It's been a long time...
I thought it was about time for an update of some sort. There's been a lot of films out this summer I've been meaning to write something about so hopefully I'll get round to these soon.
But until then I thought I'd post some videos I filmed from a secret Foo Fighters gig from February this year.
They are without a doubt my favorite band, and have been for years now, so having the opportunity to see them in such an intimate venue has so far been my highlight of 2011, and therefore worthy of a post. This was actually the second secret show of theirs I've been to (the other being Camden Underworld in 2006) but I think this is as close as I'm ever going to get.
After a long wait queuing to get a good view they finally emerged, playing their new (as then unreleased) album, Wasting Light front to back.
I didn't want to record the whole song because I chose to enjoy the show more. Can't stand those people that insist on holding their phone or camera up to film every song.
...But I did get the whole of one of my favorites from the new album, Arlandria.
[now updated with the bbc's tiny slice of covereage from their highlights]
delayed blogging due to a few weeks of being busy and last week was reading fest weekend! last year was my first year there and it was awesome. so far i've been to v festival 2007, glastonbury 2008, reading 2008 and 2009. v fest just felt like a big lifeless corporate money maker (kinda how you'd expect i guess). glasto is just the king of festivals mostly for it's shear size, atmosphere and diverse lineup. but band wise i'd say for me reading fest is the strongest.
last years headliners (rage, killers and metalica) seemed much bigger to me compared to this years (kings of leon, arctic monkeys and radiohead) but i'm a big kol fan and i like most arctic's stuff so that's good enough for me (sorry, i just don't know enough radiohead to call myself a fan).
probably the best news though was rumors of them crooked vultures doing a secret set on one of the side stages. there were already rumors they'd be there a few weeks before the festival but i managed to confirm the rumors were true on the saturday with the help of an iphone and twitter (it's awesome when twitter comes thru and you find a really good use for it) as they played the leeds festival the day before. so i knew where they'd be on and at what time! perfect!
here's the short clip from bbc's highlights. mcfly!? fuck off.
we got there about four bands before they were due to play so we could get right to the front for them. the plan worked brilliantly and by 4pm we were about two rows from the front - which was worth it even if we did have to put up with patrick wolf's set. by then the place was pretty rammed, the crowd were riled up and there had been alot of moshing to even bands you wouldn't expect it for.
after what felt like forever of setting up and mic checking they finally emerged. everyone went mental. and once they started playing they went even mentaler. as expected they sounded amazing. however in all the mentality my pocketed iphone somehow became depocketed. so if your wondering where my pictures from the weekend are, they are probably smashed up somewhere in that field. here's what it was lost in - there will be a handsome reward if you can spot it. was quite a bazaar experience being equally excited and gutted at the same time. but not to worry, review of my shiny new iphone 3gs is probably coming up sometime soon. plus i managed to score tickets for them at freaking plymouth in december!
after the m.i.a iphone had pissed on my festival poncho it was time to get on with the festival good times. one thing i thought was very weird this year is how the the bands before the headliners (with the exception of kol/kasiers friday night) just felt more powerful and had a better atmosphere than the actual headliners. wtf is up with that!? on saturday the prodigy were fuckin awesome, great band, great songs, the crowd went apeshit (as expected) ... arctic monkeys were fuckin dead on stage, as was the crowd. exactly the same happened on sunday with bloc party rocking the party and radiohead killing it. very weird, but i guess radiohead were never really gunna rock the party.
on friday night we dodged the kasiers and went to see friendly fires on the nme stage instead. wow, what a good call. they were infinitely better. i really like their album so we great to get to see them live. after them it was back to the main stage for some king of leon action. i'd say they were the best headliner even if they were pissed off but i would have liked to hear more from their first two albums. ho hum, t'was great to see them live again though.
and that was about my reading festival. one more thing before i'm done. it's great seeing all these cool bands in one place over one weekend but sometimes you do need something to break up all the music - which is where the alternate stage comes in. we tried to get into the tent on friday to see some of tim minchin's set. i don't know much of his stuff but what i heard was good. on sunday we caught quite a odd choice for reading which was a lecture on watchmen. was interesting to see what was basically a film studies lecture at a music festival, but did help break up the music a bit, so that was cool.
later on that afternoon we managed to catch adam buxton's bug show thing. it wasn't what i was expecting but still very cool. if your new to bug (as i was) he basically shows a series of cool music videos from artists you've never heard of with a few of his own songs/videos mixed in. here's one of my favorites from the ones he showed at reading:
now the song will go round in your head all day again and again and again and again!
i guess this blog is kinda just for sharing whatever i think is something cool or interesting - and it don't get much cooler that this. them crooked vultures are basically a hard rock supergroup consisting of josh homme (from queens of the stonage), john paul jones (from led zeppelin) and dave grohl (from foo fighters/nirvana).
i'm a pretty massive foo fighters fan anyway and dave grohl on drums is pretty fuckawesome anytime. queens of the stoneage rock and led zeppelin... well i'll be honest i don't actually know much of their stuff yet but i'm giving it some more listens :)
so far most of the stuff the band have done has been really secretive. unlike most bands these days nothing has leaked online yet. they've done a few secret gigs so far (so there are a few bad quality videos on youtube) but bar that all we have are these videos.
they've also done this pretty cryptic google earth link that they post on their facebook/twitter pages every now and then. it zooms into where ever they are playing next before any venues have been accounced.
i'm pretty freaking excited to hear whatever these guys do and rumor has it they are supposed to be playing reading festival 2009 (which i also happen to be attending).
the first and arguably the biggest music festival of the year just ended this weekend and it looked pretty awesome as always. i didn't actually go this year (two main reasons: the lineup for the most part didn't appeal much to me and i had no way of getting there or back) but i did go last year and had a really great time. glastonbury seems to be famous for it's weather issues (i don't understand why they don't move the festival to july/august time) but it seems both this year and last year seem to have been pretty varied but mostly dry, from what i saw anyway and i saw alot.
i spent most of the weekend watching the bbc coverage which i really can't fault. 6music had full coverage all weekend just playing live music from the festival with an extra weekend dose of adam and joe - 6music ftw! they also showed a wide selection of all the good bands and the stuff i wasn't really interested in on bbc 2 and 3, but with the red button stuff too at least i could pick and choose who i wanted to see and when. the only way the bbc could have done a better job would be to replace the retarded hosts (bring back adam and joe!) or do away with the hosts altogether and just play some bands. nobody gives a fuck edith! nobody is watching this for your awkward "banter" with reggie dickhead yates! get back to the music already!
one of the particular highlights for me would have to be pendulum. i saw them live last year at the reading festival and that was a pretty incredible experience. i wouldn't even say i'm that big of a pendulum fan but live they are immense! really get the crowd going, check them out:
quick list of other bands there that i thought looked really good live: bloc party, yeah yeah yeahs, kasabian, prodigy, fleet foxes, the ting tings, maximo park, franzferdinand, doves and friendly fires. that said some of these i'll be seeing at reading festival this year :)
one of the things that put me off going this year most was the headliners. don't get me wrong a diverse lineup is probably one of glastonbury's biggest strengths but this year's just didn't appeal much for me. except one.
blur was probably the first band i actually liked when i was young so i was looking forward to seeing what they'd do. i know alot of their songs but there's so many you forget and seeing them performed live it just looked awesome. they played 24 songs in total and ended on the universal.
probably not my favorite blur song but that's the only clip i could find :)
to see more of glastonbury be sure to check out more on the iplayer while it's online or i think it'll be on bbc 3 during the week too.
after seeing the highlights i'd say i'm pretty set on going next year regardless of the lineup (which normally isn't announced till the tickets sellout anyway). plus i think next year is the 40thglastonbury festival so they should have something special planned.
quick music recomendation. got this album the other week and it's pretty good (stupid album title aside). i wouldn't say i'm a hardcore kasabian fan but i do like their other two albums and they've got alota good singles in their back catalogue.
fave tracks off the album are probably underdog, where did all the love go, fast fuse, take aim, vlad the impaler and fire. that's quite a few favorites, so i guess it's a pretty good album and probably worthy of a quick blog post.
plus they've done two cool videos, check them out!
for a few weeks now me and a couple of mates have been having some amateurish jam sessions with the hope of maybe one day being ready to reach the masses and play some gigs.
until that day we are limited to a small room at my place - my "beat laboratory". so far we've had a few weekly "band meetings" where we record bad versions of good songs :)
adam's on vocals and guitar steve's on bass and i'm on drums
as of yet we don't have a band name, but are open to suggestions.
here's a quick playlist of a few songs we've (badly) recorded
anyway i'll leave the playlist somewhere on the sidebar of my blog i've put a few of our covers to stream. feel free to give them a listen and see what you think.
leave a comment with what you think and/or if you have any good band name suggestions. also feel free to suggest some crowd pleasing songs we can try. cheers!
[btw 10 cool points if you got the step brothers and flight of the conchords references - well done you!]
