REM, NIN, Sigur Ros
This past week has been absolutely great on the live music front:
R.E.M - Hyde Park: I know it’s not cool to like R.E.M these days, and that if you do confess to it then you’re meant to attach the caveat that you only like their pre-’Green’ albums (or maybe pre-’Document’.) But, I don’t care about all that. I didn’t think much of ‘Around the Sun’, but other than that I’ve enjoyed their recent stuff too.
They put on a really great show, and it was just about a prefect way to spend a sunny Sunday afternoon. Sadly, we couldn’t get very close to the front. We ended up pretty close to the barrier, but still had the huge ‘Golden Circle’ ticket holders area between us and the stage. Many “I am crushing your head!” jokes were made. It ended up being the last show on their tour, and that helped the atmosphere a lot. Everyone was bouncing around happily throughout the show.
We missed most of the support acts since we were wandering around the park, but caught some of Feeder’s set. It sounded exactly the same as when I last saw them, when they were supporting R.E.M at Stirling Castle in, uh, 1999. The more things change the more they stay the same. (I suspect I also lose cool points for the fact that I wore the T-shirt I got at that gig to this one.)
Much fun.
Nine Inch Nails - Brixton Academy: Ah, flashbacks to high school days…
This was actually the first time I’ve ever seen NIN live, and the first time I’ve been to Brixton Academy. It was a lot smaller than I was expecting, and the sound wasn’t all that good. Didn’t have too much of an effect though, since the band were really energetic and the crowd were screaming along to every word. It was also one of the warmest shows I’ve ever been to. When everyone was leaving the mosh pit at the end it looked like we’d all had buckets of water thrown over us. I think my sense of smell just totally shut down, and is only starting to come back now.
Most of their songs really suited being played live. Even The Hand That Feeds sounded much better than it did on the record.
The support act was Saul Williams. It wasn’t bad, but I had my usual ‘listening to hiphop’ reaction of “Eh, the music’s ok, but I wish the singer would shut the hell up.”
Sigur Ros - Somerset House: This is one of my favourite bands, and I’ve seen them play before, but I’m always a bit apprehensive of seeing them play live. I think the success or failure of their concerts probably depends a lot on the crowd and the time/location that they’re playing. Really slow atmospheric music, played by a nondescript-looking bunch of guys and sung in a mixture of Icelandic and a language that the singer made up could be a recipe for disaster.
Fortunately, this time the show was fantastic. The crowd all seemed to know the band really well, and the setting - the courtyard of a grand 18th century house on the Strand on a glorious sunny evening - was brilliant. They played a couple of new songs, and the rest was split between material from Agaetis Byrjun and ().
They had AminA playing the string quartet parts for them, and doing their own set as an opening act. I liked them enough to get a copy of their EP, but I think they’re probably better as ‘music to work to’ than as a live act. They did have plenty of weird instruments though - saws, half-filled wine glasses, glassophones and the like - which is always fun to see.