Next year's lineup has excited me greatly. First and foremost, Neurosis are in town. When this happens I'm compelled to attend. They are, however, bringing their Beyond The Pale festival with them. This event happened two or three times at the beginning of the decade in San Francisco and usually presented itself as a kind of Neurot Recordings showcase. As the label and its roster have grown in status since the last festival, this should be a truly unique event and they've already signed up Guapo, Akimbo, US Christmas, OM, Skullflower, The Young Gods and Josh Graham's latest project A Storm Of Light (which seems to have temporarily replaced Red Sparowes for him - his place was taken by the Made Out Of Babies guitarist at Supersonic Festival this year). The very notion of Om, Skullflower and Neurosis playing the same gig is overwhelming. This beats the Earth/Boris/SunnO))) Doom-a-thon of ATP '07 hands down.**
The rest of the festival does not disappoint either. Cathedral themselves have confirmed, which means more than just a quality gig - perhaps they're back in the game after a few years off. A reformed Saint Vitus are booked too, which is a real coup considering the supposed animosity between Wino and Dave Chandler. I'm especially looking forward to Colour Haze's set, which will be my first. But my excitement will be almost entirely reserved for Amon Düül II.
I have a great fondness for Amon Düül II, they were a very colourful and idiosyncratic band that stood out from their peers and made some truly kaleidoscopic music in what many would call the Golden Age of rock music. I remember my first listen of 'Tanz der Lemminge', being utterly stoned, confused, and in awe. They've been reformed for a while now but remained low-key (save for a performance on the long-running and much-loved Rockpalast in Germany), and their inclusion is an unexpected one. Their relationship with doom/stoner etc. is not strong, but they were definitely psychedelic and very heavy on occasion.
On Halloween night I had the great pleasure of seeing Doomriders, SSS and Tortuga at the Islington Bar Academy. The guitarist Chris Pupecki was wearing an Amon Düül T-Shirt. He blew up his amp shortly into the set, and Tortuga's new guitarist (ex-Bossk) lent him his lovely fat Sunn head, which was then also blown up. Only SSS's rack could stand the volume and held up until the end of the set. We spoke briefly about his shirt, he told me where I could order it and I informed him that they're booked for Roadburn 2009. "I can't imagine they're very good these days." he said. Let's hope they prove him wrong.
Here's an excellent performance of 'Eye-Shaking King' for your pleasure:
*Previous "best festival lineups ever" include the Portishead ATP '07, Glade Festival '07 and Download Festival '05. But we all know the actual Best Festival Lineup Ever was in fact the Isle Of Wight Festival 1970.
**It must be noted that all three bands surpassed themselves the next night at the 'Altar' show in London, one of the best gig's I've ever seen.
No comments:
Post a Comment