Wednesday, August 02, 2006

Across the Tracks

There were two extreme ends of the festival for me. One was Roy Ayers and the other was Jamie Lidell.
We had to go and see Roy because he's part of our musical history. Even if it was just for 'Everybody loves the sunshine', you have to give him credit. Any song that has that kind of endurance (30 years in this case) has to be saying something important to lots of people.
His band were incredible. I nearly cried in one of the sax solos (which sounds really crass now). At one point the drummer, who had done this electrifying solo spot where you couldn't even see his hands, then balanced one stick on his head and carried on playing; came out to the front of the stage and drummed with the sticks on the floor- right the way back to his kit and carried on playing. The bass player played the thing like a guitar, and at one point everyone on stage got down on the floor -laying further down to a deeper and deeper chord. And Roy was so clearly loving what he was doing that of course we all loved him back. I have some great footage of this if you want to see it. We were standing at the very edge of the press area.
I only went to see Jamie Lidell on the recommendation of a guy called M who tells me stuff to listen to when I see him in the place where i go to get my lunch. The set was in one of the waterside arches which has been made into a club. It's all hot and fucked up and there's a really strong smell of rotten fruit. Jamie's in the middle of something when we walk in. He's beatboxing unintelligible sounds and playing keyboard at the same time. He also has a VJ with him on stage. It's packed in there and we can't get anywhere near the front. People are also queuing outside. He gets a mad response. In the middle of the next track he comes out to the front of the stage and sings with this deep soul voice that doesn't look like it could be coming from a white boy wearing a silk smoking jacket. Then he goes back and carries on with this really dark electronic stuff.
M is going to do me a CD.

No comments: