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ROCK SICK LIST: ADAMS AXES TOUR
His ear infection is getting no better, and so Ryan Adams has junked his entire UK tour, just as he pulled his Glastonbury date. We'd imagine that he can't fly without his head exploding, and his head is the second most important part of the young man to his fans.
Monday, June 27, 2005
THIS IS GORGEOUS, SIGNING OFF
Who'd have thought that it would be the Primals who were the band people were talking about as they dragged their cars from the bottom of the lake? Bobby's performance yesterday has split the audience in two: between those who thought it was a pity he screwed up a great set, and those who are wondering if there oughtn't be a law of some sort.
Contact music seems convinced that Bobby "angered" Glastonbury officials - "The KILL ALL HIPPIES star appeared to be intoxicated as he took to the event's Pyramid Stage". Gillespie? Intoxicated? Surely not.
Gillespie might have got away with it, if it hadn't been for yelling out "Did anyone come to see Kylie? Fuck you." Announcing the war on terror is a pretext for a police state is one thing, but to apparently launch an attack on the pop princess - when she was ill, dammit - is just too much.
We're not so sure Gillespie would have been having a pop at Kylie, though - they got on quite well during the Select feature a decade ago when they spent some time together talking about sexual experimentation - this was probably around the high water mark of the Primal's mainstream popularity and the furthest south Kylie went in trying to rebrand herself with mud-on-the-boots indie credibility. Certainly, today, somebody from the record company has been trying to make it clear that Bobby bears no malice towards Kylie. The poor sod was also charged with trying to spin the refusal to leave the stage into something positive, too:
"The whole evening was running late because one of the earlier bands had overrun. The crowd were chanting for more and Bobby wanted to stay on, but a stage manager said he had to finish."
Chanting for more or booing them off? It's unlikely we'll ever know for sure, but the opinions of people who were there don't seem to suggest that the audience was desperate to hear much more from Bob.
LATE REVIEWS ROUND-UP
You can understand the reluctance of even the digital presses to roll too soon with the Sunday reviews from the festival - it's like your spoonful of ice cream; something you want to make last as long as possible, to savour the moment. Plus, you don't want to have to face the massive queues snaking out the carpark, so there's no rush.
But sooner or later, you have to get to grips with it. So, the nme finally brings us its last day round-up. Barry Nicolson found some charm in Jools Holland and his Rhythm and Blues Orchestra, despite it being "one long smug ego wank"; Dan Martin seems to have been the only person to have actually bothered to go and see Van Morrison and Priya Elan witnessed a very hungover Martha Wainwright forget her own songs. Tim Jonze seemed taken with the Dresden Dolls:
Songs about coin-operated boys and juvenile lyrics about fucking people in the ass seem to make so much more sense with our minds in such a frazzled state.
You can hear the Jonze-Town Gang over on LiveJournal exploding at the moment, can't you?
Dorian Lynskey looked into the eyes of Bobby Gillespie:
He announces, "We're a punk rock band and you're a bunch of fucking hippies", says "fuck you" to any Kylie fans in the audience, and accuses everyone of being complacent cattle. The only way he could have caused more offence would have been by wheeling on an effigy of Michael Eavis and setting fire to it.
The Guardian let their reviewers wander more than the NME, so Dorian also got to see Sons and Daughters on the Peel stage:
Their threatening punk country may have the bite of the White Stripes or PJ Harvey, but their intensity and charisma are singular. Clad in a mud-defying white dress, singer Adele Bethel somehow manages to make a heavy Glaswegian accent sound rivetingly sexy, especially on Dance With Me's hypnotic tribal churn.
TEENAGE ANGST
We're actually quite glad that Glastonbury is taking a break next year, as we're finding it hard to keep up with how the Eavises view teenagers. In 2002, talking to Music Week, Michael Eavis was convinced that teenagers represented a threat to the stability of the festival:
"The amount of 17 and 18 year old students was grossly reduced. I can see a change going on that i wish we could avoid, but you can't have the nice kids without the bad kids, so there was no choice, really."
