FreakzO)))ne radio

Posted on by
Reply

REWIND NOVEMBER

Although Audioscope 2015 is very much the November biggie for those of us in Oxford, life does go on (but now with Gazelle Twin’s UNFLESH stalking our lives) and so this Rewind is a radio special coz there’s been some proper fringe rock stuff on the 6Music Freakzone this past month. Dip into this lot on t’ iplayer, but check ’em quick – some have just one week left, some have up to three, all links are in there.

Electronic Math Rock – Boredoms, 65daysofstatic, Three Trapped Tigers, Dawn of Midi and Battles bring the restless propulsions and scattergun glitch. What more do you want?

Motorpsycho and Helge Sten – never actually heard Motorpsycho’s music before but prog-psych-jazz-and-more (ie everything) seems to be the thing for these Norwegian brainiacs.

Coil – half-hour history of Coil with the slow-talking John Doran from The Quietus.

Stephen O’Malley Freakzone – a WHOLE BLOODY TWO-HOURS curated by half of SunnO))) and it’s a first-rate show of avant heavy, prog weird and free jazz exhibits. This is the stuff that compilations are made of: Goatsnake, Magma, Julia Holter, Today is the Day, Annette Peacock, Virus, a track from the new Sunn O))) album, what more do you want etc etc.Available til Dec 20th ish.

Right then, there goes the radio rewind – tonnes of new discoveries, just in time for Xmas spends and Santa lists. Motorpsycho are on mine. 

Lastly, Philthy Animal Taylor passed on from this world on November 11…RIP. Dug out the old No Remorse double vinyl and played the start of side two – Bomber, Iron Fist. What a clatter that guy made. Overkill and We Are the Road Crew say it better than anything.

’til next time!

 

AUDIOSCOPE 2015

Posted on by
Reply

BOOK BANDS WITH TUNES NEXT TIME.

This is what’s being said about Audioscope 2015. I saw it, on a poster. On the wall. In the men’s toilets.

And that is exactly the right place for such scrawl – in the pisser, coz this looks like another excellent line-up for the multi-band fest that lands in Oxford around this time every year. The question is, which arteest inspired the above comment? I think I can guess, but I’ll slip in a subtle subliminal clue P A R T  C H I M P at the right time.

Anyway, on with the show, which has this year moved from the Jericho Tavern to the Bullingdon on Cowley Road, and it’s the usual mix of know-a-couple/never-heard-of-them mix, so a real test of a band’s merit is: would you coff up and buy some merch? It would have been a yes for Demian Castellanos (didn’t catch openers Kone), except that there isn’t anything to buy. Shame. His pedal-heavy hum ‘n drone guitar instrumentals, all Gilmour space and John Martyn echo over Urthona beds, are an agreeably experimental start to the aft.

Next, Taman Shud, but not before a swift pint round the corner to wash down a colossal slice of carrot cake. Back to the band and … this is ‘necro psych’, is it? Hmmm. With grating vocal effects? Hmmmmmm. Not sure, summat a bit forced about this rage but maybe that’s just me. Even so, whoever tweeted that ‘taman shud are crushing Audioscope’ had a premature ejac-on. Rein it in, twitterers.

Kogumaza …now there’s a name to grapple with. Literally. Couldn’t remember it all day, not even after a couple of medicinal dark rums, but that-K-band are a pretty impressive exercise in pure rhythm as their guitar-drum-guitar set-up cooks a nice line in Dead Meadow psyche, Earth-ly drone and part moto/part marching beats, the guitarists slotting in like a two-piece jigsaw. Finishing with a bit o’ familiarity by way of the Beatles’ I Want You (She’s So Heavy), Kogumaza prove to be an oddly compelling guitar act.

Marconi Union push a deceptively appealing set of mid-tempo steadybeat electronica, embellished by a bit o’ live instrumentation. Worth checking further? Very probably, yes.

One of the great things about Audioscope is that the people who end up on stage are in the crowd beforehand, but the next act – the gently feral Dave Heumann – is nowhere to be seen. And he’s impossible to miss. Why no here? Because he’s outside, chanced upon by us when we embark on a sustenance dash, guiding a cranky-looking old white M-reg Ford Transit van (check those curtains) into a tight spot by the front door, ready to wheel the gear in.

As Mr H and his Arbouretum/Trembling Bells hybrid touring band, featuring proper muso Alex Nielsen on drums, do their soundcheck we anticipate a gently mesmerising 30-minute groove thick with American folk ‘n warmth on this cold cold Saturday…. but what we actually get is a set that’s a bit, well, lacking. And I don’t like to say that, ‘coz these guys have got pedigree, but it’s a tad underwhelming from what should have been the first star of the star half of the day.

