The Cure, live @ Ejekt 2019 (Athens, July 17th, 2019)
In the third and last post of our three-part series presenting the live music we got to enjoy during our July vacation, we have photos and videos from Ejekt Festival 2019 headlined by The Cure and also featuring Michael Kiwanuka, Ride, Khruangbin and The Steams.
Khruangbin, live @ Ejekt 2019 (Athens, July 17th, 2019)
We arrived at Plateia Nerou, the seaside location of the festival in recent years, just in time to catch the summer vibes of Khruangbin, the Texas trio which we also enjoyed a few days earlier at BST Festival in London. The early afternoon heat did not hinder their breezy set which brought us the sounds of their recent album "Con Todo El Mundo", an interesting, laid back mix of global music, soul, funk, garage and psychedelia.
Ride, live @ Ejekt 2019 (Athens, July 17th, 2019)
The logical flow would suggest that after Khruangbin we should be hearing Michael Kiwanuka's soul sounds, but instead the musical mood changed drastically with the classic shoegaze guitars of Ride. The Oxford band has defined this sound with its early '90s output and in the almost 60-minutes they played, we got to hear several of their classics including "Seagull", "Dreams Burn Down", "Leave Them All Behind", "Taste", "Vapour Trail"and "Drive Blind". Ride's return to action in recent years has also brought us some exciting new music and their set also included songs from their 2017 comeback album "Weather Diaries" as well as a couple from their forthcoming work "This Is Not a Safe Place", with closer "Kill Switch" being one of the highlights of their performance.
Michael Kiwanuka, live @ Ejekt 2019 (Athens, July 17th, 2019)
Michael Kiwanuka and his band with the easier to the ear melodic soul and folk sounds allowed us some time to relax and enjoy our beer before the mammoth, two and a half hour headline set of goth godfathers The Cure.
The Cure, live @ Ejekt 2019 (Athens, July 17th, 2019)
Robert Smith and his band have not played around these parts for almost 14 years, so the long set filled with highlights from The Cure's early years until their late '80s - early '90s hits was more that welcome from the huge crowd of all ages that filled the venue to see them. It was certainly one of those occasions where different rock generations meet, some to remember the music of their youth, some to see for the first time one of rock's legendary bands, that although it has not produced any new music for several years now, its classic output is more than enough for a great festival show.
Here's The Cure's set list at Eject Festival which this year celebrated its 15th anniversary, plus a couple of videos from the event:
Part 2 of our highlight reel from Barcelona's Primavera Sound 2015 festival - check out photos and videos from the performances we've enjoyed the most on the second full day of the festival which took place at Parc del Fòrum on May 29th, plus a couple of new bands from Australia we saw at MACBA, the Museum of Contemporary Art of Barcelona.
Sleater-Kinney
It's been nearly 16 years since the last time I saw Sleater-Kinney live, firstly on the main stage of Reading Festival in 1999, playing a great set early in the afternoon, and then again a few days later at London ULU as part of the celebrations for Matador Records 10th birthday.
In the time that passed since these two unforgettable performances, the band released three more excellent records after that year's "The Hot Rock" (my Album of the Year for 1999), went on a ten-year hiatus during which we've had many exciting projects, musical or otherwise, from all three of them, and reemerged triumphantly this year with "No Cities To Love", an album that proves the magic is still here and their special chemistry still works wonders.
Without a doubt, Sleater-Kinney's hour-long set at Primavera's Heineken stage was amongst the festival's top performances, combining highlights from their new album with some of the finest tracks they've given us over the past two decades. Their set went as far back as 1997 for "Dig Me Out"'s dynamite title track and "Words and Guitar", while all their '00s work was well represented with 2006's "The Woods" taking the lion's share. The only minus point for me of an otherwise faultless set was the complete omission of the numerous gems to be found on "The Hot Rock" (I think "Get Up" would have been perfect for the finale). I guess you can't have it all in just one hour, but we did have all of the following:
Sleater-Kinney's complete set list: Price Tag, Jumpers, Bury Our Friends, Oh!, Surface Envy, Ironclad, What's Mine Is Yours, No Cities to Love, Fangless, Rollercoaster, A New Wave, One Beat, All Hands on the Bad One, The Fox, Words and Guitar, Sympathy, Dig Me Out, Entertain, Modern Girl.