Then, in 2003, in the Guardian, he seemed to be having second thoughts:
"Mr Eavis conceded, however, that the ticketing restrictions - the full allocation of 112,500 sold out in 18 hours - meant that many Glastonbury regulars had been excluded. In particular, he said, he was considering ways to boost the numbers of teenagers and students among a crowd that seemed slightly older than usual, and was overwhelmingly white and middle-class. "
This year, then, teenagers were back, and the 360 degree full turn had been completed:
"There are a lot of students here this year," said Emily Eavis, festival organiser and daughter of festival founder Michael Eavis. "That's good, is n't it? We estimate that 60% of the people here are first-time festival goers."
Of course, the difference is that the teenagers going in 2005 were able to pay the 2005 ticket prices. But there's no guarantee a middle-class kid is going to be any better behaved than one who can't afford the ticket price. We wonder if teenagers will be getting patted on the heads or ticked off in two years time?
JACKSON BREAKS HIS SILENCE
Well, it's taken long enough: Michael Jackson has finally got round to thanking his fans for their logic-defying support while he was on trial for the child-touching business.
Yes, her and all of them. Michael is really, really thankful:
"Without God, my children, my family and you, my fans, I could not have made it through. Your love, support and loyalty made it all possible. You were there when I really needed you. I will never forget you. Your ever-present love held me, dried my tears, and carried me through. I will treasure your devotion and support forever. You are my inspiration."
Good god, having heard Jackson's post-Thriller work, calling someone "my inspiration" is quite a slap in the face, isn't it? They've been there, letting him dry his tears on their love (don't even try and get a visual image of that, you won't want it), and the best he can do is say "I was thinking of you when I wrote Give In To Me?" It is quite classy, though, as he refrains from asking all of his fans to send a dollar to help him this one last time.
GROKSTER RULING: WHAT DOES IT MEAN?
(Thanks to Karl for posting the link to the article in the comments section for the post below)
Following the Supreme Court decision, the Wall Street Journal has invited a panel of experts to weigh exactly what it might mean.
What's expecially reassuring is it that it's not a blanket decision - it appears Justice Souter has suggested that what's important is how the various peer to peer networks have sold their services:
Souter said lower courts could find the file-sharing services responsible by examining factors such as how companies marketed the product or whether they took easily available steps to reduce infringing uses," and "We hold that one who distributes a device with the object of promoting its use to infringe copyright, as shown by clear expression or other affirmative steps taken to foster infringement, is liable for the resulting acts of infringement."
In other words, the court appears to be saying that selling a peer to peer network or its software is fine, providing that you don't say it's for getting loads of songs or music for free - the difference between selling a gun, and selling "the perfect way to shut your enemies up."
In addition, Grokster/Stream Cast lawyer Fred Von Lohmann was pretty upbeat even before the verdict came out; from their side, they were happy that the court had accepted that simply because a technology can be used to perform illegal activities doesn't mean that technology endorses those crimes.
In the WSJ roundtable, Michael Geist attempts to think forward what this judgement might mean for any future lawsuit against Bittorrent (he believes a case would be an uphill struggle for the RIAA-MPAA to prove "purposeful culpable expression") and points out this:
Though not core to the decision, I find Justice Breyer's willingness to question the economic impact of P2P on the recording industry noteworthy. Over the past three weeks, the OECD, FTC, and now the U.S. Supreme Court have all cast doubt on the linkage between P2P and declining music sales. That makes for a strong trio and should help move the debate beyond unsubstantiated claims of a direct correlation between file sharing and the recording industry's bottom line.
After all this time, even mainstream opinion is starting to catch up with what some people have been chanting for years: There's no evidence at all that filesharing costs the music industry anything at all. Except the legal bills the BPI and RIAA are running up on their member's behalfs on their Pseuppuki PR strategy, of course.
THIS JUST IN: P2P NOT LIKE VHS
We've just heard that the US Supreme Court has ruled that file-sharing networks can be held liable for file-sharing which breaches copyright on their networks. Great news for the record companies; less good news for everyone else.
WHY WOULD I WANT TO DO SOMETHING I DID TWENTY-FIVE YEARS AGO?
The good news: Madonna and Sting duetting on Imagine is off - presumably even Geldof could see that being a hostage to fortune.
