For those about to rock, or that have just rocked: what gigs or festivals are you going to or have you been to recently and what did you think of it?

I (and ArkanGL) figured this could use a thread of its own.

Just to start of, my Graspop report.

I have much to report here.

I will.
Later...
Now it's time for my daily TV-series fix.

--
ArkanGL

I'd like to go to Bumbershoot this year, as well as some of the Summer Nights series.

And then there's the upcoming Queens of the Stone Age/NIN tour that I must attend!!!

Guess what, i'm going next week! :P
Allthough i will not get to see QOTSA, because i only go the festival on saturday and they're playing on sunday. But NIN alone was almost enough to justify the (expensive!) cost of the ticket. Adding to that: Audioslave, Rammstein, Therapy? and Pennywise and you know i can't pass up on that.

wishin' I was in Belgium. Lucky sod...

You ever get to Austria? I got friends in Innsbruck.

If everything turns out right, I'll be seeing The Mountain Goats (aka John Darnielle all by himself) tomorrow night.

Saw the Rev. Horton Heat with the Shack Shakers yesterday. The music and a few beers more than attoned for four hours of standing in the rain. A good half of the Rev's set was audience requests which I thought was really cool.

So... let's see
Only this month and due to lack of cash I lost the following
Chemical Brothers (who I heard sucked)
Faithless
Kraftwerk
Moby

and more losses coming up

quote:

Originally posted by anarchocyclist:
If everything turns out right, I'll be seeing The Mountain Goats (aka John Darnielle all by himself) tomorrow night.

Damn! Twice the venom of the Afghan Whigs, with half the decibels. I've got to get out for them some day.

Firstly, shut up, Anarcho.

Secondly, last major gig was Satch. Bewdiful. Caught a pick and everything.

Last Saturday, saw the Hard Ons at the Rev as part of their 21st anniversary tour. Being told they were punk, I was sceptical, but jesus Peter Black can play. I was three feet from this awesome axeman. Another brilliant SG-wielding Sydneysider - trills like Angus Young and I swear Black's the dude Zakk Wylde stole pinched harmonics with huge vibrato from.

Seeing Chase Dabney on Thursday.

quote:

Originally posted by lithos:
Firstly, shut up, Anarcho.

What? Can't a guy be a cultural elitist any more?

quote:

Secondly, last major gig was Satch. Bewdiful. Caught a pick and everything.

*snicker*

Did you frame it?

(Sorry.)

quote:

Last Saturday, saw the Hard Ons at the Rev as part of their 21st anniversary tour.

Holy crap, I actually like a band Lithos likes.

Will wonders never cease.

i've got Dylan up at the end of this month, Jack White the beginning of August. NIN will be in September. i'll get back to you.

edit: /me should be flogged for the spelling mistake.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: charmakarmacat,

Last weekend, I went to two different festivals
(although their names were rather similar).
Furia was in Cergy, north of Paris.
Fury Fest was in Le Mans, in the West of France.

I drove more than 500Km in just for these festivals.
I drove by day and night,
until only my brother's punk jokes kept me conscious enough not to hit anything.

But the gigs were definitely worth every bit of the exhaustion that
followed.

Furia was a rather mainstream festival, with bands of various styles,
from French pop to Norwegian deathpunk via Haïtian voodoo.

Fury Fest was a 'metal' festival and ended up being my favourite.

Furia's crowd was mostly teenagers, which made for very nice moshing.
There were people juggling all around, and families with kids.

Fury Fest's crowd was something different :
Leather clad spiky people, metalheads.
Punks, goths and tramps.
And still enough young people not to feel too threatened.
(as some of you may already know, I don't look scary, except when wearing
my hotdog outfit)

** Friday June 24th **
Furia Festival

- Jackson Telemaque was playing.
I had never heard of him.
He's from Haïti, and he plays somewhat traditional music.
He spent most of his show calling 'the spirits' by singing prayers.
And near the end, he claimed that the spirits were there, and were happy
to be there with us.
Me, my borthers and my cousins have a special fondness for that kind of
act, so we liked the guy.

- Les Blerots de R.A.V.E.L.
R.A.V.E.L. standing for Renouveau Artistique Volontairement Elaboré par
des Losers
(Artistic Renewal Willingly Generated by Losers)
They're a bunch of guys singing in French, on yiddish-influenced music.
Not my stuff at all.

- Flogging Molly :
One of my favourite bands in the last years.
I discovered them last August at the Rock en Seine festival (Paris).
Since then I've seen them again last winter in a small venue, which
rocked.
They play a mix of Irish folk and punk.
My initial reaction was to compare them to Rednex, which isn't a good
thing at all.
But then I came to think differently.
Their music has something special.
It's happy, wild, crazy, loud and original.
It's... PIRATE MUSIC! (note that this gig was on Friday)
Y'arrr!
They drink Guiness on stage, and I managed to have a can of it thrown at
me.
Talk about a moment of glory !
Awesome gig.
Moshing, slamming, screaming and singing.

