037/ Glastonbury telly picks
Here are a few picks for Glastonbury Festival on the telly this weekend.
The BBC streams five of the largest stages: the Pyramid, Other Stage, West Holts, Woodsies and The Park. This year we’re away Saturday but we’ll watch some Friday and Sunday. We treat it sort of like being actually at a fest, switching between streams as if we’re walking between stages. Later on, I catch up with more sets via the iPlayer archive, watching back almost everything (apart from artists I actively dislike) before it all gets deleted in a month’s time.
Obviously, Dua Lipa will be fab. Never mind that Radical Optimism hasn’t quite taken hold as Future Nostalgia did. That great Lipa year was always going to be a tough follow but I still think this show — presumably her biggest concert, though she’s headlined smaller festivals and done lots of arenas — will still be an absolute stormer. But you don’t need me to tell you any of that.
My favourite live gig I’ve seen this year was PJ Harvey’s show at Primavera Sound earlier this month. It’s also my favourite ever time seeing PJ Harvey live (out of nine gigs since the early 1990s). Band lineup, arrangements, setlist, building an atmosphere, staging, pace and heft, it was basically perfect. Moreover, the show we saw was the first of their summer festival tour, and featured a magical rainstorm out of nowhere. I’ve rewatched it via the Primavera Sound YouTube and it held up fine on screen. So I’m looking forward to comparing that set to the Glastonbury iteration, now they’ve got a bunch of big European outdoor shows under their belt. Could be very special…
…but hold on Chris, this is the wrong way to do a preview. Can’t you just quickly list a few picks of smaller acts everyone hasn’t already heard of? Oh yeah, that’d be better…
Friday —
Excellently noodling — slightly whiney but in a good way — prog / jazz / indie post-rockists Squid are on West Holts. Both their albums still get played regularly in our house, which is especially rare for twenty-first century boys with live instruments.
I also really like Kenya Grace, who does DJ-meets-singer schtick, a bit like an American, more ethereal, more emo-ish (slightly goth even) version of the Nia Archives template. So far there’s just a handful of singles and one mini-album but crucially, she’s pulling off both sides of the equation. Her bops are neatly diffident, in a great way.
Even though pastoral alt-folk singer This Is The Kit has been around for aeons, with fans absolutely everywhere (and lots of allies, for example being affiliated with both John Parish and The National) still I cannot remember Kate doing a live set on mainstream telly before. I don’t think she’s ever graced Later, for example. Staying relatively underground (say, running off and living in Paris for many years) is part of her charm, but mostly I adore Kate’s off-kilter, clever, outsider-ish song craft: she’s a magic writer and singer, and also a low key super-smart bandleader. I know Kate a little bit, so I’m biased, but do not miss this show.
Saturday —
We’re away on Saturday, so for me this stuff will be on catch-up…
The American buzz over psychedelic retro funk and soul duo Black Pumas has piqued my curiosity. They’re two albums in and hint at Inflo’s kind of live grooves but not as cool, I don’t think. Perhaps a little bit close to the American establishment to wholly believe in, but definitely worth a listen.
Over on Woodsies, I’m not sure I can think of four more unpleasantly vibing acts in a row (all talented, yes, but still) than Gossip, Sleaford Mods, Yard Act and Fat White Family. I mean, I’m being a touch unfair on Yard Act but for yuck’s sake, what a night of spittle.
Earlier on though, I’m well up for both the indie/punk quartet Mannequin Pussy (who are a bit existence-prone; they’re always not getting paid by labels, having their gear nicked, and such) and then the absolutely terrific US indie singer-songwriter Soccer Mommy (Sophia Allison) who meshes hooky, current pop-influenced songwriting with crunchy guitar-based alt sound, and has a lovely way with a phrase. Since 2018 she’s covered a lot of ground as tour support to heavy hitters, from Paramore to Vampire Weekend, Phoebe Bridgers to Mitski.