Sleater‐Kinney - No Cities to Love (live @ Primavera Sound, May 29th, 2015)
Sleater‐Kinney - Dig Me Out / Entertain (live @ Primavera Sound, May 29th, 2015)
The Julie Ruin
You can say that the second day of Primavera Sound was dominated by ex-riot grrrls who are now riot women and prove in action that 40 is the new 20. Kathleen Hanna was in excellent form throughout the 45-minute set of her new band The Julie Ruin, hopefully an indication that her health problems are now behind her, and along with her band mates, including former Bikini Kill partner in crime Kathi Wilcox, delivered a scorcher of a set, full of positive energy.
Check out below "Oh Come On", one of the best songs in a set list that included the following: V.G.I., Lookout, Party City, South Coast Plaza, Kids in NY, Radical or Pro-parental, Ha Ha Ha, Goodnight Goodbye, Oh Come On, Run Fast.
The Julie Ruin - Oh Come On (live @ Primavera Sound, May 29th, 2015)
Disappears
It's certainly one of the marks of a good festival: you walk in with certain expectations, but sometimes the great moments come when you least expect them. Like at five o'clock in the afternoon, in the sparsely attended Ray-Ban stage, when Chicago's Disappears deliver an intense set under the hot sun. I imagine if they were on later at night, this could easily have been one of the festival's most talked about performances. Even so, they rightfully earn a place in our highlight reel of the day and convince me that I need to do some digging in their discography which so far includes five albums, with their latest release being this year's "Irreal" LP.
Disappears, live @ Primavera Sound, May 29th, 2015
Ride
The recently reunited shoegaze heroes have been steadily upping their game since their return to the live stage and it's easy to see they are now firing on all cylinders. The start of their set with "Leave Them All Behind" and early single "Like a Daydream" was truly impressive and they continued well with "Nowhere" tracks "Polar Bear" and "Seagull", but given the difficulty in approaching the overcrowded main stage to get a closer look and the fact that almost simultaneously both Run The Jewels and Death From Above 1979 were also playing, after a while I had to make my excuses and move on to other pursuits. Here's "Like a Daydream", undoubtedly one of the highlights of the day:
Ride - Like a Daydream (live @ Primavera Sound, May 29th, 2015)
The New Pornographers
If you're at a festival and The New Pornographers are playing, you should definitely find some time for them. Even with some of their key players missing (both Neko Case and Dan Bejar were not present), Carl Newman's team is a sure bet for some memorable, upbeat rock with strong melodies that's good for any time of the day or night. One of the best performances we caught at the ATP stage where also Run The Jewels, Belle and Sebastian and The KVB played.
The New Pornographers - Mass Romantic (live @ Primavera Sound, May 29th, 2015)
Death From Above 1979
The second day of the festival finished for us around 2 in the morning, after a blistering performance by Canadian noise makers Death From Above 1979 at the crowded Ray-Ban stage. We walked back to the hotel under the sounds of Jon Hopkins whose set was just beginning at the ATP stage, but after 9 hours of running up and down Parc del Fòrum there just wasn't any more fuel left in the tank for us.
Check out below some more photos from Primavera's second day featuring Belle & Sebastian, Julian Casablancas + The Voidz and The KVB.
Belle & Sebastian
Julian Casablancas + The Voidz
The KVB
Earlier in the day, as part of the events of PrimaveraPro (the meeting for professionals from the music sector), we enjoyed a showcase of new bands from Australia outside of MACBA. Here's a couple of them, Klo, an electronic pop duo from Melbourne, following in the footsteps of acts like Purity Ring, and Holy Holy who play electric folk-rock that brought to my mind Band Of Horses.
Klo, live @ MACBA
Holy Holy, live @ MACBA
Check out here our impressions from the first day of the festival. Part 3 is coming soon...
The summer festival season is finally upon us and here in Cool Music Central we're getting ready for an epic 10-day music marathon! The start will be in Barcelona on May 28th with Primavera Sound 2015 and the finish in Athens on June 5th and 6th with the most ambitious edition of Plisskën Festival to date.
We'll have more on Plisskën in a couple of weeks time, but now it's time to focus on Primavera Sound and make plans and tough decisions about what to see and do in Barcelona's Parc del Fòrum between May 28th and 30th:
Day 1
The Black Keys
The Black Keys are the headliners on the Primavera stage around midnight, but our day will start much earlier with the afternoon performances of Hiss Golden Messenger (Ray Ban stage), Twerps (Pitchfork) and Cheatahs (Adidas Originals). Later on Giant Sand are playing against Viet Cong, which brings us to the first tough decision of this festival. Thankfully the latter are expected in Athens for their own show early in September, so Howe Gelb's band will be the most obvious choice for me.
The next tough call of the first day will come around 9 o'clock with The Thurston Moore Band versus The Replacements face-off, but having seen the former in Athens very recently is going to give me an easy way out for this dilemma.
