So I went to the Roskilde Rock Festival in Denmark again this year. One week... well, four actual days of music, the rest is just hanging around getting shitfaced. But yeah, there was music, and some of it was pretty damn great.
Pascal. Swedish garage rock band. First time I saw them they hadn't released an album and played 35 minutes. Second time they had one album out and played 35 minutes. This time they've got two albums out and played 35 minutes. No wonder, the way the lead singer screams his head off. But they've got the repetitive 3-chord thing down, and when they close with a cover of Judas Priest's "Painkiller" it's pretty damn good. 3/5
Radiohead. It takes them a while to get going - I like the recent albums, but on stage a few too many of the songs sound more like really great intros than great songs in themselves. But then they hit "Exit Music" around the hour mark and the gig really shapes up from there, with great versions of "Everything In Its Right Place", "Paranoid Android", "Idioteque", "Exit Music (For A Film)", "Street Spirit" and "2+2=5", and ends with Thom leading the crowd in a sing-along (Thom Yorke leading a sing-along?!?) on "Karma Police". Good stuff. 4/5
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Karma Police
Band of Horses. I'd heard maybe one of their songs beforehand, but I walk out a fan. Love seeing a band go up on stage and not only have fun, but be completely dedicated to the music as well - this sort of high-emotion rock really demands nothing less, and they delivered. 4/5
Youtube:
The Funeral
Seasick Steve. Apparently Steve used to be both a trucker and a homeless man; these days he's around 70 and making a living playing streetcorner blues with enough attitude to win over the crowd completely. He swigs Jack Daniels straight from the bottle, tells stories, plays a one-string hobo guitar and flashes gang signs; I love it. 5/5
Youtube:
One True
Grinderman. Nick Cave's noisier side project really shouldn't be on the main stage at 10.30PM; not that they don't make an effort, but with only one album under their belt and a few too many songs that rely more on energy than hooks they can't really hold the crowd for the full hour their set lasts. But it's a lot of fun to see 50-year-old Nick rock out like a madman, and some of the songs really get the crowd going even before they encore with the most incredible version of "Tupelo" I've ever heard. In a smaller venue, it might have been great. 3/5
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No Pussy Blues
Joan As Police Woman. On record, I love Joan Wasser; on stage, at least this stage, she flat-out sucks. She stumbles onto stage in high heels and glitter dress like she's PJ Harvey in '95, but she has neither Polly Jean's energy nor the effortless laidback cool of her own albums; unfocused, badly played, and just... dull. 1/5 Left after 30 minutes to go catch the last 45 minutes of...
Solomon Burke. Another of the 70+ crowd, and yes, it's easy to dismiss Solomon Burke. You can make fun of the fact that he weighs about 5,000 kilos and spends the entire show seated on a huge red-and-gold throne, but that feels cheap. You can point out that since he's managed to get through over 50 years in the music industry with hardly a single classic track that everyone knows, his set consists pretty much of the same songs that every bad cover band plays: we get "Johnny B Goode", we get "Proud Mary", we get "What A Wonderful World"... but who cares? The guy's got an amazing voice, and he knows exactly how to work a crowd. When he stops "Lucille" mid-chorus and orders his musicians to take off their proper jackets and ties and move closer to the audience, you know he's done it a 1000 times before and it still works; we keep him on stage, we get encore after encore until the management has to shut off the PA because he simply won't stop entertaining us. Brilliant. 4/5
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What A Wonderful World
My Bloody Valentine. Oh man. I've seen quite a few loud concerts in my life. I've seen heavy metal, I've seen punk, I've seen Beethoven's 9th. And nothing has even come close to what MBV do to us here. It's physical, like injecting yourself with noise. Kevin Shields and the gang haven't toured in over 15 years, but they walk up on stage like it's another day at work and literally blow us away. Guitars guitars guitars guitars, that start out at "WAY too loud" and then turn it up for every song until we're all made up of nothing but distortion and feedback and Bilinda Butcher cooing "Oooo, a-oooo". They finish up with a 30-minute version of "You Made Me Realise" that goes so far beyond tinnitus that I really don't know if I should report them to the police for aggravated assault, or sell everything I own and follow them on tour. Afterwards, it takes me several hours to even walk straight again, and a couple of days for the howling in my ears to stop. MAN. 5/5
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Only Shallow
Neil Young. They put MBV on 30 minutes before Neil, so I miss the first 45 minutes or so, and being utterly drained and half-deaf from the previous show I can't really appreciate this as much as I should. But Neil puts on a great show, mixing the popular stuff (almost half of the
Harvest album, including a great "Words (Between the Lines of Age)") with his trademark self-indulgent perversions (23 minutes of the brand-new "No Hidden Path"... well, it's a damn fine song). Then he finishes up with one of the best Beatles covers I've ever heard, a thoroughly Neil-ified "A Day in the Life", rips the strings off his 50-year-old guitar and leaves the crowd screaming for more. The old man's still in it. 4/5
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All Along the Watchtower
Slayer. Another band who might have done better on a smaller stage; watching them on the main stage in the early afternoon sun on a Sunday might be a good substitute for church, but... Anyway, even if I only see the first 45 minutes before I have to run to the next show, it's enough to make me realise that I need more Slayer records. They hammer every song into the audience's heads, they go through more tempo changes than should be allowed, and they wear Slayer t-shirts with no hint of irony. Slayer like, rawks, dude. 3/5
Youtube:
Raining Blood
Cat Power. Last time I saw Cat Power AKA Chan Marshall in concert, she was hunched over her electric guitar, drinking vodka like water, seemed terrified that we would hate her, and sang her songs like she would die if she didnt get them out. Now she's quit drinking and is in therapy, she's gotten herself a band, she's doing just about every song from her new cover album and she's... still clearly uncomfortable on stage, but working it in a way she didn't do before. So what if it's not as scarily intense as it used to be? Self-destruction is overrated, and she's still a great singer even if I sort of wish we'd gotten to hear more of her old material. 3/5
Youtube:
The Greatest
Bonnie "Prince" Billy. A great songwriter with all of ONE hit to his name ("I See A Darkness"), so obviously he won't play that one. Instead we get 90 minutes of pitch-dark Tom Waitsian country about sex and death, but with enough of a sense of humour to make it captivating rather than just depressing. He builds his simple, backyard/junkyard songs into fanatical sermons and it's only fitting that 7 days of nothing but sunshine ends when the weather gods dump a thunderstorm on us just as Billy's set really takes off. He signs off by telling us to have fun at the Jay-Z concert that's going to close the festival ("and don't forget that Jay-Z's penis has been inside Beyonce Knowles!") but we realise that nothing can top this and head home. 5/5
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The Brute Choir