At this point, it feels like a long time since Kogumaza played and Audioscope is in danger of slipping away from itself. Fuck mid-road pleasantry and fuck cakes (for now), WE NEED AN ARSE-KICKING. Who’s gonna do that then? Who’s gonna grab that stage and own it, eh?

That’ll be Part Chimp.

Frontman Tim Cedar wears a Killdozer T-shirt and if you haven’t heard Part Chimp then that shirt’s a filthy enough clue for the riotous unwashed shitstorm they fling our way, all at one-louder volume OF COURSE. Noisy without being noise, sludgy without being sludge and groovy without being groove, Part Chimp rock like drunks on a sloping stage on the back of a Land Rover, yet they always always hold it together, JUST. Second track Trad gets the crowd jumping, the band enjoy it as much as we do and it’s fair to say that Part Chimp have lit the touch paper … no, forget that. They torched it. Party music for heavy times (unless you’re the Toilet Scribbler mentioned at the start of this review).

And with that half hour blasteroid, Audioscope is back. Gazelle Twin next … the masked, faceless Gazelle Twin. Don’t know anything about GT beyond the blurb in the programme (intense, uncompromising, unsettling, you get the gist) so she’s the darkest of dark horses on this bill. Who knows what’s gonna happen? Not I, that’s for sure.

Standing motionless, hoodied and silhouetted on stage with an backdrop of twisted electronic doom – and THAT mask – it’s the mother of all creep-outs, but as soon as she starts to move … you gotta watch. I mean, You. Gotta. Watch. Gazelle Twin mesmerises, not just singing but inhabiting every single word, breath and motion over Burial-heavy beats and after-hours menace. She’s genuinely thrilling, and as captivating and complete a performance (and this is a performance, not a gig, make no mistake) as I can remember seeing. Seriously. Dense and unnerving and both non-human/too-human, she casts a wicked spell and tonight, Oxford falls right under it.

If Gazelle Twin cranked our senses to new highs then Warp stalwarts Plaid supply a carefully-managed comedown. Musically it’s the right end to the day, especially after that Chimp-Gazelle suckerpunch, but it’s also the music least suited to the seatless, blackened backroom of the Bully … Laptops Onstage ain’t a spectacle to stand and watch for an hour, and it’s one of a couple of times where the Tavern’s warm muso-room friendliness is much missed.

But Audioscope 2015 delivered the goods again, and there’s no doubt about who stole it – red hair, blue tracksuit, faceless: Gazelle Twin, the interloper who came, conquered and vanished into the night. Now tell me: just where do you go from there?

See Audioscope reviews for 2014 and 2013, and Audioscope’s Music for a Good Home 3 CD

 

 

 

KILLING JOKE live

Posted on by
Reply

REWIND OCTOBER: Killing Joke@Oxford O2, Oct 30th 2015

A gig-heavy Rewind, this one. Godspeed You! Black Emperor did an artful deconstruction job on everyone at the Warwick Arts Centre the other week, and Liverpool doom trio Coltsblood bulldozed the Wheatsheaf with Undersmile-slow riffs and blastbeat breaks. Godspeed you can read about over here, but Coltsblood? Musically very cool and hefty, but the growlscreamgrowlscream vocal thing … man, it wore me down and brought on a major Doom Burnout. One to come back to another day, methinks.

No such burnout on Friday though when Killing Joke – new album Pylon just one week young – took the O2 stage with an old-new one-two: The Wait and Autonomous Zone, and while it takes a little while for the crowd to warm, mostly coz of the sadistic air-con blasting a cold force-ten in our faces down stage front left, it ain’t long before there’s a ring of slamming jumping bods lapping it up. Killing Joke will always invoke some kind of movement –  there’s just something in that fluid, swirling, awkward rhythm-force that sets their sound far apart from other rock bands and pokes at people’s mania, especially the early stuff. Fall of Because, with its Ferguson-propelled death dance and Coleman’s first cut-loose vocal of the night, STILL feels like madness being conjured.

Highlights? With such vintage on show it’s too subjective a question to answer … depends where and when you entered KJ’s world/they entered yours, but Money Is Not Our God, Eighties, Wardance, Requiem, Asteroooooiiiiid (yesssss), Communion (doubleyesssss) and an encoring Pandemonium are all in there, among others. Other than those, it’s another Pylon newie I am the Virus – future classic, surely – preceded by a pulverising Exorcism that stand out for me, but for anthemic goth pop writ  l a r g e  you cannot top the monster-big Love Like Blood. 

