live review: blur. hyde park, london. 12 august 2012.

I somehow managed to fuck up the site so I haven’t been able to log into WordPress recently, but we’re back now. I’ll post some new stuff this week, but in the meantime here’s something I wrote for Sabotage Times about the Olympic Closing Celebrations in Hyde Park.

What a couple of weeks we’ve had. There was plenty of scepticism going into these Olympics from the media, and a feeling that people just wanted it over with as soon as possible. All that changed with Danny Boyle’s fantastic Opening Ceremony. Now, as the Closing Ceremony was happening across in East London, Hyde Park welcomed the best of British music for a proper celebration.

Even before Bombay Bicycle Club took to the stage the park was full. The band were just finishing school when the last Olympics in Beijing was running, and being from London themselves this must have been a very special moment for them. The crowd, a real mixture of old and young, were fully engaged as they stormed through tracks from all three albums.

A reformed New Order (sans Peter Hook) were next up. The years may not have been kind to Bernard Sumner, but it was like he’d never been away during the short set that included ‘True Faith’, ‘Blue Monday’ and even Joy Division classics ‘Love Will Tear Us Apart’ and ‘Isolation’. ‘World in Motion’ would surely have been a fitting addition to this unique day, but alas there was no sign.

Throughout the park you couldn’t move for t-shirts emblazoned with The Specials‘ name. Considering the fact that the Opening Ceremony didn’t avoid some of Britain’s not so great moments alongside those that we celebrate everyday, it seemed fitting that a band known for their protests songs were invited along. Ska is a genre that even yours truly can dance to. The crowd, whether celebrating the lyrics or not, agreed as the entire park erupted into a running man.

The reason we were all there, though, was Blur. It had been a little over three years since I had last seen them, which as it happens had also been in Hyde Park. The reunion back then promised much moving forward, but all we got were greatest hits and special compilations. That was until the announcement of this gig and the performance of two new songs on a roof, written specifically for this date. Despite the omission of ‘The Puritan’ from this performance, ‘Under the Westway’ was a huge success. Early on in the encore. Damon introduced it as a track special to them and to the evening. By then, the emotion was starting to show in his eyes.

That was almost two hours into the set. A set that had started in with the familiar early crowd-get-goer ‘Girls & Boys’, quickly followed by the rarely performed, but very apt, ‘London Loves’. Further tracks that the band love playing live came up next in the form of ‘Tracy Jacks’ and ‘Jubilee’.

‘Beetlebum’, ‘Coffee & TV’… the hits kept coming. Damon then, in typical Damon form, brought up a Syrian musician by the name of Khyam Allami to help out on ‘Out of Time’. He loves his world music, and the fact that Syria are currently banned from the Olympics no doubt had a huge part to play in the decision to include Allami.

We had been promised the rarity of hearing ‘Caramel’ live, and that promise was fulfilled. Phil Daniels (and bizarrely a tea lady played by Harry Enfield) joined them on stage for ‘Parklife’. Not that he was needed as the entire crowd shouted the lyrics at the top of their voice. I could go on and list every song they played, but of course we heard ‘Country House’, ‘Song 2’ and crowd favourite ‘Popscene’, before ending the main set with ‘Tender’ and ‘This is a Low’.

It was during the feature length encore that what this concert meant to them shone through. After the aforementioned ‘Under the Westway’, Damon took to the piano for a wonderful performance of ‘End of the Century’. The set was finished with the perfect pop of ‘For Tomorrow’ and of course ‘The Universal’. This all seemed a bit too much for Albarn, who stood open mouthed on the stage while the crowd sang every word back at him.

As the band thanked the crowd, there was real emotion there. I think Damon, Graham, Alex and Dave, along with everybody there, knew that this was probably the last time we’d see them together. One of the true great British pop bands had just delivered the perfect send off to an amazing two weeks.

if you have been partying as hard as the awesome people in the picture above this christmas, you may not feel like a trip to the shops to find amazing one off deals that you will never be able to find again (at least until february anyway, but then you’ll have to pay the increased vat. and that will amount to 25p for every tenner you spend). never fear though. i have done the hard work for you and found the very best deals on music related shit to be found on amazon. this has absolutely nothing to do with me being an amazon associate and getting a percentage of everything you spend. honest. please use the links i provide though. just for, erm, just do. thanks.

[edit - before you read this paragraph, please bear in mind it is a joke. don't stop reading just because you think i am a secret nickleback fan. i am not. apparently this was not made obvious. usually i wouldn't mind and would let it slide, but detest them so feel i must set the record straight on this occasion. thanks]. first off, check out all these mp3 you can get for 59p. that’s right. it includes gabrielle cilmi who was on never mind the buzzcocks a while back. or, how about this. remember ‘rhythm is a dancer’ by snap? well you can pick up the 2008 edition which also somehow manages to be the original! that’s clever. the fun doesn’t stop there though. two words for you. nickleback & ‘rockstar’. don’t miss out on this amazing chance to pick up the song that made dfs famous. grab your download now. the full list is here. even better than all those expensive choices though, you can get a cover of that matt cardle song by some band called biffy clyro for just 49p. amazing! they’ve changed the name though.

