in there, so everthing makes a shaky noise when moving it and the CD uses even more space in the shelf. The extra flipbooks provide amusement for a minute at best and the cheap printing they used has one of the worst printing stinks I have experiecned (and usually I like that smell). In addition I find that the booklet is not printed nicely (a slight off-white shade for text just looks crap when rastered rather than using a special colour and even if that was intended by whoever did it, printing lyrics in justified text can safely be labelled stupid - or smart and reader hostile, which to me as a reader is the same).
The Rollercoaster Project – Drone 1
This is an odd one that nobody expected – least of all myself. Reader Mike of Dreamboat Records sent me Drone 1 by The Rollercoaster Project who makes what I’d label as ‘strange electronic music’.
The CD’s eponymous song is based on the same small rhythmical pattern being repeated over and over again at different pitches. And there’s also a remix version of that song. The third song on there, Algorar, has a touch of Sigur Rós to it but sounds more mechanical than them.
Technically the CD is interesting as well – not only does it come with an all black CD in nice packaging, the electronic bits of the music also prove to be a big challenge for compression algorithms. If you ever needed to convince someone that today’s iTunes quality can definitely case audible losses, this is the CD you want. Which of course means you don’t want to buy the CD at iTMS but rather as a CD or at Bleep. [Update: See below for Mike’s special offer to you.]
Clap Your Hands Say Yeah – Some Loud Thunder
To make the beginning of the year worthwhile my other big obsession, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah released their second album Some Loud Thunder in January. Of course I dug in for the full width of their offerings via Insound – which once again thanks to low American prices and Dollar was reasonably priced despite needing overseas shipping. As a bonus for pre-ordering there was even access to MP3s of the album a week or so before it was released – and thus a fortnight before it made it about the big ocean.
The album is all right. I think they overdid it by making the album’s opening and title track sound poorly recorded. It’s hard to see the point of faking bad recording quality. Of course I’m thrilled that the album contains the wonderful Satan Said Dance and other songs like Mama, Won’t You Keep Those Castles In The Air & Burning? directly follow the spirit of their first album. I’m not a big fan of the circuseque Encountering a Crippled Elephant and I note that in some songs like Yankee go Home there’s actually chance to understand the lyrics by listening to the music.
While I don’t think it’s the next big thing, I’m starting to like the last track ‘Five Easy Pieces’ which just cries to be used in the closing scene of a film.
Peter Bjorn and John – Writer’s Block
Peter Bjorn and John’s (no they don’t write Björn for some reason) Writer’s Block may very well end up being the most agreeable album of the year. I haven’t met anybody who doesn’t like it so far. And it certainly is enjoyable and relaxed. I hope we are not going to to grow sick of it by the time Young Folks has been played in all clubs and dozens of commercials. The wrong way round thing in the cover art keeps amusing me.
Malajube – Trompe L’Oeuil
Malajube are another great Canadian band (just what exactly do they do in Canada to achieve that?) Happy, screamy, jumpy, yet not aggressive and in French (or Québecois, I presume). I have been enjoying this CD a lot and it looks like Malajube are playing at Haldern this year…
Also Ran
And that’s not all. There have been many other albums out which I heard but don’t have the patience to write on or didn’t even bother to buy and just was a collateral listener to. Examples for those would be The View which saw a good deal of hyping but which seemed – to be polite – average to me. I guess it might sell well nonetheless. And just as I could appreciate but didn’t manage to be a big fan of Bloc Party’s first album, their new album A Weekend in the City ‘suffers’ the same fate. It’s all right, but it doesn’t do much for me. But hey, they have a lengthy song called Kreuzberg on there and my flatmate really likes them, so this is not going to pass me completely.
Similarly Maxïmo Park remain in their sphere of lacklustre pretence with Our Earthly Pleasures. I’m also starting to develop more and more of a dislike for their singer’s voice. Bright Eyes’ Cassagada can be listened to without problems – all charming but not that exciting or new. And the Klaxons who seem to be the dernier cri over in the UK are also all right, but not that compelling to me. Just like !!! they might be a good replacement for The Rapture’s album, though (all right, enough bitching about that one I guess).