So, plenty of gigs in October (and that’s without getting to see Hawkwind). What else was there?

Well, after last Rewind asked are-Maiden-prog?, who turned up in Prog Rock magazine but Steve Harris, having a big ol’ chat about Genesis, Tull and General Prog love. ‘nuff sed.

David Bowie announced a new single and album. Officially, this is Too Exciting to Write About.

And Audioscope announced their line-up for the all-day bash at the Bully on November 21st. Part Chimp, Guapo, Dave Heumann AND LOADS MORE will stride that small stage, just as we like it.

‘til next time!

HALLOWEEN: sound tracks and lost highs

Posted on by
Reply

It started with a wolf, howlin’. Evil (Is Going On) was on BBC 6Music in all its electric-version glory as part of a ‘ween spesh, and it was soon followed by I Put a Spell On You. Classy sassy stuff (thanks Cerys Matthews). Got me thinking: instead of a bleak-o heavioso metallic horror soundtrack for halloween this year, why not go for some killer (yes!) atmos? The creep not the scream, the shadows not the gallows. Tension over bludgeon.

Henry Mancini.

Now, your man Cini might not be in thrall to demons and satan and Marshall stacks, but what is Shot in the Dark if not a tip-toed creepabout? Ditto The Pink Panther Theme and double ditto the perfectly titled Experiment in Terror, its sticky harpsichord adding enough gothic suspense for Fantomas to wind it through their avant mangle on The Director’s Cut (mentioned this album a couple of halloweens ago, insane and essential is what it is).

But if we’re on the prowl for a killer soundtrack that’s literal, we need a killer, so let’s call on the guy who always gets the shit end of the stick – the big fella, the head-clean-off guy, the in-all-this-excitement guy: Harry Callahan. Lalo Schifrin’s Dirty Harry seedy funkjazz score dwells in permashadow and night-time neon, and in No More Lies, Girl we even get a mention of halloween. It’s too jaunty a track for tonight though so for max creep you gotta go to Prologue/The Swimming Pool, Scorpio’s View, The Cross, Floodlights and School Bus (and you’ll not hear a filthier bass this side of November than Scorpio’s View and School Bus, promise).

From Dirty Harry we take a cinematic sidestep to Harry’s namesake …. Dirty Barry. Sounds dodgy already, like a cross between Pulp’s Seductive Barry and Mark and Lard’s Fat Barry White, but it’s by the guy who’s almost got the Addams Family name, one Barry Adamson. Check Oedipus Schmoedipus and there it is, track six, but skip back a few and you also land on Something Wicked This Way Comes.

See where we’re going now? Down the unfound road to a Lynch-ing with the nails of nine inches for bad company, aka Lost Highway, David Lynch’s unfathomable 1997 trip that’s tracked by as good a collection of goth-tinged electronic rock as you’re gonna get. Pulled together by Trent Reznor, it’s heavy on Angelo Badalamenti and B-Adamson scores and haunts, but there’s axe as well as strings. The Perfect Drug is perfect NIN – menace plus hook plus destruction plus ambience – Smashing Pumpkins get their pre-Adore electronic spook on with Eye, and David Bowie … well, he claims I’m Deranged from the never-bettered Outside.

Finally, for an axe-heavy non-Highway finale of monstrous bloody heft, dig up the bones of Another Body Murdered by Faith No More and Boo-Yaa T.R.I.B.E from Judgment Night soundtrack. Not a bunch of guys you’d want on your doorstep demanding sweeties.

Happy helloweeeeeen ….

GY!BE: live review

Posted on by
Reply

GODSPEED YOU! BLACK EMPEROR
Warwick Arts Centre, Oct 22nd 2015

Louder, heavier, noisier, DRONIER … if those words go some way to describing how Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress compares to previous GY!BE records then those same words go all the way to describing Asunder live v Asunder studio: on stage, GY!BE 2015 are an electrified maelstrom.

At the start of the set, hope flickers. Literally. It’s the first word of the night but it’s unspoken, projected instead onto the film-shorts backdrop while the band file onstage one-by-one and take to their instruments – a violin two-bass two-drum three-guitar ensemble – to build that b.i.g. drone opener. This all happens without fanfare or salutations, like a choreographed rehearsal between long-term friends… if the crowd were absent, it would not matter.