The bad news? Sting is going to do Every Breath You Take, only it's going to be subtle, like, using the song to warn politicians that we (the world) will be watching them (the politicians). And to help get the point home, they're going to have Spitting Image puppets of world leaders dancing about.
If all this sounds vaguely familiar, it'll be because this is exactly the same thing Sting did over the closing credits of a series of Spitting Image so long ago it had Aayatollah Khommeni in it. It's unclear if Sting is doing this deliberately to make people feel like the last two decades haven't happened, or because he hopes nobody will remember, or - more likely - he simply can't be arsed to come up with something new.
JOSS STONE: POOR AS CHURCH MICE WITH INVESTMENT PORTFOLIOS
So, is Joss Stone a little slow, or just deliberately misunderstanding people who attack Live 8 celebs for happily turning up to flog albums off the back of the starving? In response to the suggestions from Damon Albarn that if the artists are that bothered, they'd channel the cash from the extra album sales into charitable projects, Joss has started pleading poverty:
"Hand on my heart, I'm so far from that (filthy rich) it ain't true.
"Someone needs to tell me where the money is because I cannot find the shit. I mean, I was like 'Please - where the hell is it?'
"I have bought one thing for myself - a white Lexus and it's gorgeous. But that's all I've bought."
Aha. Has Joss had the paperwork about the proportion of the world's population unable to just go out and buy a gorgeous Lexus just like that yet, Bob?
MANCHESTER'S LOSS IS THE WORLD'S GAIN
Liam Gallagher really has entered into the spirit of Live 8 - regretting that Oasis won't be able to take part because, erm, it would be a great chance to blow Robbie Williams off stage. Not that Liam isn't sympathetic to the aims of Live 8, of course:
"it's fucking awareness and all that stuff."
An awareness that requires input from Liam Gallagher to raise it isn't so much an awareness as a barely-macrobiotic ignorance, surely?
But really, Liam's sole interest is using the death of a child from starvation every three seconds as a neat way of continuing a feud between the smallest brows in rock:
"I just love to go on and do four fucking songs and really fucking rip it up. Come in and fucking bang it with fucking four of your classics.
"And walk off. And fucing flick Robbie Williams in the eye and say: "Follow that you dick!"
This isn't to say there isn't a role for Gallagher in sorting out Africa, though - what say we send him off to debate the finer points of policy with Mugabe?
BLACKMAIL? IT'S NOT EVEN GRAYMAIL
The person who took the picture of Charlotte Church pecking her ex on the cheek apparently offered Chavva a deal - give me fifteen grand or the papers get the photos. As a blackmail attempt, that's right up there with "Give me the money or your pet mayfly won't live to see tomorrow." Since her tits have been passed round every mobile phone in Britain, and on this occasion she wasn't doing anything she oughtn't anyway, Ms Church told him to publish and be damned.
GLISTENBURY AND BBC-BASHING
If you spent the weekend up a tree, bewailing the forces of water, or simply want to listen again, there's a bunch of tracks from the festival available for streaming from the BBC.
Meanwhile, the BBC's coverage of the festival is turning into a totem for the newly resurgent local radio companies in the UK. They're not happy that the BBC pays for exclusive rights:
GCap Media, which owns stations including Capital and Choice FM; Chrysalis, owner of Heart and Galaxy; and SMG, which owns Virgin Radio, all single out Radio 1, in particular, for harsh criticism.
They also question why the BBC should be allowed to buy exclusive broadcasting rights for events such as this weekend's Glastonbury music festival.
In response to the Government's review of the BBC's 10-year charter, GCap points out that, when it buys a complete package, the BBC cannot always make use of all the events included. It adds: "We are at a loss to understand how negotiating exclusive rights is necessarily a public service."
The commercial companies then go on to complain that Radio One shoves its specialist programming to the edges and is more popular during the days. What's really depressing about this is that the commercial radio comapnies haven't actually come up with anything approaching a coherent or convincing argument, but merely got hold of the whines ITV and Sky have been making about TV for the last few years and done a find and replace for "on screen".
Chrysalis adds that Radio 1 and 2 are not "by any credible definition, public service broadcasting during peak daytime listening hours". It also argues that the launch of hundreds of new digital radio stations and television channels means there is less need for the BBC to provide alternative programmes.