Lovers of Swedish music may want to pick up the compliation Labrador 100 by the Labrador label – who are publishing The Legends for example. Everbody quite liked the song Fists Up by The Blow which made it onto one of our kitchen samplers, but the CD turned out to be a bit on the dull side. Little Barrie stay right on track by keeping their charming 1960s style and not being overly exciting at it. Jamie T apparently saw some serious hype a while ago, which went right past me and while it’s not exactly my cup of tea, there may be more than just ‘dull Mike Skinner wannabe’ to the music – in particular less hip hop – he seems to be playing at Haldern this year, so I may lend another ear to him. The Fratellis came to people’s attention by making their way into an iPod commercial (and their song Flathead used there is quite similar in style to Jet’s Are You Gonna Be My Girl which shared the same luck) but the music is too upbeat, poppy and dull for me. Not too bad but not as great as their first album, is The Rakes’ Ten New Messages which may just be a bit too clever for its own good and lack the bits that made Capture/Release rock. Finally, the German band Klez.e who sound, well, quite German. Not outrageously good but not too shabby either. Oh my indifference!
Worth recommending to anybody who likes Low or Múm is Explosions in the Sky’s new album All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone. Starting to sound a bit dull to me – Arctic Monkeys with their new album Favourite Worst Nightmare, whose title reminds me of The Hives and the writing on whose cover I loathe. Of Montreal’s new album Hissing Fauna, Are you the Destroyer? is quite interesting as well and Modest Mouse’s We Were Dead Even Before The Ship Even Sank seems promising as well. Those will take a few extra listens, though.
A final shout goes to Rob Hoeke. I really started liking his song Drinking on my Bed and when digging through old files recently I found an ancient MP3 with just that song again in a recording that’s much nicer than the one you can get on iTMS.
]]>
A girl – whose name I forgot – called Bishi with a Sitar and a little electronic machine with recorded beats was the support ‘band’. That fit in quite well with the rest of music although she seemed quite stressed during the more complicated parts of her playing the instrument. She was a bit ridiculously overdressed and we saw her again at the very end when joining Patrick to sing Magpie for an encore.
Patrick’s band had a violin, double bass, drum kit and electronic toys played by others while he played the piano, viola, ukelele and of course sang. As far as the effort is concerned, he has come quite a long way since I first saw him on stage, alone with a viola, ukelele and computer to work with.
But the extra acoustic instruments on stage were nice and added to the sound, particularly in the more elaborate newer pieces (although the drum kit sounded a bit too soft for my taste). However, a number of pieces of Lycanthropy – including the brilliant and dramatic Childcatcher – were played as well and I have to say I still like them best as they have the more powerful beats and the more deliberate electronic playing.
That is not to say that the more quiet moments were bad. In fact they felt much closer and personal, were excellent and went all the way down to singing without the microphone which really made everybody be quiet for the moment. Wonderful.
]]>
I think I’ve never gone out in London before as, invariably, my visits had been quite short, mid-week or to people who just didn’t want to go out. I thought the club was in a rather nice building and a pleasant place to be at. And the stage was decorated with Halloween-ish pumpkins which the audience was encouraged to bring along.
Support bands were Lishka, whom I found a bit dull at the beginning but who improved during their gig and were OK towards the end. They were followed by a guy (whose name I forgot) playing a giant brass instrument whose sounds were fed into some distortion and feedback machines. He just played a few long pieces and while I didn’t find them totally remarkable, I quite enjoyed listening to them. In some places the distorted echoes of what he played came back to cleverly match whatever he was playing a moment later as a second voice. Cool.
And then, Patrick Wolf came on. Unlike last year he wasn’t on stage alone with just his viola an computer but brought another violaist a proper drummer and some more help with him this time. This gave him enough time to sing and play some (electric) piano and his ukelele. He played many songs from Wind in the Wires and some of Lyncanthropy. And despite being an analogue type myself and there being a real drummer this time, I really preferred the songs with some electronic percussions in them, and so did my friends.
In total, each one of us really enjoyed the gig and it seemed that Patrick did as well. It’s good to see the performer happy at such an event as well. He ended his encore playing a new song which was quite cool and had some of the electronic goodness in it again that wasn’t too widely spread on the Wind in the Wires album. He said he’d be off working on more songs now and I’m curious to hear them once they’re out.
After leaving Scala around eleven – you’ve got to love those British licensing laws which let you come out of a gig with three bands at a time that bands start playing elsewhere – people looked for a snack which was a bit tricky to find seeing that all places were closed. So instead we managed to find a pub which still served drinks and did our best to ignore the hoards of drunk teenagers in Halloweeny constumes hanging out there. An extra snack was postponed until after our return to Po’s place. Pasta with green asparagus and bacon is an idea to remember….