Post HOPE, where do Godspeed take us? Far away from The Everyday Normal, that’s where. Asunder gets aired – Peasantry or ‘Light! Inside of Light!’ and Piss Crowns Are Trebled are both heavier and hairier than you dare imagine – as does the madfuck spiral that is Mladic. And while there are moments of calm and light, as you’d expect, those moments are Flee Ting and Power Less in the face of the night’s amplifier overload. Strands of Sunn O))), Metal Machine Trio and Earth all push through in the drones and the noise, and though it’s pretty tough going at times, the reward – typified by Piss Crowns’ stupendous fuck-off-and-cry climax – are those surging crescendos and brink-of-collapse payoffs that Godspeed make their own.

So yeah, it’s an experience more than a gig, and if you want fanboy precision about tracks played then this review ain’t the place. All I wanna do, as a Godspeed-live first-timer, is somehow convey the thrill of the show: it IS heavy, it IS noisy, it IS intense, and it IS vast – the orchestral enormity conjured by just eight people defies belief.

When the whole thing ends – band members departing one by one, instruments left and locked in feedback harmony – there’s much to reflect on, not least the massive, near-physical power of music (when it’s in the right hands) and the transient chatter that passes for much of our day-to-day. Sometimes you need a break from life to get yourself realigned. Two hours of Godspeed will do that.

Seismic rock, visceral beauty. Nothing less.

No repent from Slayer

Posted on by
Reply

REWIND SEPTEMBER: SLAYER RETURN

There’s something very, very right about listening to Slayer in September. Cool air becoming cold, days light but pulling up short, winter the next turn … yeah, September is Slayer time, and when there’s a fresh Slayer bloodflow – Repentless – it’s even better. A new rekkid is always summat to get stoked by, but this one – with Hanneman and Lombardo gone – seems more pivotal than most. Can they cut it? It’s way too early to get a proper perspective but the first impression sez fuuuuuuuckyeah. Araya and King have got a grade-A groove on, Holt shreds with melody and Bostaph … well, we already know he’s got Slayer-approved chops but his precise, punishingly physical performance on Repentless – in contrast to Lombardo’s tight-but-loose thrash flair – is exactly what Slayer needs right now: an anchor. Some of that God Hates Us All certainty.

Elsewhere in September rambles:

Is prog a four-letter word? That was the question put to Steven Wilson by Stuart Maconie on the Freakzone the other week (the tardiness of this Rewind means it’s probably just slipped off the iplayer now), and while Maconie would never feature any classic metal on his zone, you gotta wonder where the difference is. Take Iron Maiden – none more classic a metal band, right? Yet their new Book of Souls double album is home to the Irons’ longest-ever track Empire of the Clouds, a widescreen Bruce-athon which stops the clock at a Yes-bothering 18 minutes. Given their output since Brave New World, are latter-day Maiden prog?

And if so, is Steven Wilson Iron Maiden?

Ach, we’ll save the prog discourse for the time when Tales from Topographic Oceans finally hits the runout groove on side four, but if Pink Floyd are coming to be seen as prog, as Wilson posits, then we’re seeing a slow rehab of the p word. And a lot of what characterises P-rock – instrumentals, time and tempo shifts, length – applies to any number of spacepostavantmath types which bust out beyond the four-minute 4/4. SEMANTICS ROCK(s).

And that’s that for now, except to say there are a couple o’ good gigs coming up in Ox, including the ever-mighty Killing Joke the night before Halloween.

’til next time!

MOTHER CORONA live

Posted on by
Reply

OXFORD WHEATSHEAF, August 27, 2015

Funny how some gigs just feel like home. Last week, Steve Harris was at the O2 with British Lion – upstairs, no less – so when a metal legend is that close, you gotta go. MAIDEN: the Iron One. No wonder it was packed, and yet for all the musicianship and energy and sweat and conviction of the Lions, not to mention the bass-gun pointing from ‘arris (classic), their anthemic mid-tempo Maiden-lite didn’t really roar …. solid enough but kinda careful. Made me want to dig out some Maiden proper.

Tonight in the Wheatsheaf, though, is a different kettle of scaley ones. I know next to nowt about Morass of Molasses or Mother Corona EXCEPT for the promise of heavy stoner action from Reading and Didcot respectively, so I am completely in their hands – and they abso-fucking-lutely deliver.

