Tag Archives: Glastonbury

How Festivals Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Hip-Hop

9 Sep

Something strange happened once Eminem completed his recent headline set at the Reading and Leeds festival a couple of weeks ago. As the final rousing chorus of Lose Yourself faded away, hip hop officially become part of the British musical landscape.

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Let me back up a little bit. Eminem had previous headlined Reading & Leeds (henceforth called R&L to save my fingers) in 2001. However, it is one thing for an artist to be booked when they’re a cultural phenomenon, and quite another when they’re a veteran of the genre. Many British festivals and magazines opened their arms to Eminem while he was at his height. Booking him 12 years on shows the confidence festivals organisers have in his huge back catalogue of work.

Unlike the USA, where rap is so mainstream Jay-Z can host his own festival, hip hop’s traditionally faced a lot of resistance in Britain. Back when Jay-Z headlined Glastonbury in 2008, many people were sceptical. Noel Gallagher claimed: “I’m not having hip-hop at Glastonbury. It’s wrong.” Jay-Z ended up receiving rave reviews for his performance, managing to please both the hardcore fans and those who only knew the chorus to 99 Problems. However, Glastonbury was always far more diverse than traditional rock festivals like Reading & Leeds.

If you need more evidence, look further down the billing at R&L this year. A$AP Rocky and Azealia Banks both performed the penultimate slots on the NME Stage on different days. Neither are household names but both have cult followings. On smaller stages, you could find a whos-who of up-and-coming talent, such as Chance the Rapper, Angel Haze, Earlwolf and Action Bronson. You could quite easily have spent the whole weekend there without hearing a single guitar.

This breakdown of genre barriers isn’t limited to rap. Melvin Benn, the organiser of R&L, recently tipped Chase & Status as future headliners. Electric music is another genre experiencing a huge boom but this will still come as a surprise to the festivals’ hardcore rock fans; the emphasis seems to be less on promoting what people expect and simply putting good bands on.

Eminem may be the greatest crossover rapper ever, partly owing to his rebellious hits aimed at suburban teens and partly no doubt due to his skin colour. However, the fact remains he has opened plenty of doors in the UK and it surely won’t be long before hip hop superstars like Kanye West and Kendrick Lamar step through them. 

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Festivals vs. Gigs

9 Aug

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We are now well in the middle of the UK festival season. Glastonbury is now a glorious, beer-soaked memory, V Festival is approaching fast while Leeds & Reading is still a couple of weeks away, marking the symbolic end of the summer. Meanwhile, mini festivals like Y Not and Lee Fest are popping up left, right and centre.

What’s strange is how well it seems to be going. When the recession hit, we were assured that festivals were now a thing of the past thanks to shrinking incomes and soaring ticket prices. Many people saw gigs as the way forward – you get exactly what you pay for and don’t have to stand through dozens of bands you’re not interested in or sleep in a tent that size of a small Alsatian. Yet gigs seem to be the ones that are struggling. Iconic music venues like the 100 Club are regularly faced with closure. So in these money strapped times, I thought I would decide once and for all which are better – gigs or festivals.

Having been to a couple of both, I would say my money is mostly – but not entirely – on gigs. My favourite one was Foo Fighters in 2010, performing in the enormous outdoor National Bowl in Milton Keynes. There was a palpable sense of build up all day. The crowd was very supportive of the warm-up acts, Biffy Clyro and Jimmy Eat World, even if those weren’t the ones they came to see. When Dave Grohl and co. finally arrived, there wasn’t a single person in the 65,000 capacity stadium who wasn’t cheering. But the icing on the cake was the special guests. When John Paul Jones of Led Zeppelin fame and Seasick Steve joined Grohl on stage for the encore, I and many of the people near me nearly lost our voices. What was great was that the audience knew who they were; by attending a Foo Fighters concert, you could almost guarantee they admired idols such as these. I don’t think it would have quite the same effect had Foo Fighters been performing at Glastonbury, which attracts fans of a wide range of genres. This isn’t necessarily a bad thing but prevents that same feeling of community.

Festivals, in my experience, are quite different. You spend the whole weekend bouncing from tent to stage and back again in order to catch your favourite bands. This pinballing inevitably means you’re always near the back and barely get chance to enjoy the performance before you’re dragged off by impatient friends somewhere else. Choice can be a curse as well as blessing. No matter what you do, you’re going to miss things you want to see. There’s also the problem of tourist-fans – people who go to see bands just to say they were there, regardless of whether they want to see them. I’m lost count of the amount of times I’ve been wedged against people who are stood motionless, looking as though they’re waiting for an advert on YouTube to finish playing. It kills the mood to say the least.

That isn’t to say that festivals don’t have their place in British music. Despite soaring ticket prices – a standard weekend ticket for Glastonbury costing £216, often being resold for much higher – they are still far and away the best value for money. With plenty of energy drinks, you could see up to twenty bands in the course of a weekend. There’s also the fun of camping with your friends. While a gig can be a great night out, a festival can feel more like a holiday.