Mikal Cronin (who is also playing Plisskën), Spiritualized (long time no see) and Tyler, The Creator are some of the available choices until it's time for The Black Keys, while for the small hours of the morning there is James Blake and JUNGLE on hand to make things funky.
Day 2
Ride
For the start of the second day of the festival we have Disappears on the Ray Ban stage while The Pastels will be playing on the small Heineken Hidden Stage, a performance that requires acquisition of reservation tickets.
The ATP stage is having a very solid line-up on Friday, starting with the early afternoon performance of The KVB which is followed by The New Pornographers, Belle & Sebastian and Run The Jewels, while on the Primavera stage we have Julian Casablancas+The Voidz, Damien Rice and Ride as the headliners.
We'll make sure, of course, not to miss the sets by The Julie Ruin and Sleater-Kinney on Ray Ban and Heineken stages respectively, who I'm willing to bet will be amongst the highlights of Primavera Sound 2015, while amongst all this madness Patti Smith & Band will be performing the classic "Horses" in its entirety. A lot of tough choices here and I'm not quite sure who will prevail.
Sleater-Kinney
For the after hours part of Day 2 we have to choose among Death From Above 1979, alt-J, The Juan MacLean, Earth and Jon Hopkins.
Day 3
The Strokes
The last day of Primavera Sound 2015 starts with Kevin Morby on Pitchfork stage with opposition from the promising Younghusband (ATP). DIIV, American Football, Torres, MOURN, tUnE-yArDs and HEALTH form a strong line-up on Pitchfork stage which will certainly lead us to pay it several visits throughout the day. Elsewhere, we have performances by The Vaselines, FuckedUp and Mac DeMarco, while the Sleaford Mods versus Foxygen derby will be decided for me by the fact that the punk-hop Mods will also be part of Plisskën'sline-up.
Just before The Strokes headlining performance at Primavera stage, there is fellow New York scene comrades Interpol playing at Heineken stage, while psychedelic Kiwis Unknown Mortal Orchestra will be appearing at the same time on Adidas Originals stage. However the most unfortunate clash for me comes from the fact that Babes In Toyland will be starting their set on ATP stage at exactly the same time as The Strokes, so I think I'll have to make do with my memories from the Babes live set at London's Forum twenty-something years ago.
For the finale of the festival, one can either dance the night away with Underworld and Caribou or catch the guitar blasts of Shellac, Thee Oh Sees and Hookworms. I think you know where we'll be.
The Strokes - Reading 2011 (Full Set)
See you on the other side with, hopefully, plenty of photos, videos and live reviews from all the action in Barcelona!
In the three previous editions of our latest series of posts, we've traveled back to 1980, 1985and 1995to remind you of some key tracks from these years that can be classified as hits, cult classics or obscurities based on their level of commercial success. Regardless of their popularity though, there is no doubt in my mind that the most appropriate label for all the song trios we've presented so far is Killer Tracks. Here's another killer trio, this time from 1990:
The early '90s was certainly a great era for the UK alternative music scene. Among the numerous new bands taking their first steps in that period were The Charlatans from the West Midlands, a band whose sound was quickly associated with the Madchester scene, and Ride from Oxford who soon became one of the pivotal bands of the shoegazing sound.
"The Only One I Know" was just the second single of The Charlatans, released on May 14th, 1990, and it instantly became a big hit, landing at number 9 on the UK Singles Chart and also breaking into the Top 10 of the Billboard Modern Rock Tracks in the US. Here's our choice for hit single of 1990:
It would take Ride a little longer to have a similar hit in the UK (that would be 1992's "Leave Them All Behind", which also peaked at number 9), but there is no doubt in the mind of shoegaze fans everywhere that the string of EPs that launched the band's career in 1990 include some of their best and most influential songs. One of them is our choice for this year's cult classic: here's "Chelsea Girl", track 1, side A of their debut, self-titled EP released on January 15th, 1990 on Creation Records, the song that was my introduction to Ride:
Danielle Dax has created throughout the '80s some truly unique, inspiring experimental pop records, all released on small, independent labels. In 1990 she made her major label debut with the fine "Blast The Human Flower", produced by Stephen Street. Despite a more accessible sound and a very good cover of The Beatles' "Tomorrow Never Knows" which she released as a single, the record didn't find the success it deserved and after one more independent release in 1995, Dax retired from music to focus on other artistic endeavors including interior design.
Have a listen to her cover of "Tomorrow Never Knows" below and make sure to check out her original compositions as well, not only on "Blast The Human Flower" but also on records like "Inky Bloaters", "Jesus Egg That Wept" or "Pop-Eyes".