I didn’t envy Po and John who had to get up really early the next day for work. They’re tough!
]]>
A few months ago, Patrick’s sophomore album Wind in the Wires was published and I made sure that I got my copy early on. But I couldn’t really make up my mind about it. On the one hand, everything sounded much tamer and duller than on Lycanthropy – milder computer bleeps, softer percussion, less shouting… probably symptoms of being ‘professionally produced’ in the music press. On the other hand I got used to that after listening to it a couple of times and still enjoy listening to it.
While the album opens with the bright and energetic The Libertine, which is also available as the album’s first single, and whose lyrics so remind me of my former idea that Patrick’s songs are strongly Kafka-esque, it quickly drifts into less energetic pieces like Teignmouth which it directly cross-fades into and sets the album’s direction: On the night train / from the city to the South / I saw spirits / crawl across the river mouth. / In skewed ascension / with no destination / like this lone bachelor in me. / This constant yearning / for great love and learnin / for the wind to carry me free.
Not only is this quite good but it leads us out of the city and into the countryside – right to the coast in fact, as the next track The Shadow Sea suggests. This is pretty much in line with all the stuff they wrote on the web site about Patrick loving the country side. Somewhere it was even said that while Lycanthropy with its strong name and songs named London or Paris is more a city album while Wind in the Wires is a countryside album, going out of the city and into the mysteries of countryside. Not just for all the light and airy parts of course but also for its darker sides. – Ahem. Perhaps that interpretation is going a bit too far, but it really struck a chord with me. And it may also hint why I’m less comfortable with the new album: I’m not terribly fond of the countryside. It’s nice to go there and look around but I don’t like staying there.
Next comes the title song Wind in the Wires – It’s the sigh of wild electricity
, which has its moments and Patrick’s incredibly strange pronunciation of electricity’s second c. But which is also a bit long and slow for my taste – but possibly intentionally. This is followed by the idyllic The Railway House about growing old together and The Gypsy King which still has a train in it but could do with some extra excitement. The short and slightly tense strings piece Apparition ends the A-side.
Ghost Song opens the B-side and continues carrying a bit more tension – very carefully, though – and trying to bring beauty back in season
. A little siren at the end fades right into The Weather which builds up slowly and very carefully to its slightly energetic refrain. Next up is the very short Jacobs Ladder adding a bit more obvious electronics to the album before going into Tristan which is probably the album’s most Lycanthropy-esque song.
Eulogy, the penultimate song is slower and – adequately – with some sad violins. It sounds like a good conclusion of the album. But there’s still Lands End, which sounds a bit like a ‘bonus track’ to me. It doesn’t really fit into the flow of the record as all the other songs did but it lighter. A kind of good-bye, opening with the self-referential words The work is done and the record pressed
, exhibiting a fair amount of self-consciousness.
So while I would have preferred a rougher, more energetic and less well-mixed album, Wind in the Wires is still a treat because it’s actually telling a story and all the songs are made around the topic of leaving London for Lands End
and deal with the country and sea sides, with trains and ships and all carrying what seems like a dark 19th century feeling to me. Many of the songs remind of things I read, be it Kafka or Dickens or …
It’s a wild stretch of land
Such a sad place to be
When the night comes heavy down
And the sands turn to sea.
Many saints have lost their love
Many a pilgrim dies unseen
In that wild stretch of land
In that fire to be free.
Further Reading
Other Patrick Wolf related stuff on my site and from my Patrick Wolf links at del.icio.us: A cool interview with Patrick and some info to go with it as well as a Wind in the Wires review from the same site. More interviews with Patrick to go with the release of Wind in the Wires and an older one that went with Lycanthropy; A review of the album with big words and an interview; Patrick giving strange answers to strange questions on his site.
]]>
a white knight of a laptop) at two in the afternoon with few hungover people watching. And he did well, playing an interesting kind of electronic music which I thought I could hear more often.
They sold the LP at the local record store but I was reluctant to get it because it was a 45rpm affair. Being a lazy bastard who owns a record player where you have to take off the turntable to change speeds, I was reluctant to buy it. That’s the lesson I learned from Radiohead’s Hail to the Thief record which I fail to listen to regularly enough because of this. I also have a tedency to prefer having electronic music on a CD. Not only does it feel more adequate but for some stuff like Sigur Rós not having to flip sides is better. To cut a long story short, I ended up ordering and eventually getting the CD.
