Glastonbury - The bands
Monday, 02 Jul 2007 15:33
Arctic Monkeys headlined on Friday
Friday.
Friday was a day of clashes and tough choices, would you decide on the flamboyant costumes of Bjork, or the all-England tales of the Artic Monkeys? Would it be Kasabian or Arcade Fire?
Other Stage
The Cribs were gobby and nonplussed by the apparent climate-change agenda which is well developed at Glastonbury. The Leeds band have stepped up with Men's Needs Women's Needs Whatever and they did not disappoint with their set at the Other Stage. Slag off the hippies, smash up your guitars, jump in the crowd and then bugger off. Nice start all in all.
Best track: Our Bovine Public
Johnny Marr's slick coat and neatly-groomed hair looked kind of out of place at the festival and alongside
Modest Mouse. He's still got some guitar magic going on and he was the sole communicator with the crowd; in fact Modest Mouse were very good, but with the rain and the mud their tunes seemed to fade a little bit. And Johnny Marr looked uneasy, so much so that you wish the Smiths had appeared from backstage and given him a quick hug, or maybe an awkward smile.
Best track: Dashboard
John Peel Stage
Good Shoes are a tidy band that remind me a little of Leisure ear Blur. They have the songs and the tightness to play a good set, but they look uncertain as to what they should really be doing and playing. There's a lot of promise to this band and I'm sure Peely himself would have liked them.
Best track: Morden
Radio 2/Virgin favourites
Mumm-Ra had been given a difficult slot. With Kasabian, Arcade Fire and Amy Winehouse all on at the same time it was hard to see what sort of reveller was not catered for elsewhere. Still, those who did find their way to the John Peel stage on Friday evening were well rewarded by a band who seem to be in a certain amount of disbelief as to how they have ended up where they are. Inoffensive, Coldpay-esque poppy tunes were the order of the day and at a time when the weather was on a rare upturn that fitted the bill perfectly.
Best track: She's Got You High
Pyramid Stage
Cynics of
Bloc Party were converted with this set, chaps sporting bellies and 'I love Oasis' tattoos were clapping and lead singer Kele Okereke looked like he was having the time of his life.
Songs like the Prayer sounded fresh and huge and mixed well with first-album songs like Helicopter and Like Eating Glass.
Best track: Hunting for Witches
Kele insisted that we should enjoy
Fratellis and they're not a bad festival band. Their tunes are catchy and they can unite a crowd in song, but was this in any way exciting or innovative? No, not really.
Best track: Chelsea Dagger
Great festival bands make you watch, stand up and pay attention.
Kasabian did that and more with a video screen in the background added to the agro effect of the tunes.
The Doberman, complete with a rabid dog going ballistic on the screen, was unbelievable, as was LSF and Club Foot.
Tom and Serge are great showman and with the swagger Kasabian are genuinely very good, so go take as much stuff as you want, dig a puddle and swim in it!
Best track: The Doberman
Concluding the night's Pyramid action were
Arctic Monkeys and although the sound problems with the main stage seemed to be heightened when they came on, you couldn't fault their performance.
The band were as tight as ever, perhaps too much so, but they dropped in the odd surprise with a cover of Diamonds Are Forever surprisingly well done. The Monkeys can headline the biggest festival in the world at a canter.
Best track: Teddy Picker
Saturday
Pyramid Stage
Guillemots are a band who have existed only on the periphery of my subconscious for some time now and Saturday afternoon at the Pyramid stage seemed the ideal time to get to know them a little better. They were loud, had a variety of sounds and did their best to get the crowd to ignore the pelting rain. Alas, they failed.
Best track: That famous one. When the crowd actually paid a bit of attention
Paul Weller is one of those guys who everyone says they are fans of but few would actually put him at the top of their must-see list at Glasto. Even the BBC seemed to ignore his presence. Well, they should be sorry now. Weller had the Pyramid Stage a-rocking with a definitive hits set. From Style Council to The Jam to Wild Wood, they were all there. As the teenage girl next to me said: "I hadn't realised Paul Weller had done so many good songs."
Best track: From The Floorboards Up. From back when everyone thought he was cool.
The Kookshaven't done much in the last few months and there was little in the way of new material on show here. The boys from Brighton can craft a good pop song, of that there is no doubt. But are they really second headline material on the Pyramid after just one album?
Best track: She Moves in Her Own Way. Sing-along central as a watery sun goes down.
Killers turned down a headline slot two years ago after Kylie pulled out but Brandon Flowers insisted that this time the Las Vegas band were ready with a "real festival set". And they didn't disappoint. Judging by the masses who ignored Iggy and the Stooges on the Other stage to experience Killers' brand of synth-rock, this was the highlight of the weekend for many.
Yes, Sam's Town may falter in comparison to Hot Fuss in the album stakes, but Flowers and co's second record certainly contains some rip-roaring live numbers. From the opening title track through classics like Mr Brightside and Glamorous Indie Rock n Roll, the Killers had the crowd in the palm of their hands. Joy Division's Shadowplay was an intriguing encore opener and there was a feeling of being left unsatisfied when the boys didn't come back a second time. There were also problems with the sound, but the band can't be blamed for that. All in all, the best headline act of the festival.
Best track: Mr Brightside - everyone knows the words and it sounds just as good today as it did three years ago.
The Other stage
Saturday was all about the
Other Stage which began the day wet and neat and finished dirty and wrecked.
The Long Blondes think they're the best band around and this holds them back. Kate Jackson is a great singer and the band have some decent songs, but behind their pleasantries a feeling of superiority seems to occasionally bubble up to the surface, and it's completely false.
