Creamfields: Saturday 27,08,2011 Daresbury
“Flippin’ heck! Harry Hill’ll ‘ave to extend his show by forty minutes to fit in all the footage of revellers goin’ arse over tit in this swamp field.”
This quote from one of the dance hungry revellers making their way across scarily dicey mud and scuzz addled field summed up the thoughts of many, concerning the obstacle facing their entrance to the sold out event. It would have meant Andy Dufresne would have still have been in Shawshank had he had to get across this field to freedom, instead crawling through a sewage-pipe.
The rewards for navigating the mud swamp were immediate and satisfying. Futuristic synth manipulator Sonny Moore aka SKRILLEX, doles out a post-trance, futuristic old skool and industrial rock influenced, mosh-pit inducing set. The part-paranoid, part ghoulish ‘Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites’, is received with such varied dancing, you think you’re at a silent disco. It makes for the perfect energetic, yet wandering and delving start to a festival that is well and truly under the post-riots microscope.
Spellbinding atmospherics over on the ‘Clublife Stage’, fail to distract you from a largely lethargic set of electronica from the Philly based Diplo. Tired beats create a laboured feel, but revellers are still determined to make the most of it and a few ‘whoop-whoops’ provides some needed relief and humour. A distorted vocal laden, philistine groove kicked, noirsh interludes set from Jack Beats on the Annie Mac Stage, awakens the demons in you. The set highlight is the devilish mash up of Wolfgang Gartner’s ‘Menage A Trois’.
Several people are already regretting their decision to choose designer trainers over sturdy wellies. Spirits are still high though and, the atmosphere remains friendly and upbeat. This, you sense, is the main victory; the music could be crap and it wouldn’t matter. Good job it isn’t, though.
After a largely disappointing headline set here in 2007, the Chemical Brothers have some making up to do. It’s almost as though Ed and Tom are aware of this, as from the off they have oodles more energy and presence. Transcendent beats set off waves of energetic dancing, as a sturdy, tempo rising set kicks in. Anthemic classic, ‘Hey Boy, Hey Girl’ sets the place ablaze and the more down-tempo ‘Don’t Think’, caters for the ranging moods of the sizable crowd.
You wouldn’t expect anything other than an eclectic set of jungle through to trance and a few stops in between, from the lady fast becoming dance music’s answer to John Peel; Annie Mac. Still it’s none the less fresh and invigorating when it does arrive. It’s a tough job for her to top off an impressive line-up on her own stage, but the lady done good.
A packed ‘Size Matters Stage’ bounces to a disco merging, mesmeric lights inclusive and hardcore spiked headline set from Steve Angelo. Creeping ambient building and crushing chorus inclusive ‘Save The World (Knife Party Remix)’, re-energises the crowd and they are eating out of his hand. This is the perfect time for a soaring mash up of ‘We Are Your Friends’. Easily justifying a headline slot and sending revellers out into the night with that buzzing feel-good feeling.
Melvins @ The Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn 6-6+7-11
Following January’s four-show Spaceland residency in LA, The Melvins decided to take their show on the road with an Endless Residency mini-tour: Seven cities. Two nights each. Two albums (2EPs = 1 album. It’s basic algebra, guys.) per night. Last week I was able to catch them when they stopped by Brooklyn.
Set 1-Eggnog/Lysol:
If you’ve ever seen The Melvins do one of these album things (or even if you have their live Houdini album), you know that they don’t stick very closely to the album’s original track listing. Their first set was a mashup of two EPs.
They opened up their two-night stand with nearly 40 minutes of sludgy drone: Charmicarmicat, Hung Bunny, and Roman Bird Dog. Then they blew through the rest of Eggnog in reverse order (which was really weird) and played the rest of Lysol, closing with Flipper’s Sacrifice.
Set 2-Houdini:
If The Melvins have a commercially successful album, I guess this is it. The song order was very similar to the way it was played a couple years back for their 25th anniversary shows. However, it was still a pretty different experience with the four piece.
Set 3-Bullhead:
This was probably my favorite set from the two nights. Hearing Zodiac is always a blast, and I’ve been wanting to hear You’re Blessened and Cow live for a long time. If I’ve ever heard them live before, it was a long time ago before I had Bullhead and didn’t know what they were. Anyway, they closed with Boris, which is cool because I think they stretch out the end part more and more every time they play it. They also add all these weird and goofy things in there too which is always fun.
Set 4-Stoner Witch:
Another really great set. I haven’t seen them play most of these songs before at all. They opened up with the slow building Levidity, rocked their way through the album in no particular order, and closed with Shevil.
At the end of the song, Buzz and Jared left the stage leaving Dale and Coady by themselves to close out the two-night stint with some insane drumming, which was already pretty mind-shattering right there. But after a while, I think it was Coady (but could have been Dale) started calling for Vinny. So Vinny Signorelli (Foetus, Swans, Unsane) walked onstage, took Dale’s spot at the drums, and Dale played drums from the front of the drum set. Unbelievable finish.
Anyway, great shows. There’s one city left. If you live in Minneapolis, go see both nights. It’s amazing.
O’Death @ The Knitting Factory, Brooklyn 4-15-11
In last week’s show review, I mentioned this perfect storm kind of thing leading up to The Builders and the Butchers performance. Well, Friday there kind of the antithesis of that; it was cold, I wasn’t that impressed by the opening bands, and the Blackhawks were getting beaten every time I checked. Nonetheless O’Death put on a very good show, and I had a great time anyway.
They opened with Head Home and a few other classics before going into some stuff off of the upcoming album, Outside (which is very good, and I hope to get a full review up tomorrow). The new tunes sound really good live, and they probably played most of it (at least more than half).
I would say that Alamar, Down to Rest, and Ghost Head were the highlights of the night. The setlist was a good mix of the two recent albums with some of Head Home sprinkled in. The band played tight, and the mix sounded good. All in all it was a great show. They closed with a song off of Head Home, but I can’t for the life of me remember which one. Sorry.
The Builders and the Butchers @ The Mercury Lounge, NYC 4-11-11
A few nights ago, I went out to see The Builders and the Butchers and had a really great time. To start off, it was the first really nice day we had in weeks, so I was already in a good mood when I got to the Mercury Lounge. Next, I ended up spending a lot of the night talking to strangers from all over the country about hockey, which is always cool.
But what’s important is the music, and the music was good all night. First off was Matt Lowell who did the kinda Eddie Vedder thing, but in a cool way. Next was Daimon Suomi and the Minor Prophets who played this traditional Irish type music.
After all that, The Builders and the Butchers opened up their set a cappella with The Night pt 2. Then (I think) they went into Spanish Death Song. Their live sound is a very stripped-down arrangement of their songs consisting primarily of (mainly) acoustic strings and percussion. I was a little disappointed about the lack of horns, but apart from that, they sounded great, and it’s cool to hear something that differs from the album.
I Broke the Vein was fantastic. Other highlights were Short Way Home and Golden and Green. At the end of the night, they invited everyone from the opening acts to grab instruments as they brought acoustic guitars, bass drums, a washboard, tambourines, and other assorted instruments into the crowd for an extended singalong of Find Me in the Air and Cecillia. Like I said earlier, lots of fun.