Fleet Foxes at the Manchester Apollo

I had a great night at the Manchester Apollo on Tuesday night watching Seattle’s Fleet Foxes. If you don’t know Fleet Foxes their music is often described as Folk Rock or Indie Folk but I don’t think either of these correctly reflects the music. They are pleasantly hard to categorise. The band is made up of some incredibly talented musicians but they are particularly praised for their beautiful vocal harmonies.

The opening track was an instrumental called ‘The Cascades’ and it felt a bit like an overture readying us for the main event. Robin Pecknold is a great frontman with a voice that can go from the gentle softness to aggressive power in a heartbeat but his voice sounded a bit lost during the second track ‘Grown Ocean’. I think the sound engineer pulled his socks up because things soon balanced out and within a couple of tracks the sound was just right.

The band seemed to get tighter with each track. By the time we got to the brilliant ‘Sim Sala Bim’ and fan favourite ‘Mykonos’ the music and vocal harmonies were perfectly seamed and tuly hypnotic. ‘Your Protector’ and ‘White Winter Hymnal’ were particular highlights. The crowd was really into the show and showed their appreciation with lots of singing and cheering. One or two attention seeking knobheads got a bit vocal between tracks but that seems to be the case at most gigs these days.

The main body of the set ended with a personal favourite of mine ‘Blue Ridge Mountains’ and the crowd loudly cheered them off at the end of it. The noise continued until Pecknold reappeared on his own to perform ‘Oliver James’ and this track showed just what an amazing vocal talent he is. The rest of the band then joined him onstage to end the night with ‘Helplessness Blues’.

A top gig by a top band in a top venue.

Set list as follows:
1. The Cascades
2. Grown Ocean
3. Drops In The River
4. Battery Kinzie
5. Bedouin Dress
6. Sim Sala Bim
7. Mykonos
8. Your Protector
9. Tiger Mountain Peasant Song
10. White Winter Hymnal
11. Ragged Wood
12. Lorelai
13. Montezuma
14. He Doesn't Know Why
15. The Shrine/An Argument
16. Blue Spotted Tail
17. Blue Ridge Mountains
Encore:
18. Oliver James
19. Helplessness Blues

Glastonbury - The Sunday Night

So the Sunday night headliner on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury wasn’t someone like The Levellers, the Manics or The Strokes, it was Beyonce. I have nothing against Beyonce and she is clearly very good at what she does but it’s just not my cup of tea. I can’t review her set because I didn’t watch it. I tried but after about 10mins I gave up. That kind of music just doesn’t do anything for me. Luckily the TV was also showing music from other stages so there was plenty to keep the rest of the viewing public engaged.

I was delighted to find that the Red Button was showing a decent chunk of a set by one of my favourite bands The Eels. I’ve been a fan of Mark ‘E’ Everett and his music since ‘Novocaine for the Soul’ was a minor hit in the mid-nineties. One of the main reasons I like the Eels is that they are constantly changing and re-inventing their style. Every tour they do has a different feel, look and sound. You never know what you’re going to get but you know it will be brilliant.

After The Eels I watched some Queens of the Stone Age. Unlike the Eels with Queens of the Stone Age you know exactly what you’re going to get and that’s what they delivered. It was an accomplished rock tour-de-force. It was Powerful, exhilarating and the perfect antidote to pop on the Pyramid stage. It’s perfect festival music and I really enjoyed it.

A lot of people are very annoyed that Glastonbury has become the sort of event that a pop act headlines. I agree to an extent but I think the festival is now so big it can cater for all tastes. If you didn’t want to watch Beyonce there was plenty of other stuff to see. I don’t particularly want to see another pop act headline again in the near future but if it’s in several years time and we are talking about someone as big as Beyonce then why not? Glastonbury has always prided itself on mixing genres and being inclusive of all types of music. Long may it continue.

I’m going to the Manchester Apollo tonight to see the Fleet Foxes. I’ll Blog about it some point over the next couple of days.

Glastonbury 2011

I had intended on following up yesterday’s Blog about U2 at Glastonbury (from the point of view of a TV viewer) with one about Coldplay. I started watching the Coldplay set but I’ll be honest I got bored and switched to other more interesting and diverse Glastonbury coverage.

I’m no expert on Coldplay and didn’t recognise the opening song. I think it was one of the new ones. It seemed a strange way to start and the crowd went almost silent. They should have started with the second song they performed which was ‘Yellow’. The crowd sung every word and it came across very well on television. After this it all went a bit flat and boring so I switched over and waited for the Chemical Brothers to come on.