The sad thing is, of course, Chrysalis probably do believe that, say, EMAP's Kerranng network is in some way everything a rock fan could possibly need. It would make more sense if the commercial stations started providing some alternative programming, and then asked the BBC to stop, rather than spending their time creating hundreds of variations on Top 40 radio and try to close down anyone who offers something a little more inspired.
LOOK WHO'S COMING YOUR WAY
Ooh, yes... Raveonettes are about to tour Britain. Next month:
13 London Cargo
14 Cardiff Barfly
16 London Mean Fiddler (Frog)
17 Nottingham Rescue Rooms
18 Glasgow King Tut's
20 Manchester Night & Day
21 Birmingham Academy 2
22 Leeds Cockpit
It's all a big push for the album:
Pretty In Black - all ready for pre-ordering
SWOOSHTIKA EYES
Surely Nike aren't going to try and pass off an advertising campaign as a parody, are they? That would seem to be the only, slim defence they'd have for stealing the imagery and artwork from Minor Threat to push some sort of plimsole-sales drive. This is the original:
And this is the Nike ad:
A pair of shoes stitched together by a thirsty twelve-year if you can spot three differences.
You might have though Nike would have at least got in touch before doing this, wouldn't you? But apparently not. Dischord records aren't happy:
Many people have now noticed that Nike has appropriated the Minor Threat artwork and logo for a new skateboard demo / ad campaign. To set the record straight -- Nike never contacted Dischord to obtain permission to use this imagery, nor was any permission granted. Simply put, Nike stole it and we're not happy about it. We are not yet sure what options, if any, we have to stop Nike from using our images to sell their shoes, but if you would like to direct your complaints to Nike that would be a good place to start.
To longtime fans and supporters of Minor Threat and Dischord this must seem like just another familiar example of mainstream corporations attempting to to assimilate underground culture to turn a buck. However it is more disheartening to us to think that Nike may be successful in using this imagery to fool kids, just beginning to becoming familiar with skate culture, underground music and DIY ideals, into thinking that the general ethos of this label, and Minor Threat in particular, can somehow be linked to Nike's mission. In any regard, we would like to thank the many people who have written to us in the last several days to express their outrage, support and encouragement.
There's an easy-to-use Contact Nike page on the shoe company's website. On the other hand, you might just want to make a pair of shoes with a stylised tick on them. Seems to be what Nike would do.
REVIEW OVERVIEWS
If you've been ploughing through the Guardian coverage wondering "where is Petridis?", it seems he was keeping his poweder as dry as possible in the cirucmstances: his review appears today. He suggests that - what with all the rain and cold - you want a "chuckle" and so, for the first and possibly last time in history, novelty Welsh rappers Goldie Lookin' Chain seem more appealing than the White Stripes. Really? It had rained, Alexis; the world hadn't wobbled off its axis and gone careering through space.
Mind you, the Stripes fell a bit short, he reckons - caught in a "difficult stage" and unable to touch the audience:
even when Jack White apologises for the inclement weather, he does so through an electronic device that makes him sound like a Dalek announcing Earth's imminent destruction.
At this point in the day, the rest of the Guardian team, and the NME crew, haven't yet updated their site with a Sunday round-up.
GOOD NEWS FROM EDWYN COLLINS
It's been a while since we've had an official update from Edwyn Collins; but in this case, no news is indeed good news: he's slowly improving and being allowed home for short visits.
Sunday, June 26, 2005
A LATE-NIGHT WHIP-ROUND SCAN OF THE BLOGS
There's a lovely post over on GlastoBlog from the front of the Garbage set:
My God, Shirley Manson put some effort in. Note to self: buy new Garbage album. She asked a man in the audience why he would bring a blow-up doll along with him as this advertised the fact that he didn't "get fucked very often".
It seems that you got a whole different perspective on Brian Wilson if you were in the field: The Guardian's Imogen Tilden seemed to feel touched by greatness. Meanwhile, The BBC's Ian Youngs reports the last few hours of the festival still sees man doing battle with the forces of nature in general, and mud, in particular.
What we really wonder is: did the sad news of Richard Whiteley's death make it to Somerset in time for it to be dismissed as another Glastonbury rumour?