on the album side of things, there are actually a few genuinely good deals to be had. buy arcade fire’s fantastic ‘the suburbs’ for a fiver and get pretty much any other decent album for £2. the extra albums include klaxons, foals, the black keys and loads more. take up the offer here. it doesn’t have the be arcade fire as the first album by the way. you can mix and match all sorts. there are a few large collections available at a good price too. ‘unearthed’ johnny cash is there for just £19.59, which saves you over £50 apparently. and you can save over £40 by getting bob marley’s ‘songs of freedom’.

it can be nicer to have a proper actual cd in your hand though. here are five quick deals i found for you:

vampire weekend. contra. £3.99

bombay bicycle club. flaws. £4.49

laura marling. i speak because i can. £4.47

janelle monae. the archandroid. £4.93

gorillaz. plastic beach. £3.99

elsewhere you’ll also find 10% off quite a few ipods. there are also some great deals on docks, including this fantastic gear4 one or this ridiculously cheap veho 360 option.

as for me, i bought josh a harmonica as part of his christmas present, so i think i’ll be getting him this as well.

sorry for the sales pitch type post, but i didn’t have much to post about and thought this may be useful to somebody somewhere. i’ll be posting some review from mr joshua river brown tomorrow to make up for it.

coming up over the christmas period i’m with the family and all that jazz for most of the time so posts might be a little irregular. i’ll be trying to do a couple of features though and a few spotify playlists. first off, this one. i’ve chosen my favourite track from each of the 2010 albums of the year i picked, other than those that aren’t on spotify. as an extra bonus i’ve put in my choices from my favourite three eps from 2010 as well. what’s more, my two favourite singles that aren’t on any of those records (still with me?) are here too… that’s ‘the sea is a good place to think of the future’ and spanish sahara’ by the way.

sockformation’s top ten albums of 2010 and then some other tracks as well (spotify)

the above is a picture of how i prepared myself to decide on my favourite ten albums of the year. i’ve sort of been thinking about it for a while and in the end sat down, made a list off the top of my head and by checking itunes and my last.fm from the past twelve months. that sort of thing. a few i’d forgotten about came back into the running and i got down to a short list of 30something. i succeeded in getting it down to ten. sort of. i have given an honourable mention to one outside the top ten as well because it just wouldn’t have been right not to. you’ll probably understand why when you see what it is. rather than a chart, this is a collection of the top ten in no order (actually, fuck that – i’ll post them alphabetically) other than number one. there always has to be a winner. one other thing to note is that this is just albums. three of my favourite records of the year are eps but i decided to exclude them. i expect i’ll make a post about some of my favourite things of the year in general over the next fortnight and summer camp, spectrals and girls will all feature heavily in this.

with apologies to those that just missed out, including but not restricted to mount kimbie, los campesinos!, kele, yeasayer, abe vigoda, blood red shoes, sleigh bells, girl talk, janelle monae and (the last album to be dropped) foals, here is the albums that are between my second and ninth favourite of 2010.

arcade fire. the suburbs. august.

brilliant story telling album, that just reaffirmed arcade fire as one of the most reliable bands for delivering quality with every record. buy here.

bombay bicycle club. flaws. july.

i cannot tell you just how many time i have stuck this on during my journey to work on a miserable morning and it has cheered me right up. buy here.

the black keys. brothers. may.

one of my gigs of the year and, to me, their most accesible album is also their best. buy here.

crystal castles. crystal castles (ii). april.

another band that excelled live. maybe not quite as good as the debut, but ‘celestia’ is one of the most beautiful yet thrilling things i have ever heard. buy here.

flying lotus. cosmogramma. may.

he’s in even more experimental mood than usual and when flying lotus experiments, the results are always both interesting and superb. buy here.

gayngs. relayted. may.

there is no way this album should work. ever. it does though. now you get twenty odd mates together and write an album inspired by one track from 35 years ago and see what you come up with. buy here.

mystery jets. serotonin. july.

the eel pie island boys have now made the perfect indie pop album. this is. fuck knows how they’re going to improve on this, but i can’t wait to hear them giving it a go. buy here.

no age. everything is borrowed. september.

a cleaner offering than nouns hasn’t meant that no age have lost any of their edge. this may be clean, but is also wonderfully dirty. buy here.

wavves. king of the beach. august.

the best of the lo-fi chill wave type albums that all but took over the world this summer. josh’s favourite album by the way, since you ask. buy here.

let’s have a bit of a drum roll then. the best album of the year isn’t even an album in the regular sense. it is a combination of previous eps and releases from a teenager with a talent for making the unlistenable listenable. when you can’t really make out the guitar, it doesn’t matter because you’re enjoying his voice. when the lack of production and lo-fi sound cracks through the speakers it doesn’t matter because that tune is perfect. i have listened to so little else over the last few weeks that even now as i write i can hear ‘water turns back’ in my head so perfectly that it is as if i have the album playing now.

cloud nothings. turning on. november (i think?)