While waiting for the Chemical Brothers I caught some of Aloe Blacc who was cooler than an Eskimo sat on an iceberg. I also watched Jessie J who did her whole set sat down because of a broken foot. Jessie J was joined on stage by a little girl from the crowd to join her singing Price Tag. The young lady in question was a 7 year old called Shay and she lit up the whole event. It was one of those wonderful Glastonbury moments.

There was also some coverage of Omar Souleyman from The Glade Stage. Omar Souleyman is Syrian and his sound is hard to describe. It’s like the Islamic call to prayer with a trance beat. I loved it.

The Chemical Brothers headlined the Other Stage. They are an amazing live act but it doesn’t always come across very well on the television. Last night’s coverage worked really well though and with the sound cranked up a notch was very enjoyable. It’s the sort of music that makes you want to drop one and go out and party.

After the Chemical Brothers I watched the Coldplay highlights on the red button. I really enjoyed it. I do like Coldplay but if you take away the best 4 or 5 songs it’s all a bit bland. The highlights were the best way to watch it. Chris Martin is a remarkable talent and I wish him and his band continued success. They certainly gave U2 a lesson in festival headlining. I just prefer something a bit less middle of the road.

U2 at Glastonbury 2011

Before I start I want to say that I’m going to steer clear of the tax avoidance issue. This Blog post is about the band, its music and the performance from last night.

I think this year’s choice of headliners is a bit poor. Coldplay will put a good show on but are a very conservative, risk free and, dare I say, slightly boring choice. Beyonce at Glastonbury just seems like an incredibly strange choice and doesn’t fit with my idea of what a Glastonbury headliner should be (it’s cruel but I would love to see her pelted with mud). The first headliner of the weekend though was the musical money making machine that is U2.

After last years no show U2 finally headlined a rain soaked Glastonbury. I’m not at Glastonbury this year so I can only give my opinion on their performance from the point of view of watching it on the television. I’m not in the U2 hater’s brigade but I’m not a big fan of them either so I’m exactly the sort of person they needed to win over.

My initial impression was that Bono looked nervous during the first couple of songs. Once he realised the crowd weren’t booing and throwing mud at him he seemed to settle down a bit and enjoy himself. The opening salvo was actually quite strong with hits taken mainly from the Achtung Baby era played against a backdrop of Zoo TV type video screen graphics. Things then settled down but only ‘One’, ‘Streets Have No Name’ and ‘I Still Haven't Found What I'm Looking For’ got the crowd singing. One of the strongest U2 songs is ‘Sunday Bloody Sunday’ and it should have been a highlight but it just felt a bit flat and lifeless. I did enjoy ‘Elevation’ but ‘Vertigo’ felt a bit forced.

The encore was a huge disappointment as they had used up all the most well know hits that are needed for a memorable finale. ‘With or Without You’ worked but ‘Moment of Surrender’ was lost on the crowd. ‘Out of Control’ couldn’t save them by this point and the set ended on a bit of a dour note.

Bono tried his best not to be a pretentious twat but he is one and he can’t hide it for long. His Jerusalem made me cringe with embarrassment. The Edge gave his all but couldn’t hide the fact that it’s all sound effect peddles and computer programmes. Andy Clayton and Larry Mullen were as tight and professional as we have come to expect and managed to hold the sound together.

U2 were never going to stir the emotions of a Glastonbury crowd in the same way as say Blur did a couple of years earlier. The hits are popular but the fact of the matter is that U2 rely on the big stage sets and video screens to mask much that is mediocre.

There were some good points last night but not enough to make it a triumph for U2. Perhaps if the weather had been better the crowd might have been a bit more up for it but I doubt the music would have lifted them to any great degree. I give U2 at Glastonbury a score of 6/10. Not bad but not great either.

Wimbledon

For two weeks of the year I love tennis and then spend most of the rest of the year ignoring it. Basically, I’m your typical British tennis fan. Every year we get all excited at the prospect that a British player will finally win the damn thing and every year we get let down. At least with Murray we’ve finally got someone with a real chance but I’m still not holding my breath. We do seem to have a few decent women players at the moment but none of them are likely to reach the business end of the tournament.

I think we need to be realistic about the chances of us ever churning out future Wimbledon winners because not enough people in this country play tennis and, like me, most only watch tennis during Wimbledon fortnight. I’m honestly not that bothered about this situation because it sometimes feels like watching the latest plucky Brit lose in the final set is one of the great Wimbledon traditions. It would feel weird to watch a Wimbledon full of winning British players. I think the atmosphere at Wimbledon would actually change for the worse because our reactions to the other players would change. I’m not saying I want British players to lose and I wish Andy Murray the best of luck. I’m just not going to lose any sleep about the state of British tennis because tennis isn’t really a game we play or follow as a nation.