MONKEY MAGIC
He's dressed like he went on a shopping spree with Jimmy Saville, he dances like he's waiting for a hip operation, and he couldn't carry a tune if it came pre-packed in a holdall, so what is it about watching Ian Brown run through the Stone Roses back catalogue that makes it so compelling? And no, it's just not because all the while he's doing Stone Roses stuff he's not working his way through his own back catalogue.
Oh. Spoke too soon.
Meanwhile, over on BBC TWO, Basement Jaxx are... how can we put this gently? Demonstrating why they were third choice for the headline slot.
It's been a bit of a quiet Glastonbury this year - when people are suggesting that a dull band doing a pop cover might be the key moment, it's a clear sign that nobody's bothered to try very hard. 2004 had some moments burned into the retinas - Alison Goldfrapp's tail, for example - but there's not really been much to do that in 2005. Apart from the natural elements, of course. The image of 2005 will be that bloke swimming to get his car keys back.
THIS WEEK, WE PLUGGED...
Our tempting and thinly-veiled attempts to get you to spend your money with the good people at Amazon this week were:
Christ - Patrick Duff, from Strangelove and the past, seems to have accepted he'll never be Doctor Who and returned to music
Two Pulps live for the price of... well, one and a half on DVD from 1995 & 1998
THESE CHARMING MEN
Ricky from the Kaiser Chiefs seems to have lost something at Glastonbury; with Colin and Edith he had the excuse of having been hanging around for 24 hours to explain why he looked dishevelled; but he'd looked a site when he was actually playing, too. And they had the VT to prove it. The other notable thing about the Kaiser Chief's Saturday set is that when Ricky went crowd surfing, the security guards looked a lot less bothered about trying to get him back than they did when Pete Doherty went into the crowd. In fact, they looked more worried when the giant inflatable dinosaur went into the audience.
Brian Wilson - who cropped up rather a lot in the early part of this evening - differed from Paul McCartney's set last year quite crucially. McCartney clearly wanted to be loved, and was desperate to touch each and every person from the front of the stage right back to the people already queueing to leave the car park. You could see it his eyes. Wilson, though, had the air of a man who, happy to have had his air ticket paid for and was running through the options he'd seen on the Holiday Inn tea menu for when he got back.
The really frightening thing about Rufus Wainwright is that he doesn't look like his Dad. Except when he sings. As he starts to sing, he morphs into the young Loudon. Then he stops singing, and he turns back into Rufus. It's uncanny. To make it easier for us to tell the difference, though, he wore some flowery pyjamas on stage.
Earlier in the day: Steve Lamacq told 6Music's The Music Week that the Futureheads doing Hounds of Love was the "best thing I've ever heard."
GLSTNBRY
Primal Scream have been having something of a night of it; starting by swearing their arsecheeks off on TV and ending being escorted from the stage in a storm of boos.
BBC THREE were always playing with fire having Mani and Bobby on - Bobby didn't seem to know he was on live television; Mani didn't care, wearing his strange hat which made him look like Fozzie Bear running an on-course bookies and swearing like a drunk uncle at his nephew's wedding. Apologies are made on their behalf.
Then it's over for them taking the stage. Still pre-watershed, Mani swears even before the band are on the stage properly. (They come on to, but don't play, Come Together). Bobby throws more fucks around as part of a set of attrition - goading the audience, spitting into the lens of a camera, goading the crowd some more.
The trouble is, there's not really any point to the swearing other than it being there for its own sake, and far from adding a sense of rock and roll to the proceedings, it undermines it a little, just as their sub-Stones posturing clutters their performance and stops them from being truly mind-blowing.
We do wonder if Gillespie has more in common with Ronald Reagan than you'd think. Reagan, as he got closer and closer towards putting his faith to the ultimate test, was basically a shambling shell of a man who only came alive when given the chance to perform. Off-stage, Bobby seems to be able to do little more than gasp through the motions, but on-stage, he's full of vim. A front man able to distract attention from the middle-aged spread of much of his henchmen; capable and ready to deliver.
And, musically, the Primals are now at a point in their career where they have more than enough great moments to fill any set, even though you don't/can't get the full hit through the television. As with a good joke, you had to be there.
