Showing posts with label bbc red button. Show all posts
Showing posts with label bbc red button. Show all posts

Sunday, June 29, 2014

Glastonbury 2014: The view from the sofa II

So Metallica's (admittedly amusing) bear video makes their presence at Glastonbury even more problematic. If the festival's line was "well, we don't want to get involved in people's politics", how does that square with letting the headliners start off with a film that basically treats genuine misgivings about their activities as fuel for yuks?

It's a pity that Metallica's entrance left such a bad taste, as Lars Ulrich's post-gig interview on BBC Two was charming; a man who clearly loves the festival and was enjoying every moment of it.

Still, all the burbling about how astonishing having a metal band in Pilton was pretty redundant given that, across the fields, the Manics were kicking the arse out of You Love Us without the need for anyone to edit Wikipedia to record 'metal at Glasto' as a historic event.

The half-arsed red button downgraded itself to a quarter-arse for Saturday; if the 'look, here's, erm, Newsnight' chunk on Friday was bad, it was going to get worse. For a little while, one of the stages at Glastonbury was apparently showing Family Guy, according to press red. Oh, and for some reason tennis rolled over one stream of the coverage for a large chunk of the early evening, because sports always trumps the arts at the BBC, no matter what Tony Hall might think. (To be fair, sport always trumped news when John Birt was in charge.)

Robert Plant's audience looked to be having the best time of all the crowds - someone nearly shook the very eyes out their head when he started up Whole Lotta Love.

Best outfit? Cate Le Bon's space dress, obviously.

Lana Del Ray struggled a bit - the performance was fine, but it just kinda floated away into the sky. The USP suddenly turning into a disadvantage.

Clean Bandit (or Hollyoaks: The Dance Album) were much better suited to this kind of thing. And they had by far the best way of getting the crowd to bellow along, with a kind of elbows out/kitten cleaning ears stance when participation was required.

Oh, Pixies are still going. It turns out.


Saturday, June 28, 2014

Glastonbury 2014: View from the sofa

"We're not going to go on about it" reassure Mark Radcliffe and Jo Whiley, leading off the late night live chunk of Glastonbury coverage on BBC Two.

But they do, of course.

And then when they hand over to Lauren Laverne in another part of the field, she can't help but talk about it, too.

And why wouldn't they? This year, clearly, isn't the Glastonbury of Metallica; it's the Glastonbury where the lights went out.

Trouble is, although Lauren had rather a good anecdote - about being chided for asking the bear-slaughterers if they'd bought the heavy metal thunder with them - the stuff that was most interesting about the power outage wasn't touched on.

(Incidentally, it wouldn't be Metallica's heavy metal thunder; Dolly Parton has brought a rainbow with her, and we all know what you have to endure to get one of those working.)

Normally, the BBC's Glastonbury coverage is padded with films of people who've paid silly money for tickets doing really dull things - giving us a taste of the "festival experience". This year, when it'd actually be really interesting to know what it was like to be in a city of tens of thousands of people when the electricity stopped being in the wires and was just in the sky - nothing.

Apart from Mark Radcliffe saying something about communal singing in a tattoo tent, there was no answer to the question 'what was it like on the site?'

Instead, the crisis was reduced to a short snatch of footage of Rudimental walking off the stage.

The big disappointment this year is the red button coverage - clearly all the love has been poured into the website. Three channels of music, more or less lobbed on screen; with whatever happens to be on TV given (it appears) a free pass.

So, at one point, you could have watched Elbow on BBC Three, or something else on BBC Two. If those options didn't delight you, you could press red to get three more bands - except one was Elbow and one was BBC Two.

What's the point of pushing the stream that's already on TV through the red button service?

And doing it so badly - for a good ten minutes, the "BBC Two" Glastonbury feed was so locked in to simulcasting BBC Two that it pushed out a great chunk of Newsnight. (If Jean-Claude Juncker was actually being inducted in the cabaret tent, my apologies to the red button team.)

I suppose it's fair to say that it's more surprising that there's a red button at all - with SmartTVs and Chromecasts and whatnot, it's easier than ever to get the rather good bbc.co.uk experience onto your TV.

(Slight grumble here - the Glastonbury content from iPlayer doesn't show up on the iPhone version of iPlayer, which makes it harder to enjoy on a TV. I know this is a bit like complaining that the handle on the cup the ambrosia comes in is a little fiddly to hold, but... worth mentioning.)