Nevertheless, for the truly special moments, I’ve found you have to stick with gigs. When I see Arctic Monkeys in November – an event I’ve been waiting five years for – I know there won’t be any tourist-fans, hangers-on or people who wandered into the wrong tent, just true fans. Call my standoffish, but that seems like the purer musical experience.

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“There will always be a place for rock music!” – Carousels and Limousines Interview

19 Jul

Last week, we brought you Carousels and Limousines, a British rock band with an American heart. This week, their lead singer Sam Gotley tells you everything you ever wanted to know about the band.

 

You’re a British band with a very American sound. Was that a conscious decision?

No, not at all. We just write songs similar to music that we love which are bands like The Doors, Springsteen, Gaslight Anthem and the Rolling Stones. I guess when you listen to a lot of one type of music a bit of it rubs off on you!

 

What inspired your band to start making music together?

A mutual love of music and to be honest I think we were pretty bored in our early twenties. Finn moved in with me and Jay when we lived in Manchester and we started jamming and having a good laugh so we decided to start a band.

You say you’ve started writing songs for your next album; how will these be different from your songs on Home to Andy’s?

Well it’s early days yet, but we think our new stuff will be more characteristic of our live sound, and perhaps a little rowdier in places, also expect some big drum beats!

 

Are you more confident playing live shows know you have a whole album out?

Probably, we’ve played the songs enough times in the studio that we should be! But it’s also nice to know that fans have been listening to your album and know more of your songs when you turn up and play.

 

Looking at the Top 40, it is mostly filled with hip hop and boy bands; is there still a place for traditional rock band in today’s music scene?

There will always be a place for rock music. People blabber on about rock being dead and no good bands being around, but look at festival line-ups over summer and I guarantee 80% of the headline acts will be rock bands, because they’ve got the songs and the stamina to play long shows into the late evening. You ain’t gonna find Carly Rae Jepson or Bieber doing a 3 hour set to close out Glastonbury!

 

Finally, which song would you say you’re most proud of and why?

Probably ‘Greasy Hands’ because you really need to listen to the lyrics to work out what it’s about – it’s fun hearing people’s interpretation of it. And it’s also a bit of a challenge to play live.

If you want to know more about the band, you can find their website here or their Facebook page here. They will be playing a variety of gigs around London and Bristol this summer.

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Album Preview – AM by Arctic Monkeys

5 Jul

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Sometimes a band just seizes the moment by the scruff of its neck and everyone knows, for better or worse, that it’s theirs. This is one of those times, and Arctic Monkeys are undeniably that band. After opening the Olympics last summer and headlining Glastonbury for the second time, they have built up such momentum that their new album, AM, is going to be a Very Big Event. It may not be out until 9th September, but here are five reasons you should be very excited about it right now.

 

They owned Glastonbury

The Rolling Stones were the most anticipated; the Mumford and Sons had the biggest sing-alongs, but the Arctic Monkeys owned the weekend. From acoustic versions of Mardy Bum to making everyone dance to When the Sun Goes Down, frontman Alex Turner had the crowd in the pocket of his sparkly blazer. They had all of the confidence they lacked the first time around, telling the crowd: “See you next time.”

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OEYo0ea7HF8

They’re one of the most consistent bands about

Every album by the Arctic Monkeys has been very good, despite their constant changes in musical styles. Even Alex Turner’s side projects have been excellent – from the crooning, wistful soundtrack to Submarine to the 60’s-influenced Last Shadow Puppets album. Everything he does comes with a seal of guaranteed quality. The only divisive thing in his back catalogue is their third album Humbug;, which is generally considered a brave experiment that wasn’t wholly successful.

R U Mine? is on there!

Back when R U Mine? was released in the distant past of February 2012, most people assumed it was a one-off single, to keep us content until the next album arrived. Which was fine by us – it contained some their most aggressive musical swagger so far, full of garage rock and cryptic lyrics that Alex specialises in. According to interviews, the band “discovered something in that record we thought was worth exploring”, influencing the rest of the album.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rJD-HEAHHg8

Josh Homme is involved

The Queens of the Stone Age frontman has been producing brilliant records like clockwork for over 20 years now. He produced the band’s third album and is set to appear on their new one. He is one of the most gifted guitarists of his generation and his influence always helps to push the band in a heavier direction.

Alex has become the rockstar he was always meant to be

Like the main character in a coming of age novel, Alex has matured from an awkward teenager to an indie rock god. With each album and image makeover, his confidence has grown – just witness the suave crooning on Suck it and See. It’s difficult to remember how he once sung about romantic problems with such believability. Now he is rarely seen without a leather jacket, sunglasses and a quiff. The time has never been better to see them live.

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