if you don’t already own this, you need it now. let’s see if first album proper, due next year, will hold the same position this time next year. buy here.

and finally the special mention. i couldn’t leave this out, despite it not quite reaching the heights i hoped it would. i’m seeing the film on tuesday, and i’ll let you know if this goes from an 8/10 album to 10/10 like i hope it will. i love you thomas bangalter and guy-manuel de homem-christo.

daft punk. tron:legacy soundtrack. december. (buy here)

what have i missed? what shouldn’t be there? let me know in the comments. by the way. i am fully aware that the ’0′ at the end of the ‘top10′ text on the cover art graphics is slightly cut off. i noticed after i’d done the last one and couldn’t be fucked to fix it, so live with it.

album review: bombay bicycle club. flaws. 12th july 2010. island records

if you’re going to listen to an acoustic album, you need to be in exactly the right mood. my mood today is sleepy, hungover, and ridiculously hot. bombay bicycle club are about to release ‘flaws’, possibly the perfect album for my current state of mind.

this is a massive (presumably temporary) step away from the sound of bbc’s first album ‘i had the blues but i shook them loose’, and there’s not much on ‘flaws’ that will get your heart racing or your arms aloft as their first album did with such indie hits as ‘evening/morning’, but that’s obviously not the angle of this record. what the new songs lack in effects and electronic zest, they make up for in haunted acoustic folk, heavily doused in nick drake and neil young. also on show is a maturing voice delivering more endearing lyrics; lead man jack steadman’s vocals sound particularly impressive fronting this new found folk sound. highlights include the cover of john martyn’s ‘fairytale lullaby’, the song from which the album takes its name ‘flaws’ and the stripped back version of ‘dust on the ground’, which is possibly better than the version found on their debut album. unfortunately i found some songs to be a little repetitive and forgettable as is regularly the issue with an acoustic album, but that’s not to say i didn’t appreciate the crouch end boys new sound, indeed praise is due for displaying such a brave and creative alter-ego. the band now embark on a nationwide church and chapel tour, but have promised to revisit their more varied classical indie sounds for their festival dates.

as my saturday night draws closer, i realise this isn’t going to be the soundtrack to get spruced and bruced to, but for now, as i sit resembling a lobster, struggling in the hot english sunshine, it’s perfect.

7

words by jamie day (twitter, blog)

a few weeks ago, while trying to avoid my daily mind numbing workload, i decided to write a festival guide. not just a load of text with a “don’t forget your wellies and wet-wipes” note to round it off, no this was on a new level of festival geek. written with a load of ‘computer code’, this all singing, all dancing guide would tell you everything; prices, line-ups, directions, photos, toilet cleanliness etc but it also included the odd sly dig at festivals that had failed to impress me in the past, or those that for some unknown deep-rooted reason i felt particular negativity towards. the isle of wight festival was one of those. i’m not sure why, i’d never been. it was possibly because i went to bestival last year and had one of the best weekends of my life, and therefore had decided that if you were ever going to go to this small island to enjoy music, you’d do what i’d do (which is surely right?) and go to bestival…

all this changed massively when a couple of weeks ago i was greeted with the news from my other/better half that she had got us free tickets to the isle of wight festival! never one to pass up a freebie, all ill feeling quickly disappeared. i was going to the isle of wight! for free! woo! and to top it off, the tickets were vip meaning i’d get the opportunity to run over the geldof sisters backstage in a golf buggy!

musically the line up was not up to much, it was quite v-like, in terms of acts like the saturdays and pink drawing bigger crowds than the brilliant bombay bicycle club. but there were two names on the bill that got my heart beating slightly quicker than the off-road golf buggies… the strokes and paul mccartney. obvious choices? yes, but the strokes are possibly my third favourite band of all time (we’ve all got a top five in our heads) and macca is just macca, the closest thing i’ll ever get to seeing those scallys from merseyside, so it was a gig i was never going to miss.

both were brilliant. paul mccartney was amazing in a kumbaya round the campfire, one massive jolly sing-a-long way. it was a night i’ll never forget but i do wish i’d been a little closer to the action just to throw him some ‘macca guns’*. the strokes played a classic set, all the songs we, the fans wanted to hear and throw our drunken sun burnt arms aloft to – the kind of set noel gallagher always threatens when oasis play, but then throws in some crap liam song just to piss everyone off. we heard ‘someday’, ‘last night’, ‘new york city cops’, ‘under control’, ‘reptilia’ and many more but sadly one of my favourites ’12:51′ was omitted. but 12:51 or no 12:51, i found myself moved by their set. emotionally moved, i couldn’t take it all in. i’d been drinking (heavily) in the sun all day and there i was watching the strokes blow thousands away with their thumping drums and amazing guitars. oh, and a leather-biker-jacket-clad jules wasn’t too bad on vox either. not wanting to look like a big baby, i held back the tears in front of the girlfriend, but i’m not ashamed to admit this gig, this festival, isle of wight did something to me. maybe it was the sun, maybe it was the booze, or maybe, just maybe, ’cause it was the fucking strokes.

(*apologies, in-house joke)

words by jamie day (twitter, blog)