Take Me to a Festival

Bright blue skies and kisses of sunshine makes me think of my favourite time of the year: it's just about time for festival season. Cue much wooping.

Thanks to currently straddling that awful time in life where uni ends and reality kicks in, its been hard to make any coherent plans for welly boot wearing, pear cider sloshing and staggering around an increasingly mucky field in remote rural English corners, and it's slightly worrying me. I'm a firm believer that, just as food always tastes better in the fresh air (bbqs. case closed), nothing can top the reverb echoing across the fields from some distant main stage. With Glastonbury tickets sold out and that week dedicated to my summer job anyway, its time to set out on a new plan; festival must haves this year include Phoenix, the xx and Vampire Weekend. I'll keep you posted as to how things pan out...

Things have already kicked off on the other side of the pond at Coachella, smack bang in the middle of a Californian desert with a line up to jizz over: staples like Muse and MGMT mix with personal faves Matt and Kim, Miike Snow and Passion Pit or newly discovered treasures like The Glitch Mob or Major Lazer, followed by Deadmau5, Aeroplane and Tiesto to take you through the night. Am postively trembling with jealousy. Can't quite imagine what festival-ling in a desert might be, (hot, sweaty and with interesting portaloo facilities most likely)but the opportunity to catch ANY of the lineup instead of being trapped with looming deadlines would be one to savour.

In honour of great music being played in fields, parks, and other wide open spaces this summer, I was going to try and do a retrospective of timeless festival moments.... but am instead going to showcase some of my favourite live moments which played out at Glastonbury 2009, year of the 9 hour bus journey/rural pub crawl from Brizzle and boiling hot sunshine. Words can't really describe the immenseness but perhaps some of this videos can help convey a sense of the buzzing atmosphere.

N*E*R*D: Rockstar




Absolutely cracking this was: NERD came onstage to a barrage of boos for keeping the crowd and left to a chorus of both screams and anger as their over-running made the Glasto organisers shut them down. In true anarchist style Pharrel helped tens of keen fans onstage to help keep the show running. Bloody good. Really enjoying the white middle-class hand pumps going on across the crowd here.

Saturday Night: THE BOSS!
Two and a half hours of sheer MAGIC. Having battled to get into the inner sanctuary of the first barriers all that was left to do was remove the wellies and get gently battered with new forty year old mates to the sounds of the fittest fifty something about. HELLO. Typically, all time fave Dancing in the Dark was saved for the end. We all loved it.



The last night proved to be a tussle between the Blur love in on the main stage or getting a bit grimey with my sound of summer 2009: THE PRODIGY! So much energy, so many shouts of "Where my WARRIORS" meant there was no better end to a weekend than hollering COME WITH ME TO THE DANCEFLOOR in everyone's faces.



Finally, although this didn't take place at Glastonbury, it's a fine example of the musical magic that can be conjured in Festival-land. Lykke Li meets Miike Snow and get it on to Kings of Leon. Unbelivable.



© Miranda Thompson 2010
DISCLAIMER: The video links hosted on my blog are not being presented as my own. If you believe that the copyright in your work has been violated through this post, please contact me through the blog.

Sunday Afternoon Selection

This afternoon my house spent a bizarre hour meeting randoms and seeing more male gentalia than I care to recall on chat site du jour, Chatroulette. Items of note? An “encounter’ with the Jonas Brothers (we were conned), sexing couples, dirty men young and old, lonely Asian dudes in empty IT rooms, juiced Americans and a French doctor, all whilst screaming and waving at anyone who came into view dressed in appropriate disguises, namely sunglasses, scarves and my polar bear hat.

In between all the mayhem and chaining myself to my desk to try and prepare for dissertation doom, I’ve needed some serious tunes to get me through the day. So here they are:

First up, a sprightly boptastic tune from Vampire Weekend meets Ra Ra Riot sideproject Discovery. A mass of punchy drums and dancing electronica, it’s just an easy, toe tapping listen.



The whole album “LP” is a musical treat; from Ezra Koenig offof Vampire Weekend lending his familiar vocals to “Carby”, or the intensely amazing reworking of “I Want You Back” with some slow burning bass and twinkling synths.