So, what of the bands themselves?

Arcade Fire, it's clear, have edged ever closer to vanishing over the Bono Horizon.

I know, I know...

... how can I possibly think that?
You know when the fireworks (literal fireworks) are at the start, not the end, of the set, that you're watching a band who are overdoing the spectacle.

Men made out of mirrors; the bobbleheads; two-faced skeletons (one of whom, distractingly, had a brand name of a morphsuit maker on his ass); a stage full of around thirty people at one; racoon make-up; pyrotechnics... it's just so fucking tiring to watch, and it's dressing up music that doesn't really need all this extra packing. You've written songs that are packed full of strong, striking images - why are you hiding them in the worst circus ever?

Elsewhere, Blondie were a little ragged around the edges - doing the high bit from Rapture would be difficult under normal circumstances, but Harry just-about nailed it on a stage, early in the day, outdoors. And the cover of (You Gotta) Fight For Your Right (To Party) was a delight - especially watching the ripple of 'oh! this is what this is!' run through the crowd at different speeds.

Sidenote: After last year's fuss about whether jokes about the Rolling Stones being old were okay, it's worth mentioning that Debbie Harry is 69 on Tuesday. But people don't obsess over it because jokes about Blondie being old were never a thing.

Also because she'd kick your butt.

Chvrches were great; and Drenge are still on course to become Mudhoney by the end of next year.


Saturday, August 25, 2012

Reading Button, Leeds Button

In a rare foray into providing news you can use, here's the times when Reading & Leeds coverage will be on the BBC Red Button this weekend, and then highlights through the week:

Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media:
Sat 25th August, 7:00pm-2:00am
Sun 26th August, 4:00pm-2:00am
Mon 27th August, 6:00am-Saturday 1st September, 4:00am

Freeview:
Sat 25th August, 9:30pm-2:00am
Sun 26th August, 4:00pm-2:00am
Mon 27th August, 6:00am-9:50pm
Tue 28th August, 4:10am-10:20am
Wed 29th August, 4:10am-2:50pm & 6:10pm-7:20pm
Thu 30th August, 4:10am-9:50pm
Fri 31st August, 4:10am-6:50am & 11:40pm-4:00am


Saturday, April 07, 2012

6 at 10 again

The best of 6Music's 10th birthday gigs are going to be strewn out the back-end of your digibox this week. Press red for Paul Weller, De La Soul, PiL, Graham Coxon, SBTRKT, Spiritualized, Orbital and the rest:

Available on all platforms

Freesat/Sky/Virgin Media:
Mon 9th April, 6:00am- Fri 13th April, 4:00am

Freeview:
Mon 9th April, 8:55pm-5:50am
Tue 10th April, 7:10pm-5:50am
Wed 11th April, 6:10pm-7:20pm, 10:10pm-5:50am
Thu 12th April, 7:10pm-2:45am
Fri 13th April, 7:10pm-10:20pm

[via the BBC Internet Blog]


Monday, June 29, 2009

Glastonbury 2009: View from the sofa - The last night

I know it's churlish to complain about the BBC's coverage, when it offers up so many riches, but... lets complain anyway.

Every year, I'm left scratching my head wondering why the press red service on the last night is busily churning out Saturday and Friday sets when there's plenty happening on site; I could understand if there was one screen of all-weekend highlights, but at some points yesterday it was a choice of old, or older: Quo today, or Springsteen or Florence or Little Boots from before?

And why can't you bloody stick with a set? If you're going to put on the record label's knuckledusters and issue take-down notices to YouTube, can't you at least push back and not wait until Blur are really getting going before cutting back to Whiley and Lowe, sat around, enthusing over how this is the greatest thing that has ever happened on the pyramid stage since stages began - only to go off and show The Black Eyed Peas instead, while BBC Three - scheduled to show The Black Eyed Peas - slaps on Blur. But the bits that BBC Two had already shown.

The Sunday night coverage is always hyperbolic - it's always the biggest crowd ever seen in front of the stage, always the most extraordinary end to the most extraordinary Glastonbury, but this year it actually felt like it might be true. Apart from the most extraordinary Glastonbury bit - from the sofa it had all the thrill of a well-oiled machine.

But Blur were magnificent. Whoever thought that a bunch of aging indie-kids would outrun Bruce?

What was the name of that group from the North who was meant to be their competition?