The CD is named Lycanthropy.
I don’t like the photo on CD’s cover too much, but appreciate the ornamented writing. The booklet is filled with lyrics, drawings and scribblings and a note by Patrick. Which is nice.
Lycanthropy for me is a survival instinct in the face of a full moon
barriers – bullies – intellectuals bogiemen and fear-failure
you grow these thick dark hairs – claws sharp teeth and you crawl on all fours till the sun comes up.
The music is nice as well and I get used to it more and more. It starts off with a bit of howling that fades into the Wolf Song which perhaps is quite typical for the kind of music on the album: some simple instruments, singing which is quite clear and some beats which accumulate a bit. This is followed by the distinctly more electronic Bloodbeat and the very good To the Lighthouse (I was living on borrowed time in a borrowed house for a borrowed crime.
), the first few seconds of which always remind me of one of the songs by Jan Garbarek and the Hilliard Ensemble and for which there is a lo-fi black and white video which reminds me of early silent films. Next up is the Pigeon Song, which features and accordion and is a bit slower. It’s the first song on the record dealing with London, the other being London which features Big Ben ringing. And together with Paris, those two make good additions to my Around the World playlist.
In Don’t say No there’s more mixing of instruments and beats along with wonderful lyrics:
I used to say ‘just follow your heart’
but my heaert always led me in circles.
And I used to say ‘just follow your dreams’
but my dreams always led me to murder.
So now I don’t say nothing at all
I just bow my head to the battle.
A thousand miles above our heads
they are weaving
giant patterns around the sun.
If you’re brave enough you’ll just let it happen,
if you’re brave enough you’ll just succumb.
Don’t say no to it.
You can’t say no to it.
Just throw yourself in
just give yourself in
to the pattern.
A thousand miles above our heads
they are bleeding
mighty currents upon the day.
If you’re brave enough you’ll just let it happen,
if you’re brave enough you’ll give yourself away.
Don’t say no to it.
You can’t say no to it.Patrick Wolf – Don’t say No
And after this song with its funny sample-rich ending comes, on track 7, the album’s strongest track The Childcatcher. Its lyrics are scary, on abuse, and there is music to match with good use of percussions and distortion – culminating in massive beat filled cries of Run run run – as fast as you can!
A good occasion to max out your stereo. iPods, particularly the European ones, don’t do this justice.
There are two more quiet songs, Demolition and Peter Pan, the latter of which sounds like it could be sung by Adam Green, both musically and lyrically. The album then comes to an end in its title song Lycanthropy, which does nice work with many instruments but I don’t like too much, and the funny and energetic A Boy like me … is told he is both nine and ninety
before finishing with the classical sounding instrumental Epilogue.
Quite an album. Go and listen to it if you’re interested in modern music and not completely offended by the thought of electronic processing of sounds. With the music having the unusual combination of using modern and classical instruments and arrangements while being very intense, it may be interesting to read this so-called interview where we learn that Patrick thinks music shouldn’t be too intellectual – in an up-your-ass sense. Yet – or rather, consequently, – he recommends listening to Arvo Pärt on his website. How refreshing.
]]>
Contents
- The Festival
- dEUS
- Starsailor
- Adam Green
- Gisli
- Patrick Wolf
- Keane
- Kings of Leon
- Paul Weller
- The Divine Comedy
- Das Pop
- Related Links
The Festival
The festival is quite special. Read the blurb on their website for the full story. Basically it's rather small (between 5000 and 10000 visitors is my guess) and less commercial than other festivals. There are a few sponsors but the commercial pitch seems a lot lower than elsewhere. Many things at the festival (like a little tunnel where water is sprinkled on you for cooling off or even a set of big ventilators to blow a little wind over the audience) look home-made. The whole effort seems to be driven mostly by the organisers' enthusiasm for music and has grown from very humble starts 20 years ago. They have a low-key motto each year. This year's being The future is small
.
The local community seems to be involved and many families seem to be attending as well. The atmosphere and the people are very relaxed – less rowdy than elsewhere – making this a very pleasant experience (except for the people staying next to us on the campground who brought their own generator – I accuse them of over-sophistication and noise). There were lots of people from neighbouring Holland and Belgium as well, owing to the location at the very west of Germany.
As the festival operates on a small scale, their lineup can't be as impressive as that of larger festivals. Lesser known or upcoming bands play there. Each band gets about an hour of time on the stage, which is a bit longer than usual, and many seem to enjoy the experience. The bands playing are a bit on the slow side. When I went there with Dan two years ago we saw Belle and Sebastian, The Notwist, for example.