Morass of Molasses: mid-tempo, bottom-heavy rifferama, lifted by spacious bluesy flow. GO SEE THIS BAND. They’ve got an EP out called So Flows Our Fate and the only downer is that it’s only four songs long (apols for buying CD not vinyl after the gig, Morass fellas. Mr Bones tried his best).

Mother Corona, another trio, rock a similar path except they do it with a drummer vocalist and – if my eyes ain’t doing porky lies – a bassist with five strings. Oh, and the World’s Biggest Mother Corona Fan is on stage at all times ‘coz no.1 fanboy seems to be their very own guitarist Lee, who can’t help showing his big big love for what songwriter Dave (drums/vox) pulls together:

“Dave writes the songs, it’s awesome, he’s … a prick!”

“I am,” agrees Dave.

Can’t possibly comment on a stranger’s prick-or-not status, but what we can comment on is Mother Corona’s stellar stoner-age grooves, as you might expect from a band who’ve been on the road with Orange Goblin. Nice bit of psyche shimmer on the guitar, clean Billy Corgan-ish vocals, faultless devotion to rocking out, this is infectious stuff. Vertigo Terror, Back to Hell and Reburn (I think) are among the Corona chewns getting the ‘sheaf going, while mid-set covers of Sabbath (Into the Void – natch – and Sabotage mother lode Hole in the Sky) stoke things further and a closing I Wanna Be Your Dog are pretty perfectly pitched in my book. GO SEE THIS BAND.

Like I said, some gigs feel like home. Best of the year so far pour moi.

Supernormal freakzone metal

Posted on by
Reply

REWIND JULY: BOUNDLESS WIRELESS

No gigs attended in July but there’s been a noisier-than-usual Freak Zone bent this past few weeks on 6Music – Sabbath AND Boris as featured albums, no less – so this Rewind is nothing more than a shameless bit of pass-it-on.

A LA CARTER ROCK

Daniel P Carter from the Radio 1 Rock Show turned up on the Freakier Zone with a half hour’s worth of grade-A heaviness the other week. It’s no longer on iplayer but here’s what he brung in:

Horseback – Mithras. Floyd-at-Pompeii meets Arbouretum heavy meets BLACK FCKN METAL …. yep, a jarring combo.

Fucked Up – Year of the Hare (excerpt). Piano wonk, noise stabs and post-hardcore stretched over 20 minutes. Ace. EP out this month.

Myrkur – the woman who is… well, who really knows? But this track, whatever it’s called (didn’t catch that bit), sweeps from black metal ferocity to folkish ambience pretty seamlessly, a real double-header. Pitchfork have been sniffy, citing PR machinations and identity scams (she’s a Chanel model. Is she?), but Terrorizer mag – surely more credible for this kind of thing – have put Myrkur on the front cover. Debut album M out this month.

Chelsea Wolfe – she was on the Freak Zone last week, her new record Abyss was Phil Alexander’s featured album on Planet Rock this week, and one hit of that luscious Nadja/Type O guitar-wall density starts to tell you why. Abyss is out this month.

So it’s hats off to Carter for bringing the noise to the Zone ( Steve Von Till got aired as well), and if this is the kind of stuff that appears in the last hour of his rock show – and he said it does – then I’ll be tempted for an end-of-show snoop. Not been to Radio 1 since John Peel died and Mary Anne Hobbs gave it up. 

SUPERNORMAL OXON QUAKER

But Maconie’s guitar excursions don’t stop with Carter, Sabbath or Boris because this coming weekend, he talks to the organisers of Supernormal festival in Oxfordshire. Never been to it meself, and I won’t be going this time either but that’s my loss – a loss that’s a bit bigger for having just encountered two of the bands, Father Murphy and Ghold. Especially Ghold: Om rhythms, Melvins obtuse. Sounds like a Beehoover/Big Business drum-bass gig, but I’ve only heard one track (Pursed) and not dug any deeper yet so what do I know? Bugger all. Bet they loosen a few fillings at Braziers Park though.

Right then, that’s it for now. Plenty of names to check, and we didn’t even mention the last of the Zep reissues …

’til next time!

DEARLY BELOVED – Enduro

Posted on by
Reply

Did you see Dearly Beloved tearing round Blighty with Swervedriver the other month? No? Then you missed a pretty brisk support act so it’s only right that we spread the love and support the support with a few words about their 2014 rekkid, Enduro. Since snapping it up at the Oxford show (sold by singer Niva Chow, no less) it’s become a real Fast-Gro listen this past month: ten-tracks jammed with snagging hooks, propulsive bass and boy-girl vocal swaps that steer the Canadian four piece well clear of all-guy r.o.c.k. stereotypes.