- Arno :
A Belgian guy who sings in French.
Vaguely reminiscent of Tom Waits.
Some songs were cool, others were complete crap.
Not as bad as what I expected, though.

- La Phaze :
A French band trying very hard to be Asian Dub Foundation.
I think the problem is their singer.
Their music is very decent jungle, but the singer blows it for me...
Why does he have to say "wicked!" when he's in front of a French audience,
singing in French ?


- Louise Attaque :
I didn't attend to that gig, but they deserve a very special mention.
I hate this band.
It's a French pop band, created 10 years ago.
Their originality was that they mixed rock with French folk (violin,
accordion, etc).
They are a pure commercial product.
Aired too many times on every radio, adored by too many people.
They split five years ago, spawning several new bands of the same kind.
This year, they've come back together.
This gig at Furia was their 'long expected comeback'.
I spent the afternoon telling my cousins/brothers not to go, but they
liked the albums, and wanted to see them.
I left them, and went to see La Phaze instead.
And during this gig, I had the immense pleasure of watching an
ever-growing crowd of people joining me.
As the gig progressed, people left Louise Attaque, realizing that they are
bad, and joined me.
I ended up surrounded by my family, everyone complaining about how sucky
Louis Attaque is on stage.
Ahh, sweet revenge...

- Le Tigre :
I know... it's pop. It's mainstream.
But I expected RnB.
So I was pleasantly surprised.
They sound like a J-Pop band!
Except they sing in English, which spoils the fun...

- Turbonegro :
I knew their records, and like them allright.
But I was far from imagining how awesome they are on stage.
They are very impressive and sick and crazy.
The singer, Hank Von Helvete, dressed as the Warlord from Deep Suburbia is
a show of its own.
I need to find a picture of his Odin-like outfit...

I now think of them as on par with AC/DC, which is a lot for me.
If you liked 'Big Balls', you'll love every Turbonegro tune.


After this, there were other bands, but we left before, because we had to
drive home
'we' being my girlfriend and one of my brothers. My other brothers and my
two cousins had set a tent at Furia, and would stay on the next day.

What I missed? The Wailers.
And my brother told me they rocked.
Too bad.
But I had some rockin' to do!


** Saturday June 25th **
Fury Fest (Le Mans)

Sorry for my lack of knowledge of the various sub-currents of heavy-metal.
Hardcore, death-metal, black-metal... it's all the same to me.
Punk and Oï, on the other hand, are easy to distinguish.

- Inside Conflict :
A French hardcore band.
Not famous yet.
Nothing special.
Good headbanging \m/

- Aborted :
Hardcore too.
More famous (I think).
Even better headbanging and horns \m/ ^_^ \m/

- Flogging Molly (again!) :
Always good.
This time, they played a fatser set, dropping the few ballads they had
played on the previous day.
This audience would be harder to convince.
But they did well.
There was a large crowd, and people loved it enough to call them back at
the end.
My girlfriend and I were probably the biggest fans in the audience,
singing along with the singer who noticed us and gave us an appreciative
look.

After the gig, we had a long chat with the guitarist,
who -oddly enough- confirmed that moving to Vancouver in the next years
may be a nice choice for me.
( and he taught us how to play his tunes : only four chords are needed)

- Murphy's Law :
I don't know how to tell it in a funny enough way...
Anyhow... they didn't come!
How cool is that? A band is called Murphy's Law, and it fails to be there
to play.
I laughed like crazy for several minutes afterwards.

- The Business :
English punk band.
My brother, a notorious 15 years old punk-expert told me they're an Oï
band
It makes a lot of sense.
Screaming "Oï ! Oï ! Oï !" has something exhilarating to it.
I liked it.
Their latest album is called 'Hardcore Hooligan', which says enough on the
kind of musical mood they instillate.

- Dissection :
Yet another hardcore band.
I only saw the end of their gig, but it sounded prety similar to the
others.

- Kreator :
Guess what? Hardcore!
Supposedly famous.
Not bad.
Nothing special either.
(by this point, David, along with all the other metalheads, must be
screaming in agony)

- Turbonegro (again!?) :
Yay!
W00t!
Yatta!
Enough said.
The singer had trouble with his microphone, so the gig didn't go as good
as their previous one.
But still...
There's something magic with this fat troll telling us in French that he's
a male prostitute from the Bois de Boulogne.

- The Exploited :
Legendary!
According to my brother, it was the first time this punk band played in
France in 10 years.
Their last gig had spawned such a riot that they had been forbidden to
stay in the country for 10 years.
No riot this time, but a fucking good time.
A huge crowd of punks at the front, and other people behind.
Behind me was a 'farmboy' whose only punk reference was The Offspring.
I guess this one kicked his ass.

Even though there's not much left from the original band ( Wattie is worth
more than 'not much', though ),
it still did a lot of good to my tired ears (standing in front of the
speakers at the Turbonegro gig made me deaf).