While there was only one band playing at a time. They had a fancy tent as well this year where bands played late at night and in the morning. It was quite pretty with lots of velvet curtains, coloured stained glass windows and mirrors. Apparently these were used for dances early last century and were operated by travelling Belgians.
The weather was fine throughout the weekend. While it was overcast on Saturday morning, the sun burned all the clouds away and it was quite hot afterwards. So we did most of our Saturday daytime listening sitting in a shady spot. There was a thunderstorm forecast – either for Friday or for Saturday, depending on whom you trusted. It did happen (on Saturday in case you care) – but south of were we were; and according to the news it was quite heave, leaving some people flooded.
dEUS (B, Friday 21:25)
As most people I only knew a single dEUS song before, Suds and Soda which is quite cool, often played at discos and starts with a screeching violin. This shouldn't be the last violin we were to see at the festival. I didn't find their other songs too inspiring.
Starsailor (GB, 23:15)
My general opinion about Starsailor isn't too favourable. My basic take on this starts back at the Beatles. Yeah, they were great, I suppose, but I'm more of a Rolling Stones person and not a very nice one at that. I am tempted to say something along the lines of Oasis are the Beatles gone wrong, Travis are Oasis gone wrong, Coldplay are Travis gone wrong and Starsailor are Coldplay gone wrong.
After this has been sorted, I must admit that I was positively surprised. They played well, their songs are catchy and nice and they seemed to enjoy performing. I almost regretted my derogatory way of thinking about them.
Adam Green (US, 0:50)
Given my track record, it's clear that I had to see Adam Green. Although he's been touring around here a lot, I never made it to see him on his own, so this is the first time I saw him play since I saw The Moldy Peaches in early 2002.
It's generally known that Adam can't be accused of overwhelming showmanship. So expectations weren't too high for that – and we were there for the music anyway – or so. He did try to do a few silly dances and some microphone throwing. I am not sure he's really convinced of this himself, but I'll just appreciate the effort.
Most of the songs he played with his support band were from the Friends of Mine album (without the strings, though, those extra violins promised earlier will appear later). I would have loved to hear some more songs of the Garfield album, which remains my favourite. Its rough, ultra-lo-fi sound is quite cool. It's also more in the Moldy Peaches direction than Friends of Mine. Instead of the old songs he played quite a few songs which I completely didn't know – and thus suppose to be new. That was cool. I think bands should play more of their unreleased songs at gigs.
That said, I think Adam could have played for a bit longer. He was the last one to be on stage so there wasn't a problem schedule-wise. He did play an encore, starting to play his cover version of The Libertines' What a Waster, which I love... and then he blew it, apparently not knowing how to go on. That was disappointing, which he acknowledged right away.
Gisli (ISL/N, Saturday 13:00)
The first band to play on Saturday were Gisli. They had a bit of a hard time getting there – getting up in the middle of the night and having their instruments lost by the airline. They still played, with borrowed instruments (I've been told it's important that bands can play their own instruments... thing were so much easier if they shared). Their music was friendly and not too exciting. I liked the last song they played but that doesn't seem to be published yet.
Patrick Wolf (GB, 14:00)
Patrick Wolf coming on stage looked a bit unlikely: A synthesizer, a violin (or viola perhaps), an iBook and a single person. He then entertained us on his for for 45 minutes. Some of the songs were quite cool, particularly at the beginning, I was getting a bit bored towards the end though.
+1 for bravery, more Patrick Wolf stuff around here,
South, Embrace (UK, 15:05, 16:15)
These two bands stepped in for The Bees and The Zutons respectively. I wasn't too impressed by their performances.
Keane (GB, 19:05)
Keane seem to be quite popular already in the UK. And they may be the next hype over here as well, having a video played on telly and all. Apparently they got signed for the festival when they were still affordable enough.
I'll still have to give this a little a little thought, but they may be the next step in the regression leading to Starsailor that I mentioned above. Their music is inoffensive and bit cheesy for my taste. Their keyboarder jumped around a lot considering that he was only pressing a few keys on a keyboard (I constantly fail to see why people do this, I'm more with Kraftwerk on that one). He had something suspiciously resembling a TiBook there as well – whatever it was for.