But the Primals haven't got to survive this long without turning into U2 without knowing how to shoot themselves in the feet, over and over again, and tonight they do it again. It's probably only TV viewers who see the moment in Swastika Eyes where Bobby stands, staring into the camera with, I swear, actual demon in him, before giving a seig heil salute. It's only as he gets his hand to his upper lip to add a Hitler moustache that he seems to come to, realises he's the wrong side of an acceptable line, and quickly goes back to thrashing his arms around.
It's the crowd in the field who get the full force of Bobby's ability to just piss everyone off, though: having called them hippies all set long, he suddenly decides he wants to stay and entertain. Glastonbury, however, want him off so Basement Jaxx can come on. Bobby tries to bargain with the audience, and attempts to launch into another song. Security intervene and gently unpack the primals from the stage. Gillespie's microphone, stand and all, ends up flying towards the crowd. It's hard to tell if the boos running through the audience are showing their disapproval of the Primal's attitude, or at their forced removal, but it seems to be more the former than the latter.
Either way: the bad tempered ending and the general petulance throughout managed to downgrade what could have been one of those Glasto moments everyone hopes for into something a little less comfortable. In the wrong ways.
THE LAST SUNSET
Inexplicably, and rather frustratingly, instead of giving us the joys of a Glastomultiscreen tonight, BBC THREE is sticking with the Best of Three offering - ho bloody ra; another chance to see Little Britain ("I am the only programme on the network") again and again instead of the stuff culled from around the fields.
True, there is the option of BBC FOUR, although their first offering of the evening is Jools Holland and his boogie woogie piano, as if the BBC doesn't cover Holland more than enough when he enforces his tinkling over the Later guests. If you stay up past Aubrey Manning's Landscape Mysteries, though, you can see Fema Kuti around midnight, one of the African artists who Bob Geldof imagines the global TV audience won't tune into. Watch it just to click BARB upwards and piss him off. Do it for us.
THE LAST NIGHT AT THE FAIR
Is it our imagination or has Edith left Colin to run things on his own? He seems to be way overexcited at the news that the bassist of some band has taken all his clothes off, promising we can see the genitalia after 9pm. We can't think of a single bassist whose bollocks would induce anything other than a desperate scramble to get some other screen on. Press red indeed.
Then it's over to Brian Wilson - shots of the audience suggest he's mainly being watched by puzzled young people: who is this bloke with his tribute-to-a-wedding-band band playing rather mid-market covers of Beach Boys songs?
Mercifully, we're saved by the appearance of Garbage on the other stage - where Interpol were undermined by having to appear in the daylight, Garbage have brought their own darkness; wearing a short, diagonally black-white slashed dress and hair firmly back to red, Shirley Manson prowls , flirts and stomps an audience (or at least the front bit of it) into squishy submission. It's in the fields of Somerset that bands are tested, and often it's the quality of their frontman which sets the memorable apart from the merely talented.
Oh, it looks like Edith's returned now.
REVIEW OVERVIEWS: SATURDAY
We were a bit pissed off last night that BBCi's coverage of the night promised Ash, but then kept dropping them from the line-up of coming next attractions. We're relying totally on NME's Priya Elan:
Ash played a mainly greatest hits set, featuring the likes of 'Girl From Mars', 'Shining Light' and 'Goldfinger'. The band did a stripped down version of 'Teenage Kicks', dedicating it to John Peel and Joe Strummer. Before the classic 'Kung Fu' Tim Wheeler told the assembled throng to check out Thai rock god Sek Loso on the John Peel stage tomorrow
Cat Goodwin was muted in her praise for Keane (Pompous onstage gushes from Chaplin aside ("It’s amazing to see the spirit of you people"), it must still be said that the piano-rock shenanigans of the melodic Keane are making grown men cry here.), but seemed warmer by the time Coldplay came on:
Lingering among the fading fireworks of a glorious ‘Fix You’ is feeling that here is a band who, with their mix of simplistic intensity, human universalism and pure grace, could unite a whole generation. Or, at the absolute least, define the sound of Glastonbury 2005.
Hmm... is it us, or have fireworks at the end become a bit of a dull, routine thing to do at festivals now? Jesus, even Green Day set off some rockets and a couple of bangers at the MK bowl last week.