Meanwhile, in contrast to Woodsies, the Park Stage has a very enticing three-in-a-row leading up to The Breeders (who are on purple form, following the cross-generational shot in the arm they’ve been given by superstar Olivia Rodrigo in the USA, who took them out as a Guts Tour support, introducing them to her potent young fanbase). So anyway, start with glorious, super-hectic Japanese alt/prog/rockist femme powerhouse band Otoboke Beaver, then the peerless, soaring voice of US-based Pakistani singer Arooj Aftab — who always brings impossibly virtuoso high-end jazz/folk musicians with her for luck — then Dublin’s grimy drone-metal traditional folk masters Lankum. If I was doing pills in the fields of Somerset on a cloudy Saturday afternoon, I’d be tempted to just stay down the front of The Park for all of those.
Sunday —
Up at the top of the bill it’s The National versus SZA, who eats sad dads for breakfast. A bit of a low billing for James though, given how consistently successful they still are.
But for the purposes of this preview, honestly Nia Archives is a wondrous bop, especially when you’re actually there, especially late night. I wonder how it’ll translate through the TV screen. She’s the kind of artist who is machine-tooled for the Boiler Room generation, and that’s still not quite Glasto, not yet. In my experience Nia gets a crowd going like nobody and her songs slap. Perhaps by now she’ll be expanded into a full live band, for big stages like these. Turns out Romy is way more fun than I thought she’d be. Jamie XX is here too, headlining somewhere. I think because I wasn’t fond of the self-effacing pose of The XX way back when, it’s meant I’ve wrongly overlooked their stuff ever since. It’s always a touch too smooth for me, so now I’m only just catching up to its qualities. Silly. Of the rock acts, Molly Rankin’s sophisticated Canadian indie band Alvvays will cut through onscreen, thanks to striking songs. They’re harder edged than their jangle, schmindie, Britpop influences (and at the same time they’re a secret folk band, because Rankin has deep family history in the Canadian folk world). They count as influential now, been around over a decade. Terrible name but I like the Blondshell bits I’ve heard. I’m also excited to check out post-dubstep, now genre-warping, globetrotting duo Mount Kimbie, who we missed at Primavera Sound and Mdou Moctar the bloody fantastic Toureg singer/guitarist from Niger.
That’s my tips, anyway.
•
Jim Bob covered ‘Geno’ on the last tour. I liked it because I didn’t need to do much, a bit of tambourine, backing vocal shouts and very simple chords, so it was hard to screw up (in a setlist crammed full of pitfalls for a hapless piano player). In our version, at the end, I triggered a sample of Jon’s pet dog Pippa barking. I can’t remember why. Then last month, when we played Bearded Theory, I swapped out that sample for some audio of a loud crowing cockerel. This was because recently Jim has been very disturbed at home by a nearby urban cockerel, crowing really loudly the whole day, ruining his neighbourhood. I thought my rooster sample was well funny. Just as we got to that bit, the band slightly ‘changed’ (messed up) the coda section, and didn’t play the bit where the sample usually goes, so I couldn’t trigger it.
I never got to find out if Jim would’ve laughed or been thrown off by it. And that’s what I have to say about why I’ll watch Dexys on Friday.
•
I’m trialling a short extra section at the bottom of Double Chorus, to link to any music-related shit that’s grabbed me since the last email…
icymi —
• new MJ Lenderman single ‘She’s Leaving You’
• Immersion with Cubzoa — ‘I’m Barely Here’ from Nanocluster Vol 2
• The Breeders unplugged in the Big Sur woods
(yup, there’s mighty Sophie Galps on fiddle, in between Dua Lipa gigs)
• magic episode of Tape Notes podcast w/Charli, A.G. & George
• Paul Weller sings Billie Eilish ‘What Was I Made For?’ on Radio 2
• Arooj Aftab — ‘Last Night Reprise’ from Night Reign