Best track: Weekend Without Makeup
Biffy Clyro have hit the money with their new album after being given the funds to do things right. What they do, they do well and although the Glastonbury crowd was not ideally suited to their music, some of the Biffy army seemed to be having a great time.
Best track: Er, the one where the lad in front started head banging next to the security guy.
CSS probably surprised everyone but themselves with their fantastic set, winning over legions of new fans willing to climb mountains for a sight of Lovefoxx in her latest latex all-in-one suit.
They've got the tunes to back it up as well and their set was without doubt the highlight of the afternoon.
Best track: Let's Make Love (And Listen to Death From Above)
New rave leader
Klaxons are not renowned for their perfect live shows and once again this was a little off key.
But the huge crowd and the clearly-chuffed Klaxons meant the whole gig came off pretty well.
Best track: Magick
After Klaxons came a circus of balladry, musicians struggling to make their instruments sound ok and a singer, at times wailing, more interested in staring at his missus.
Yes,
Babyshambles came to the farm and were it not for the genius of Pete Doherty's songs this set would have been a stinker. The Shambles' sound is definitely a small, sweaty club vibe and at festivals they struggle time after time.
This was far from their worst effort, but also someway from the kind of sound they can achieve when they actually rehearse. Please, please start rehearsing!
Best track: The Blinding
Editors must have wondered how they found themselves second-billed on the Other Stage at the biggest music festival in the world.
Strictly speaking, when they stepped out on stage they had released one album and didn't boast the kind of tunes to get the crowd jumping.
They were ok, but forgettable.
Best track: Smokers Outside the Hospital
Iggy and the Stooges aren't your typical band.
The much-publicised stage invasion was good fun and aside from being asked, not particularly politely, to get away from the stage after scaling the barrier, it was one of the most memorable Glasto moments.
The Stooges do not play anything from Raw Power, which featured James Williamson on guitar. So although they all appear on that record, it is now basically an Iggy Pop album. This explains the two performances of I Wanna Be Your Dog (not a bad thing).
Iggy is still one of the most entertaining and enigmatic performers in the world and he proved this once again with versions of songs just as fresh as when they were released in the early 70s.
The Stooges' songs still sound incredible live, with tracks like Dirt, Loose and TV Eye being notable highlights.
Best track: 1969
Sunday
John Peel Stage
Tiny Dancers are a summery band. All jingles and jangles and flowery shirts. So perhaps a Sunday morning at Glastonbury where the heavens have well and truly opened outside and the mud is rising around your knees is not the best time to judge them. Still, they pulled in a fair crowd – arguably because they played undercover – and did enough to live to their bill as one to watch.
Best track: Hannah We Know. For five brief minutes everyone stopped thinking about how wet they were.
Other stage
The Rakes may not have the natural pull of Dame Shirley Bassey on the Pyramid stage, but they probably don't have the quite the same level of demands on festival organisers either. Frontman Alan Donohoe has a bit of Jarvis about him and credit has to go to any man who can get the Other stage crowd doing what appeared to be semaphore moves in time with the music. Irreverent, maybe. Talented, certainly.
Best track: Suspicious Eyes.
Park Stage
Billed as a secret show at the Park Stage by a "cockney crooner",
Pete Doherty shambled out a little late to play to a massive crowd that had squeezed into the new area.
Here Doherty showed why Babyshambles can exist and why he can rightfully be regarded as the best British lyricist since Morrissey.
Tracks like Arcady and the Ballad of Grimaldi are too good to be spoilt by a full band session and stripped down versions of Killamangiro and Can't Stand Me Now were incredible to watch.
Best track: Up the Bracket
Pyramid stage
The Marley Brothers produced a truly unexpected Glastonbury highlight. Yes, Damien and Ziggy were singing their dead dad's songs. And, yes it could never be as good as the real thing. But when the sun came out and the crowd sang One Love in unison you remembered what this festival was supposed to be all about
Best track: One Love. Rain? What Rain?
Manic Street Preachers are back. Go, tell it on a Welsh mountain. Following their resounding return to form on Send Away the Tigers, James Dean Bradfield, Nicky Wire and Sean Moore continued their resurgence in Pilton. Bradfield can teach the young upstarts a few things about stage presence and you got the distinct impression the Manics were here to make the most of it. The hits were all there, spanning a career that perhaps doesn't get the credit it deserves. Cardigans' Nina Persson came on stage for Your Love Alone and the band paid homage to Richey Edwards – who was "hammered" at Glasto 1994, apparently.
Best track: Motorcycle Emptiness. Close your eyes long enough and it almost feels as though the Arctic Monkeys are back playing with their lego bricks.
You have to hand it to the
Kaiser Chiefs. For a band who have yet to add anything in the way of sophistication to any of their songs, they sure know how to give the crowd what they want.
Lad-rock it maybe but it sounds good blaring out of the Pyramid Stage speakers – which by now appeared to be working – as the mud below becomes the perfect setting for moshing. So what if most of their songs sound exactly the same?
Best track: I Predict A Riot. Perhaps not entirely in the Glastonbury spirit but who really cares when it's this muddy?
A headline slot when the wind has picked up and the rain is persisting like a curse from God is hard deal with, but
the Who did so admirably and closed Glastonbury in a fitting fashion.
Michael Eavis was watching from the wings and people seemed united in singing classics like My Generation and Pinball Wizard.
Pete Townshend can still rock and Roger Daltrey sounds good, well-oiled by his on-stage cup of tea. All in all, they were a pleasure to hear.
Best track: Behind Blue Eyes