After this, we were satisfied, and left.

What we missed ? Megadeth!
I'm not sure how good they are now, but I would have liked to see them.
But it was past midnight and I had 200Km to drive...


** Sunday June 26th **
Furia Festival

But first, my brother's report regarding what I missed on Saturday : the
Kyo gig!
Kyo is an horribly sugary comercial band for little girls.
They pretend to be rockers, but... no way in Hell!
It's just a bunch of over-mediatised poseurs, all under 20.

My brother and cousins attended to the gig, along with several hunder Kyo
haters.
They stood in the pit, their back turned, giving them the finger and
screaming at them for 2 hours.
They threw rotten tomatoes and various stuff they had brought with them or
found nearby.
Another friend of mine who went to the festival on this day confirmed it
was one of the best things he had ever seen.

I would have loved to see that...
My brother had screamed so loudly that he was almost unable to speak on
Sunday.

And now back on sunday :
- Mon Côté Punk :
French folk with various influences.
Not punk at all (maybe in spirit, but not musically).
Not my thing.
Bo-ring.
And seing people dancing to that music after our day at Fury Fest made us
feel... I don't know. Evil ?

- Stanley Kubi :
Excellent!
A French band self defined as surf-bossanova.
Complete crazyness.
The singer forbids any applause, and shared whiskey with the audience.
I hope I'll find their record somewhere... they're rather unknown for now.
Too weird for the mainstream audience.

Meanwhile my brothers and cousins went to see The Servant.
Teenagers... bah...

- No One Is Innocent :
French metal band from the 90's.
Recently restarted by its main singer with a new crew.
One of the few French bands I like.
Very strong lyrics, and an entire album written by Maurice G. Dantec...
THE French cyberpunk author.
Of of their quotes bathed my entire high school years, adn can be
translated as :
"If you think hackers are a bunch of anarchists ready to turn the world
into fire and blood just for fun, you are completely mistaken....
We are much worse than this!"
Yay!
They rocked.
A little disappointment : the pit was filled with teenage girls, which
made me feel old...
and since I'm a (self-titled) decent guy, I didn't try to mosh with them.

- Casabian (sp?):
British pop-rock.
I found them allright.
No problem.
Having a nap in front of the stage.
My girlfriend hated them...

- Therapy?
Kickass!
Loud and classy.
The audience was odd... there weren't enough people.
I guess it's normal, after three days of festival.
But still, putting myself in the band's shoes (too many pairs for my two
feet...) :
what do you think when you play in front of 100 people when you're 'used'
to 10 times more?


That's all folks!
Any comments?

--
ArkanGL

Dude you rock! \m/ ^_^ \m/
Just getting your commentary is worth reading this entire post.

quote:

Originally posted by charmakarmacat:
i've got Dillon up at the end of this month, Jack White the beginning of August. NIN will be in September. i'll get back to you.

Charma, I'll buy an extra ticket when they go on sale if you wanna drive down here to see them with me in september, that would be so cool...

for NIN? dude, absolutely.

Queens of the stone age are opening up for them.

Great report Arkan!

Some corrections (cause you know i wouldn't just let them pass anyway ): Neither Aborted, Dissection nor Kreator are hardcore. The first two are death metal (aborted is belgian, getting quite famous and really good, dissection is swedish i think, they're trying the recapture the spirit of the old Dissection which split up somewhere in the mid 90's but are horribly failing the attempt); Kreator is full on thrash metal. And yes, i am quite shocked that you label them nothing special... Dude, they're one of the few big european classic thrash bands.

And some comments: Arno is awesome. Sure not all of his songs are of the same level, but those like "O la la la (c'est manginfique)" and "Putain Putain" are pure gold. The man is really funny too.
I really do need to see Flogging Molly live at some point.
Therapy? is playing on Werchter, but they're the first band to get up stage... can you believe that?! I just hope i'll be able to make it in time. On previous editions of the festival i only managed to be on time for the first band once, and that was because i was staying at the festival the whole weekend, so it doesn't bode well.

quote:

Originally posted by anarchocyclist:
If everything turns out right, I'll be seeing The Mountain Goats (aka John Darnielle all by himself) tomorrow night.

AC I am just bleeding GREEN with envy, have the blameworthy desire for that which is anothers, which is to say I COVET...(in this case) the experiance. Would adore to hear him live.
Course he's all by himself, (grin ) why wouldnt he be?.. love dem lyrics... ouch

i went to barcelona last week(ish). sónar festival, baby. a lovely time was had by all. great weather, not too hot. i missed shitloads of bands, but these were my highlights:

jamie lidell
ada
troy pierce vs magda
dj pharfar
roisin murphy
andrew wetherall (djing at moog)
bpitch (djing on the beach)

"we have to take a second because tyler broke two bass strings"
lcd soundsystem, after playing losing my edge