Week Commencing: 30/8/04
By: Toby L
Groan,
Can someone spare us a bed? Two festivals in two weekends, a club-night in between, let alone all fare of gigs / meetings / blah has left rockfeedback snotty-nosed and exhausted.
Sort of. But it's also left us more simultaneously stimulated and rejoiced than a flock of nuns ascending a cloud-infested escalator to the Holy Heavens Above. Hallelujah!
And why? Because V 2004 had Pixies making grown men cry; while all manner of 'The' bands proved mesmerising - The Strokes, The Zutons, The Killers, The Thrills; and Reading 2004 boasted The Rasmus getting bottled, Graham Coxon knocking the living shit out of our eardrums during a rapt headline-set in a big tent, Super Furries creating ravers out of an earnest rock crowd, and Morrissey opening his performance with a dazzling 'How Soon Is Now?'.
Add to the mash a Basement club-evening, featuring Thirteen Senses performing one of their smallest ever gigs to date to hardcore supporters, and The Magic Numbers swaying us once more with their third in a residency at the night. Sterling.
New content to examine, online now - our coverage on said-above events, and Sam Hall's saucy, sultry evening out with The Killers. Invigorating.
Gigs this week, London: Embrace return to the London stage with a sell-out show on Friday (3rd Sept); Jurassic 5 hit the Forum in Kentish Town (Thurs 2nd; sold out); Mark Lanegan is at the Carling Islington Academy (Wed 1st; sold out); Sonic Youth are appearing at a London one-off - the Brixton Academy (Thurs 2nd; sold out); The Dears - Bella Union's latest signings - are cavorting at the Barfly @ Monarch (Fri 3rd; £7:00); The Duke Spirit play the ICA (Thurs 2nd; sold out); and Trachtenberg Family Slideshow Players are at the Carling Islington Academy on Saturday (4th Sept; £12:50).
Alt-UK Chart-action, this week: GLC remain in the top-five for a second week with their irrepressible 'Guns Don't Kill People, Rappers Do'; Dizzee Rascal scrapes a respectable entry at number ten with 'Stand Up Tall'; Lostprophets are 13; Har Mar, with 'DUI', is 46; Kings Of Convenience's 'Dance With You' has mustered 60; Bonnie Prince Billy manages 69 with 'Agnes Queen Of Sorrow'; while International Airport and Teenage Fanclub's split-release slivers in at #75. Albums: our present Band of the Week The Prodigy have gone straight in, deservedly so, at number-one with 'Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned'; Soulwax's 'Any Minute Now' is 63; and Jeff Buckley's 'Grace' has re-entered at 44.
The Issue: It's back! Your chance to email through your views - and this week we're asking: Carling Weekend or V - which one took your fancy and equated to a 'ruddy good time' more-so than the other? Email theissue@rockfeedback.com with all your views. Preferably (not) the libellous ones.
Current rockfeedback playlist: The Thrills' epic, but brief, 'Let's Bottle Bohemia' second album; Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds' brooding latest; Dizzee Rascal's 'Showtime'; and Interpol's astonishing and quite, quite moving 'Antics' LP.
Off now to scrape some festival mud off the ole' mullet; speak soon.