Back at the Oxford O2 – the gig with zero audience participation, remember? – it was the bass that nicked your first impressions, mostly because singer/four-stringer Rob Higgins wasn’t shy of actually playing the fucker and giving it some action, not just in a rhythm sense but in that bass-as-guitar kinda way as well, stoking up a thickened fuzzbed for the rest of the Dearlys to play off … feel the warmth. And when you find that the Enduro album was put together en Mojave in Rancha de la Luna – studio home to Kyuss, Desert Sessions, Masters of Reality and the just-returned Goatsnake ffs, to name just four – with Dave Earthlings? Catching at the helm then you start to join some dots. Perhaps there really is a bit of Joshua Tree dust trapped in DB’s attack? Seeing the boho-intense set-up at Rancha in the Los Angeles episode of Dave Grohl’s fckn brilliant Sonic Highways series, it looks impossible NOT to be infiltrated by the environment, and our very own Sheffield Monkeys are proof of that. Got the arctic stripped right off ’em.

But despite all this desert talk, Dearly Beloved aren’t stoner behe-moths hanging round a night light on a never-ending jam to infinity. They’re sharp, lean and schooled in the 3-minute arts, and first track Enduro fairly flies off the bat with White Denim hyper-ness and a rubber riff rebound. Buried somewhere in this kickstarter is one of THE names in the whole of desert rock-dom – yes, reality’s master hisself, Chris Goss – but to be honest, you can’t really hear him. Maybe a tiny bit.

(you can’t)

Still, his very presence is a pointer to the Enduraesthetic because although Dearly Beloved are punk energy – think Pulled Apart By Horses without the screamo – they weave in some Goss-like space and sensibility too, as on Astor Dupont Payne and the gently reflective Ether Binge. At the other end of the Enduro scale is a full burn Guile of Pricks (great title) and the twisting Not My Pig, a dirt-low filth riff punctured by space, bass and Niva’s detached vocal cool. Album highlight right there.

At 28 minutes end to end it’s a short set, but it ain’t short of adventure – stick it on and get a feelgood hit for the summer. Check ’em out right here.

Kanye feel it?

Posted on by
Reply

REWIND JUNE: ARMCHAIR GIGGING

June means Glastonbury means headliner anticipation means a whole lotta speculation, and who are we to resist?

Last year it was Metallica who fired the ire, and while they weren’t pin-sharp they were human and knew what the game was, pulling off what looked – from the TV at least – like one of those pretty great Underdogs Victorious shows. This year’s bad-boy was even more divisive: everyone’s favourite Kardashian, Mr Kanye.

Should he have been there? ‘course he should. All that moaning and groaning and, lamest of all, a petition from the Fuckwits of Glastonbury 2015, was so far beyond the festival spirit that it was laughable. A petition? What, like you’re gonna sign something and change the bill so that Another Mainstream Guitar Band can headline? GET A LIFE!!! It’s music, not an illegal invasion – go watch something else, there’s not exactly a shortage at Worthy Farm, is there?

Me, I wanted Kanye West Inc to blow minds. Can’t say I’m a fan (megalomaniacal hip hop not my area) but I do have Yeezus and, musically at least, it’s a dense piece of work – way more intense than you might think – and if KWest is a fraction as good as people/he claim then a headline slot should be a piece of piss. Let him prove it. That way, it’s his gig to win or lose.

And for the first three or four tracks, he does win. Black Skinhead festival-loud? Immense. Excess-all-areas gigawatt light show? Ditto. NASA-scale spectacle that unfolds from one-man intro to mega-band multimedia Show Biz Ness ‘I was there’ moment?

Er … no. And that’s what kills it for the non-Kanyes who coulda been won. There is no spectacle from the World’s Greatest Rock Star (whatever), there is no attempt to connect, there is nothing at all but Wanye K in his sweaty combats, singing to his own tunes like a celebrity karaoke/Kanyeoke special. Real-time hubris: ‘I shall own this motherfucking stage. Coz I’m not letting anyone else on it.’

Flick the channel and see a saviour in Suede, performing to and for the FANS. Flick back to the Pyramid Stage and see a man on his own. In a crane.

West just lost.

Back on more familiar Amplifier ground, what about Motorhead? Sadly, it looks like the days of Motorheadaches might be gone. Lemmy is uncomfortably frail to watch, and when Ace of Spades gets sung instead of Overkill… ach. Sad to see. At least Spiritualized ace it over the weekend.

’til next time!