We're still trying to work out if Dan Martin really thought describing KT Tunstall as "Norah Jones meets the Levellers" was a positive thing to do. Alex Needham, meanwhile, blows one of the fastest growing Glasto myths out the skies:
The compere announces the Bob Geldof is on site, to loud boos from the audience.
So, not wall-to-wall quiet nodding in agreement, then.
Over in The Guardian, Betty Clarke finds Kasabian polarising the basis of their very existence:
For some, their Madchester beats and clunky way with words is testament to their limited talents; others simply throw their hands in the air and dance themselves silly.
Razorlight, you'll recall, were widely tipped (not least by us) as band least likely to make it through the year. Clarke's report of their set leaves us more convinced than ever:
Razorlight have become an impressively tight band, every note perfectly placed and with nothing left to chance. The problem is, both music and mood revolve around Borrell. A spotlight hovers over him at all times. Then there's that white outfit, which leaves him standing out like a light sabre against his anonymous band mates. They just don't get a look in. When one of the band does attempt to speak to the crowd, Borrell quickly steps in and talks over him.
Dorain Lynskey proved he was all man by volunteering for the Keane-to-Coldplay shift in front of the Pyramid stage. For him, Keane was the hardest to bear:
To me, every song sounds like it should be soundtracking slow-motion footage of a weeping child, but even some way up the hill, fans are mouthing every word of Everybody's Changing and Somewhere Only We Know. Chaplin's obvious elation at being here is admittedly endearing. "Man, I could get used to this," he gasps. "It's such a ridiculous sight." In a way, Keane are a radical proposition, stripping rock music of its guitar, bass, funk, muscle, wit, flamboyance: basically, everything people usually want from it. They're the world's biggest piano recital and people love them.
He did get New Order as a treat, though: he even didn't mind the business with Keith Allen riding a pantomime horse.
In the end, though, it takes James Smart to give us a sense of what went on with Ash:
They don't quite catch today, held back by a set that is a little too heavy on their weaker recent material and an eddying wind that makes it sound like someone is fiddling with a giant fader switch... the fact that a large chunk of the crowd are more interested in watching two people wrestling in mud by the side of the stage speaks volumes.
GLASTONBURY BLOG ROUND-UP
Interestingly, even after the site had disappeared under a large swathe of water, the international press' main perspective on the festival was still lifted from the press releases: it was all about the silent disco. Last night, the Guardian's Sean Clarke finally went to hear the music in his head. An hour to get in; another thirty minute wait while they tried to fix a bug in the system (so far, so silent):
The experience is undeniably odd, not least because the headsets have two channels, and there are two competing DJs at the front of the tent. This means that you can be shuffling around to the fade-out of the song you're dancing to, and find that the person next to you is jumping up and down and punching the air as his tune reaches its climax.
The parade of guest bloggers parading through the Culture Vulture blog doesn't let up - indeed, now it's stopped pissing down in Somerset, they seem to be careering through in greater numbers. Here's The Libertines' Gary Powell (Me, Carl, and Anthony from the band, we were possibly going to do something impromptu, kind of guerilla style - after all, we started the whole guerilla thing anyway, but Karl's had to go back to London because his girlfriend's ill.); and here's Charlie and Bryan from the Dead 60s ("This is first time at Glastonbury, for both of us, but because of weather we haven't really made it out of the main stages area. But we want to go to the stone circle and the teepee field. We need a bit of chanting.")
Glastoblog went to see Chas and Dave - they blew the roof off, apparently - and, also, heard that people had made it in over the fence on Friday night. Glastonbury rumour - or a sign that no fence can keep determind people out?
On Friday, the Guardian Review was shaking its head over the poor quality of Chris Martin's songwriting; the BBC glastonbury blog stayed up late to type up the full text of his introduction to one song:
"This is for Johnny Cash," he began solemnly. "And my dad also. And for Gay Dad, who played here some years ago. And for My Two Dads - remember My Two Dads?"
Yes, Greg Evigan and the one from Mad About You. We remember My Two Dads, and we can picture the face the Judge would be making if you tried to get stuff like this past her. There's a fine line between surreal genius and meanignless babbling, and Chris Martin is not even anywhere near that fine line. Indeed, he would have to hire a taxi to even get him anywhere near it.