Love of my life Ellie Goulding takes the next spot on the podium with her cover of Bon Iver’s “Wolves”. I’m going to throw a whole load of words out there you could dangle off this beauty; haunting, electrifying, eerie, ethereal, hazy, and gorgeous, its music to sit and watch the snow and stars by. I massively enjoy the crackling fireworks effect at the end, apparently due to a faulty cable. My girl crush escalates out of control by the moment.




In my head, I want to join the Young Money crew so that I can be BFF with Drake. It’s about 99.566611 % probable that this isn’t going to happen, since I currently live in Bumfuck Nowhere UK and can’t rap to save my life. I can passably mime though.
So here’s to the next best thing; downloading his fitter than fit mixtapes. I recently got my paws on “So Far Gone”, mainly for my dream combination of Lykke Li and Drake combined on Li’s delectable “Little Bit”. Press play and slide from Sunday to Monday in a haze of heat-beating percussion and soothing vocals. This video is a little bit adorably cute as well.




Enjoy the rest of your weekend!

© Miranda Thompson 2010
DISCLAIMER: The video links hosted on my blog are not being presented as my own. If you believe that the copyright in your work has been violated through this post, please contact me through the blog

Swede-licious

Just to sum up, Miike Snow was probably one of the best musical experiences of my life. Not to sound too gushing or anything. The gig was held at the Bristol Thekla, a grimy old boat down on the Bristol quay and the perfect setting for an intimate concert which didn’t feel too crowded or stuffy. What’s better, we soon realised that most of the people there were far too edgy to act bothered about being at the front. All the better for me and my shameful groupie ambitions then.

Following on from a fantastic synth laden support (no jokes. There were about 5 massive keyboards on stage) complete with lead singer who spent the last song wrapping his orange pashmina around his head, Miike Snow didn’t so much erupt on stage so much as ooze on in a crescendo of music and masks. For the first three songs as the music seeped on I felt like an extra from a Scream film as all band members moved menacingly about the stage, their razor sharp cheekbones and intense eyes shrouded behind blank white masks redolent of serial killers.



However, as the final plinks of “Black and Blue” faded away the masks were flung aside and the night belonged to the euphoric sounds erupting from the crowded stage, a magical mix of the instrumental with some serious onstage mixing treatment. Each track was begun in its usual fashion and then spun into a fantastic psychedelic further interpretation; the ethereal “Silvia” swirled into ecstacy whilst “Animal” radiated into endless guitar solos and a cacophony of sound.

Lead singer American Andrew Wyatt (formerly of The A.M) kept the audience transfixed as he quite literally jumped back and forth from reticent piano playing to lunging into the crowd clutching his guitar, much to my friend’s delight, who had just decided A) he looked like Jesus and B) she’d always had a thing for Christ.




Basically, it was dead good.

I was even more ecstatic to find this on my regular trawl of hypemachine; the UK “Animal” Bonus track. It’s a standardly amazing Snow tune; slightly dark and mournful yet still deliciously poppy. Savour it.




What with Miike Snow, Lykke Li and Peter Bjorn and John I’ve really been feeling the Swedish pop (although ABBA not so much) over the last year, and yet another one popped up on my radar during my visit to Briz; sweet Swede singer Erik Hassle

“Hurtful”, along with its angst laden pretty colour scheme and enviably lush velvet leggings, just screams James Morrison mating with Air Traffic. If I were a man I’d definitely want to be called Erik Hassle; looks-wise I’d probably want to look more like Matthew Goode or Cory Monteith than Napoleon Dynamite, bless his heart. Thanks Woz for that.




Here are two of my other favourite SWEDELICIOUS sounds:

Peter Bjorn and John “Nothing To Worry About”. Their album “Living Thing” is fanbloodytastic and this is a little cracker; galumphing drums and wailing children = winning combination



Lykke Li “Possibility” offof the “New Moon” soundtrack.
Still not seen the latest in the Twilight shenanigans, still not decided if I am Team Jacob or Team Edward. However, I do know this is immense.



One final thing. I just tried listening to the new Lil’Wayne album “Rebirth” on Spotify. Thoughts? I think I need to start drinking again. He’s gone all rock and left the rolling rap behind. Gutted.

© Miranda Thompson 2010

DISCLAIMER: The video links hosted on my blog are not being presented as my own. If you believe that the copyright in your work has been violated through this post, please contact me through the blog