Someone passed the word boygroup
around in this context. And perhaps they are. Not in the classical 'synchronised dancing' sense but in a slightly more 'indie' sense of being a bunch of sleepy-looking young English blokes. Looking at the little girls while Keane were on stage suggested that the hypothesis isn't completely without merit.
Of course the label 'boygroup' isn't good for a band's credibility – perhaps we'll have to adjust a little bit here. Just because they make teenage girls scream doesn't mean a band needs to be bad (see The Libertines, for example). I'll have to try hard to keep that in mind.
Read a devastating review of their album.
Kings of Leon (US, 20:35)
I was looking forward to see Kings of Leon. Their music is nice and rough. The kind of sixties and seventies stuff I like.
They played fine but were playing it a bit too cool for my taste – playing their set and not interacting with the audience. That could've been better. They should've also played my favourite, Joe's Head.
Paul Weller (GB, 22:10)
Paul Weller has a lot of history going for him. And now he's singing, along with a guitar, a band and a grand piano on stage. This takes a long time to set up and is very elaborate. It's also a bit too sophisticated for my taste. I'm not too keen on all those ageing singer-songwriters (is that the right word? – I'm still not sure what it means...).
I also thought the grand piano sounded rather crappy (i.e. like an electric piano) through the sound system. Perhaps it wasn't up for that kind of job?
The Divine Comedy (IRL, 1:15)
I got a free single of The Divine Comedy with a Sunday newspaper a few years back. I thought their music was OK, a bit too quiet perhaps. For the festival, they were the closing act. And a glamourous one at that.
The special fairy lights that we'd seen hanging at the side of the stage were unwrapped for the occasion and the stage was filled with the band and an orchestra of around twenty. They played pieces arranged for the orchestra which was quite cool, although I again thought that the sound system wasn't quite good enough for the job – things often sounded 'blurred' and it was hard to differentiate the instruments.
Their singer and mastermind, Neil Hannon, even came in a suit and charmingly entertained us. He seemed to enjoy performing with the orchestra, looking like this is something he wanted to do for a long time. He went out of sight to the side of the stage when they were playing a solo and gave due credit to them at the end. The orchestra was a local one and he pronounced them to be rock stars at the end of the performance. To our amusement they also played a cover version of the Queens of the Stone Age's No One Knows in this setup.
This won't be my new favourite band but it was a cool way to end the main stage lineup. At the time it was already 2:30 due to delays in setting up the stage for the last two bands. But it wasn't going to be the last band we saw. In the additional tent there were two more bands playing. We missed the Dresden Dolls because the tent only had limited capacity and we had to queue, but then made it inside in time to see
Das Pop (B, 3:30)
I bought Das Pop's album I ♥ (released on good old PIAS in 2002 and with silly "let's do 99 tracks" hidden tracks) a while ago. I mostly bought it because I heard of the band before, it was a special edition, it was on sale and because I didn't find anything else. It was a bit of a random buy to be honest. And one I didn't regret. I listened to the CD a lot at the time. Not only does it have quite a good and stylish booklet and design, it's also full of fresh poppy goodness and the occasional electronic sound. In fact, my memory was mostly of the electronic parts which is probably owed to the clicky and bleepy The Love Program. Thus, thanks to my poor memory, I was a little surprised to see a proper drumkit and the electronic toys in a subordinate role.
Despite the late time, the tent was quite full with almost 400 people and we got to see a very good show. The singer spoke to us in very good German, which was nice and even sung a German version of the song You. The performance he put on was solid, very energetic, sometimes at the verge of looking like a maniac. I'd say they rocked the tent and the audience joined them. It was a very cool show. The songs weren't bad either. I may have to get the new album. It's been out since last year – but not in Germany.
And that was the gratifying end to a relaxed weekend full of good music. We tried to get a few hours of sleep before leaving not too late on Sunday morning to get back home.
Photos
Unfortunately I didn't borrow my mum's digital camera and couldn't take any photos. Fortunately, Richard got a press ticket and was taking photos for a Dutch internet music magazine. He had a nice (and extremely heavy) analogue Nikon camera with good lenses. With the exception of the tent photo at the beginning, all the photos you see here were taken and scanned by him. He's got even more photos up on his photo page.
Other photos; reports in the media: Offical site press photos, photos by other visitors, WDR, WDR Rockpalast will broadcast footage in the night from the 4th to the 5th of September, FM4, stern; and in the blogging world: dis-connected, emptysound, dartogreen, highlights. Possibly more at Feedster.
]]>