11 posts tagged “the view”
I return to Melrose and collect Ken, the two of us heading onto the site. It has been raining constantly all morning and reports are that it is incredibly muddy. As we pull onto the site the rain stops and to my relief it is actually quite warm, warmer than I can remember the festival being since the early nineties. I manage to walk around in T Shirt all day. Because of the good weather everyone came down early and the Hospitality Car Parks were full by Wednesday. We are parked up in West 26, a good hour’s trek from the hospitality area. When we finally arrive there we manage to find Lee, Adcock, Muz. I head over to watch The View in the Other field. I hear songs like “Face for the Radio” and “Same Jeans” and they are perfect. My hope is that I can get Kyle over to New York to work with Mark Ronson and that could be a route back to success.
I head over to the Park Stage to see The Dead Weather. White Lies are playing Springsteen’s “Dancing in the Dark”; it is good to hear them perform a classc song. I keep walking uphill, through the Greenfields, stopping to look at the anarchist bookstalls. I make it to the Park and watch them setting up for Dead Weather. I wonder how well we have publicised that they are playing here? I go backstage to see if they are about and run into Nick Dewey. He insists I go and see the Shangri La stages; they are the last refuge of the Mutoid Waste Company and all of the creative travellers from the eighties. That is what I love about this festival; I have to get up there.
No sign of the band so I go back out front. It is starting to get busier. The stage looks amazing; the aesthetic of the band is spot on, all of them in black and leather, all of their guitars white and gold. When they come on there is a reassuring roar from the crowd. The band are so alive, they remind me of a bunch of kids playing hooky from school, on the run after robbing a bank, all of them cheating on their girlfriends and in the first flush of romance. It is so exhilarating to watch. What I love is how the crowd react. Suddenly this record is now becoming accessible, the blues riffs making perfect sense at Glastonbury. Alison is so spectacular, it is impossible to take my eyes off her. All of them though are at the top of their game, playing for the love of it, I wonder how long they can keep it up for, will it just keep getting better and better or is the first flush of enthusiasm in a new band. Whatever, I don’t want this to end. I am heartbroken to think that I won’t be able to see them again until the autumn. For the final song Jack comes out from behind the kit to play guitar and duets beautifully with Alison at the microphone. The chemistry is electric. As he launches into his guitar solo she saunters off to the side of the stage and sits there on the PA tower watching him. It is amazing. They stand in line to soak up the applause. It is a glorious moment. I am so proud to be involved with all of this, driving it forward.
I run into Angie and John her husband and we go backstage. The band are all so excited, so happy with how it has gone. They are being rushed away to do an interview with Zane Lowe. He loves them. He has taken our statement that he won’t be able to play the video as a direct challenge which is a good sign. I go and hook up with the label who are all down here. I love The Park stage, not least because it is not so muddy. It has a bit of the old Glastonbury spirit. I would happily hang with all of them as they get fucked up and party but sadly I have work to do. I run into Gaz Coombes. He and Danny had their Hot Rats covers project here today. He is looking great in a white top hat. His little boy is crawling across the ground.
I head down to the Other Stage, stopping to eat a potato and lentil curry on the way. I find Rob in the backstage area and we go and call on the Ting Tings before they go on. Katie is looking stunning in a purple sequinned top over this black body stocking with white patterns on it and biker boots, all beneath this amazing peaked cap with part of the peak pinned up. They seem really happy. I follow them out onto the stage, all the while thinking how far they have come in the two years from when they played The BBC Introducing Stage to 75 people and I was hit on the head by Katie’s beater. It is still so exciting to walk up behind one of your bands onto the stage, to see them stand there in front of a packed field of maybe 40-50,000 people, this really is immense. They are moved by it. It is the perfect slot, the sun setting in the west, everyone up for it. They play an amazing set. Jules kicks it off playing the keyboard part of “We Walk” building the tension before Katie emerges to this explosion of applause. It has been a while since they have played in the UK and all of the work and success in America is paying off. They are exceptional. To watch two people keep so many people captivated is amazing. They augment their performance with a great LED screen behind them and a brass section of girls in brightly coloured wigs who join them for key moments in a couple of songs, but never crowd the sound. At one moment Katie is so exuberant during “Shut Up and Let Me Go” that the drum falls back off the podium and she throws her guitar down and picks up the cow bell to keep the rhythm going, it is immense. She is standing on that drum by the end, leading the crowd in a chorus of “Shut up and let me Go”. The “Psycho Killer interlude is spot on and Jules’ intro to “That’s Not My Name” on the drum machine firing off bursts of “Walk this Way” and “Ghostbusters” takes the crowd to another level.
Backstage afterwards they are thrilled with the way it has all gone, as they should be, it was very fucking special.
I go and watch out front. Kasabian come on to “Vlad the Impaler” it is perfect, all of the air raid spotlights going mental, the strobes, the sirens, everything you could ask for. It is one hell of a punch with which to launch the show. Follow it up with “Reason is Treason” a brutal one two. Tom is fabulous, whipping the crowd into a frenzy; truly there are no frontmen in British bands who can hold a candle to him. It is only a forty-minute set tonight, hemmed in by the constraints of the Camden Crawl. “Fire” has been transformed and gets everyone in the room punching the air tonight, I can't wait until the recod is out there and everyone knows all the words.
We head down to watch them play to the assembles 6,000. It’s a great crowd, young, hip, good looking. The band go down really well, play all of the hits
It is a special show tonight, the climax to a remarkable year for the band. It is great to see them stretch themselves across an hour long set, playing songs like "Street Lights" and "Claudia" that slip out of the shorter sets. The crowd is barmy, a vast sea of arms and legs down in the Stalls. "Constant chants of "the View, the View, the View are on Fire!" resound arcross the venue. They bring on a trombone for "Claudia" which works well, last band I saw pull that off was Snuff. Play a new tune as well with Kyle and Kieran on guitars and sharing vocal duties. A kind of Ska number that promises much for the new record. But tonight is a celebration of where they have found themselves right now, poised ready to take their music around the world. As the song says "You'd be amazed at what you can achieve in a year"
I drive down to Brixton to see Mumm Ra open the NME Tour. To my relief when I walk in at 7.15 the place is more than two thirds full. I am so delighted that people have made the effort to get down early and see all four bands. I push to the front. The crowd is young, plenty of teenage boys and girls. They get Mumm Ra; at the end of their songs a great cheer echoes throughout the hall. Tonight they properly come through and the possibilities become obvious. They have it within themselves to be so much more than their contemporaries, they really could breakthrough and become Coldplay. Nu even manages to catch his fucking wooden duck spinning high on a stick, what a metaphor for how confident
Mumm Ra have come on immeasurably since I last saw them. they begin the show with "Now or Never" which starts deceptively slow then explodes into this incredible blast of white light and guitar noise. this is what marks the band out from their contemporaries. They fit alongside all of the charming jangling indie boys, but they reach for the stars. There is something truly special and epic about them that puts them on a higher plane.
Certainly they are connecting with their audience these days, which is bouncing along from the beginning. Songs like "What Would Steve Do" are greeted like old favourites and "She's Got You High" sounds magnificent. James the singer has the trick of spinning their mascot, a wooden mallard on this drum stick, then throwing it high into the air and catching it again. Not always successful but an interesting quirk. My only regret is that they don't attempt the sublime "Starlight" tonight.
We go and watch The View on the balcony. Without question this tour belongs to them. he audiece embrace them like homecoming heroes. Hard to believe it was only a few months ago they were releasing their first single and here they are delivering a set that feels packed with
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