Thought for the day: What makes a good gig? I mean a really good gig - one that gets the adrenaline running and catches your breath, brings tears to your eyes, makes you laugh out loud, inspires you and sends you back out into the world looking at everything with fresh open eyes? Something that makes you wonder how it is that bands manage to get away with songs-by-numbers as if they're miming Top Of The Pops style. One such gig was the Manics a few years ago. Who needs the band, the live experience when you've got the CD and it sounds exactly the same? I can even make it sound almost as loud at home, so why bother wasting the money?
This year's Glastonbury was full of it. Lost Prophets, Snow Patrol, Kasabian (ok I don't like their music either) and many others all did it. So many times I was left wondering how much thought they'd actually put into their festival performance, if it were actually even special to them. Maybe it's that it's become commercialised like everyone says. Maybe it's no less than people expect. Maybe if I'd paid for my ticket I would have been even more disappointed.
Ben Harper was different. You really got the impression that these guys were in it for the music, not just there 'for the fooking money' as Liam Gallagher so eloquently put it as he left the stage (not that I saw them, coz that would be silly). For blissful solo after solo, wig-outs, extended breaks, gorgeous music and energy, Ben Harper drove the audience up and up, I didn't see another crowd at the festival in such a state (until James Brown and the end of Suzanne Vega). This was the real deal, this was the festival experience, this was what people go to Glastonbury for, to have a shared experience of something really quite special with thousands of other people, all riding the same wave.
Getting a bit emotional here, but that's what music is all about: emotion. There are a few kinds of music: music that makes you dance, music that makes you think, and music that carries you away with it on waves of emotion (get a list from google), and pop (which is supposed to be dance I guess). All of these things can be ruined by the performance, the attitude of the performer, the thought that goes into the set, and the desire / reluctance to create something unique.
I believe that of all the gigs that people saw, the ones they remember are going to be the ones where this happened. Where performers like Ben Harper (and James Brown) gave them something different, allowed his band to demonstrate (sounds too technical) their skills, show what music really means, what it can really be (Nina Nastasia did this a few weeks ago - see article below). PJ Harvey played new and old songs with lots of energy in new arrangements, it felt special.
So while for me, and possibly many others Ben Harper was the stand-out gig of the festival, I'm sure there were other seminal performances that I missed, and a great many who just didn't really put in the effort, or didn't have the imagination, skill or depth to be able to. I shouldn't hope too much. But one has to wonder what artists really get out of making so little effort, and how they deal with their obvious deficiencies. 'Orbital celebrated their last ever English show (Scotland next week) with a decidedly average Orbital by Numbers set which was almost identical to the one the did in the same slot on the same stage with the same visuals two years ago' (www.gusset.co.uk). And the years before that, no doubt. I remember when they were good live.
This was my fourth Glastonbury. Not many, but the others were full of once in a lifetime seminal festival performances. This year it wasn't really about the music and that hurt, although it was still one of the best, even with the mud and the rain and my new found limp due to achilles injury.