More importantly, Ian Youngs has spotted further creeping evidence that Glastonbury isn't what it was. Chairs.
As well as the Cath Kidston tents, the other must-have accessory for this year's discerning festival-goer appears to be a folding camping chair. There are ranks of them on the Pyramid field. It reminds me of seaside towns where ageing folk sit in rows of deckchairs in front of a bandstand.
Now, when I was young and happy to squelch in mud, you'd get the odd joker with a deckchair hanging about, but it was considered very bad manners indeed to put a chair down in front of a stage - after all, it's meant to be a massing throng of bodies and it's hard to cram people in and mosh if there's someone sat in the middle of a field with a shooting stick, a full picnic basket and a travel blanket, rooting about in their belongings to find the travel Scrabble and their Anne Tyler novel. It's the festival equivalent of getting on the tube with a backpack on. If you want a nice sit down, try Glyndebourne.
Largehearted Boy records the speed with which the Elvis Costello set was made available in DVD quality bittorrent - very fast, indeed.
Back in the South West, Soundgenerator stood in the drizzle to watch Keane play:
The proverbial 'couples' band play a hits laden set in overcast conditions, and there's a certain degree of emotion that follows the three-piece around. Much seems to rub off on tonight's 50,000 or so. 'You're amazing, you really are' says a clearly overwhelmed Tom Chaplin.
Want to see a huge pantomime horse? RobertPrice has been hooking his Nokia up to a blogging tool and snapping the site's sights left and right.
As you might expect, the Oxfam generation Y blog is a little bit more worthy with its spotting:
Joss Stone in Make Poverty History pants; Avid Merrion wearing MPH wristbands; that sort of thing. That'll get the four horsemen of the Apocalypse nervous.
COLDPLAY ARE THE BEST
Michael Eavis has just done his press conference, covered by 6Music, and he sounds a lot more knackered than he usually does at this point in proceedings - very stuttering and faltering, which really isn't characteristic. The floods seem to have hit for six, really, and if he hadn't already announced there's no festival next year, we guess he'd be saying it now.
Picking his highlight, inevitably, he goes for Coldplay, enthusing over them that "there's something very clever and powerful" about them, and then, adding overstatement to hyperbole, that they're quite unlike anything else we've ever seen in fifty years of rock and roll. (Clearly, he's not heard Travis, then).
Prodded for suggestions as to who might be sat atop the Pyramid stage when the festival returns in 2007, he throws around names - "Kaiser Chiefs, Razorlight Bloc Party... one will be a headliner eventually." He also reckons he'd not turn down U2 if they asked to play, but "I'm not going to ring them any more." We're having hazy visions here that Bono will just turn up in two years time and commander the main stage, citing this and the power granted him by Billy Graham.
DEAD MAN NAMED
Avon and Somerset Police have named the 25 year-old who died on site on Friday evening as Benjamin Shepherd. They're still waiting the results of a post-mortem to determine the exact cause of death.
His family have requested that Basement Jaxx dedicate a song to him tonight "to help them in their grieving"; it's not known if the band will respond but they'd have to be pretty cold-hearted not to.
IT'S A WONDER IT DOESN'T HAPPEN MORE
What with the Festival organisers running around trying to discourage people from mucking about in the mud, what with it being full of squit and dysentry, it's surprising that more bands haven't fallen unwell - and we're not saying that the illness making Hard-Fi pull their set is down to poisoning, but something has made them so ill they've gone home instead of doing this evening's business on the Peel stage.
A QUICK LOOK AT THIS MORNING'S FRONT PAGES
It might be slightly alarming for Bob Geldof to discover that his epoch-defining hand-holding at Glastonbury has been met, largely, with a few yawns and very little attention - only the Indpendent on Sunday puts the story on its front page, and it's not exactly the most central of papers to British everyday life:
What if you threw a generation defining moment, and nobody in the generation was that bothered?
WE'RE ALSO A COVERS BAND
The sad washback from Coldplay covering Kylie: they clearly think by doing this, they're lifting Kylie's pop onto their plane of furrowed brow existence; in fact, of course, they're merely dragging her transcendence down into the world where everything is measured, weighed and priced.