Wimbledon is amazing. It is to Tennis what Monaco is to Formula One. As a nation we love it and the lack of decent British tennis players will never change that.

London Olympic Games

I know a large number of you are disappointed that you didn’t manage to get any tickets for the 2012 Olympic Games. I don’t want to rub it in but I’m one of the lucky few. I’ve got tickets for the Athletics on 7th August. I can’t wait as it is very much a once in a lifetime opportunity. I’ve always enjoyed watching the Olympics on the television and now I’m actually going to the games and in the main stadium!

I’m not going to see any finals but I don’t care. On the day I go it’s the men’s 110m Hurdles (round 1), men’s 200m (round 1), men’s Triple Jump (qualifying), women’s 5000m (round 1) and women’s Javelin (qualifying). It’s going to be amazing.

It’s not only seeing the athletics that I’m excited about. It’s the whole thing of going to the Olympic park, seeing the Olympic flame and soaking up the whole atmosphere of the event.

I decided to Blog about this because I’ve heard people up here saying all the tickets went to rich southerners, corporations and sponsors. Well I’m from Bolton and I’m far from being rich. I applied for tickets for just two athletics sessions because that’s all I could afford. I got tickets for one of the sessions I applied for. I just got very lucky.

Not another Blog about Stress and Depression

How many Blogs are there by people suffering from stress or depression? There must be thousands of them. Some are by drug addicts, alcoholics or abuse victims but the majority are by ordinary people. I’ll be honest; I’m usually the first in line to mock these people. My response to these Blogs usually involves the unnecessary over use of both the exclamation mark and the F word - for example:

• Get a fucking grip of yourself!

• Counselling? Don’t make me fucking laugh!

• You may be depressed but why do you feel the need to tell the whole fucking
world about it?

I think you get the picture.

A couple of months ago I was going through some issues (I know I hate that phrase too but the facts are private and I’m not sharing them on here) and I started suffering with insomnia. Other than in the last few weeks leading up to my Mum dying I’ve never had problems sleeping. Suddenly the night became something to fear and dread. I tried reading, listening to the radio in the dark or I would spend the early hours staring at the television hoping that at some point I would drop off. Yes I had some serious personal shit to deal with but I would also lie there worrying about all sorts of mad stuff. Seemingly inconsequential problems would suddenly seem massively important and insurmountable. After about 5 days with virtually no sleep I exploded. There was a great deal of shouting and then I burst into tears and couldn’t stop. I’ll be honest it was all a bit frightening.

Like most men I go to the doctors about as regularly as politicians tell the truth but I made an appointment and dragged myself to see my GP. I didn’t want to see the Doctor because I was genuinely worried at this point that I might be going completely fucking insane. I had visions of straitjackets, padded walls, an evil nurse and a mute Red Indian. In the end the Doctor was brilliant with me. We did some stress / depression tests, we talked about the things causing the stress and insomnia and came up with a plan to get me through it. The plan included medication and going to see a counsellor. I’ll be honest I wasn’t too keen on either but if it was going to help me feel better I was willing to try anything.

The medication has helped me calm down and I now manage to get some sleep. The medication isn’t so strong that it has turned me into something from a George Romero film but I do feel grogy in the mornings. The counselling isn’t what I expected and has helped enormously. The counsellor has talked me through some meditation type exercises to help me at times of high stress. I was cynical about this and was amazed to find it did actually help. The best thing about the counselling is just having someone to talk things through with. I get a lot of stuff of my chest and the advice given is excellent. It isn’t the head in the clouds psycho-babble I had feared. It’s about opening up about how you feel and not being scared of admitting your ill because only then do you start getting better. It’s about learning to recognise the triggers that set you off. I’m now taking each day as it comes because sometimes I still feel like shit. I know I’m not 100% yet. I’m still on medication and I’m still seeing the counsellor but I feel much better than I did.

Lots of people have a hard time skating across the thin ice of modern life but for most people the ice doesn’t actually break. Not everyone is so lucky; sometimes the ice breaks and people slip through the cracks. They feel like they are trapped under the water desperately trying to smash the ice and escape. The ones who manage to skate round the cracks often mock the ones who fall through. I used to be stood with the mockers but now I’m one of the mocked.

I won’t suddenly read lots of Blogs about depression and this Blog certainly won’t be turning into one but I will no longer take the piss and be judgemental of other people blogging about the subject. Getting things of your chest by writing about how you feel can be part of the healing process. A Blog can allow you to do this with the protection of some anonymity. If writing a Blog or an online diary about their illness helps people in the recovery process then good luck to them. It’s not for me, you or anyone else to judge them.