Bon Iver

What a fabulous gig last night - Bon Iver live at the Manchester Arena.

I've seen these guys before, back in Birmingham. I remember vividly the circumstances, which looking back are highly comical - I recall a serious period of stress as I battled to juggle studies and a very exciting film project with acoustic musician Liam Blake. A project which turned out to be our mini-documentary about his album. I was at uni in Salford and I needed my car for this exciting filming endeavour however many miles away in Bath, we had to load up and get our kit there for Friday night. Happily, Bon Iver in Birmingham fell on a Wednesday, which we are allowed our afternoon's off Uni for sports, so I was able to hop home to Banbury on the train and leave almost immediately to head back up north in my trusty Corsa, stopping in Birmingham with my best pal on the way to watch this gig! Believe me, the madness resembled sporting intensity. End result, car positioned nicely, get to watch a great gig, and make it to Thursday morning lectures. Mad logistics, the whole film project was a logistic western-super in itself.

That first time round concert was bizarre, needless so say with so much faff with travel, we go there late and missed the support who was the sensational Kathleen Edwards. That tardiness might have had something to do with the time taken eating some curly fries in Moobah, which was probably quite sluggish in hindsight. We managed to station ourselves back-right of the concert hall and watched from a distance as the band tore up the stage!

Those days are so fresh in the memory and they are fond days. I had treasured this Bon Iver album ever since the tracks really grew on my taste palette early Summer '11. The emotion I derive in the songs comes mainly from the escapism they provided when I needed some down time on our Bulgaria lads holiday, a boundary-pushing experience! The unbelievably soporific and rich soundscape that album has was brilliant as a distraction from any discomfort, and still is.

Fly forward to the Birmingham setting...everything from the car park we used - the Apcoa (I got lost trying to get out once, when a group of pals and I saw Lissie perform on 31st Oct 2010..I remember because there were lots of fancy dressed brummies around!), the chippy; Moobah, also getting lost in the underpass at that previous Lissie gig...lots of the setting for this Bon Iver concert really hit home a sense of familiarity and fondness, which amplified a homely warmth in amongst a torrent of stress and juggling!

The Manchester Arena gig evoked different emotions, In fact the whole gig was a completely different vibe from start to finish.
Firstly, I went along with my girlfriend. We've had it in the calendar for months and it's slipped out of our minds as if it was water through a sieve. Ironic considering how close we hold the music to our lives. This was lovely, was a brilliant evening of laughs and spectacle. I even bought a T'shirt...which I subsequently left underneath my seat and I haven't seen since.
Also managed to catch the support act, who were again phenomenal. A group of girls called The Staves, who provided the perfect kind of acoustic-folk that you'd find mid-afternoon at Fairport.

The action then hit a level of incendiary you rarely find at a gig. I never expected Bon Iver to hit the stage with such force and drive...they had a perfectly synchronised light show, which complemented an epic 9-piece band. Flawless from start to finish, we saw Bon Iver push the intensity of his self-titled second album to instrumental realms I didn't realise existed!..the sound was so full of life and energy too. The neat mix from Perth into Minnesota to start the gig was a highlight - both for its instrumental quality and for the visceral pleasure of the whole thing!

Seriously one of the best gigs I'ver ever paid witness to, and I highly doubt he'll be on our again anytime soon to lap up the quality again. Fantastic again.

 

 

Ciao

Been a little while since I've posted a blog post that doesn't include a tag of melancholia and recollection, but here's one:

Had a superb week I would say - looking back with rose tinted spectacles on another week of hard graft in the North - and there were certainly some noteworthy highlights.

First of which is a note in itself - I've gone paperless for the first time in...ever. I've tried before now but always reverted back to the trusty pad and pen. I've got on one with Evernote again, an online note service that syncs to your various mobile devices. I'm hoping with the addition of a certain tablet (which I am desperate to lay my hands on) that there will be even less paper in my bag, and as a result, my back won't ache so badly!..

Mixing beautifully into, my bloody back! It's been aching and full of pain this week and it's a direct result of lugging that tonne of a rucksack around. I made the foolish decision at the start of the new academic year of rationalising a heavy bag full of media 'essentials', for example, I wanted my field recorder on me, various gadgets that would be handy in ridiculous but - as my rationalising brain deduced - possible situations... Alas, after a few months of wearing it day in day outC my back is really feeling the strain. I can also feel my posture really hitting the hay. I think this calls for two things...more stretching and more swimming.
On the stretching front, I live a sheltered life..definitely time to work the strings.
On the swimming front, I'm certainly doing more than I have been, but not enough to build back up the muscles being battered by that sodding bag! Time to hit the pool, I'm off tomorrow morning for some front crawl.

I have been in the pool a fair bit mind, maybe not swimming but doing my kayaking class - a right ball each week. It's a great group of guys who do it and I was disappointed to have missed out on freshers trip due to a lack of dollar and time! Infact, time well spent in the throes of a Bon Iver concert and celebrating mates' birthdays in country pubs. Hurrah.
Last time round, it seemed the trip had whittled away at the instructors and alas, no instructors to take the session, which soon descended into a mass game of water polo! I can't have played this game for years!!..not since the days of all inclusive holidays where foreigners in speedos are gagging to get the mid-morning pool antics going.

It was fantastic, certainly a good work out, it's taxing work having to circumnavigate the pool trying to aim at makeshift goal posts like year 4 football! I would love to join a club and I am seriously considering it (it was bloody good keep fit!)...if it wasn't for the apparent prerequisite of speedos which would severely hamper my current relationship and, how shall I put this...the battering, bruising nature of the sport!
Hey...we'll see.

Got back to the changing room and realised my shampoo had exploded in my other rucksack. I ended up with a phenomenally fragrant bag and a very glossy iPhone. Not a great week for bags.

My decision on the heavy bag by the way...I need to put it in a car boot or up/down-grade to a suitcase.

 

 

Graceland

New music is all well and good, I do plough thoroughly worthwhile time into looking for new music. I vividly remember my first trawl of the internet whilst hungover after a mate's birthday - my first plunge into Hypem to find cool House remixes of my favourite songs, and the start of my Spotify deluge.

My mates and I have always enjoyed a good foray into the live scene in London to catch up-and-coming artists...The Borderline has been a good venue for us to catch the likes of Nathaniel Rateliff and Benjamin Francis Leftwich.

Nothing though, quite matches the sense of discovery of a piece of music or an artist who has already achieved critical acclaim or has already established a good back catalogue. They may be considered masters of their art by their past audience, but for me, when I discover a past gem, I do take a lot of satisfaction from it, knowing that their music has probably shaped today's scene. 

Taking a look back at the Fairport Cropredy Festival line-up of past years can reveal some sickening missed chances. If, 5 years ago, we'd have all been aware of John Martyn's genius. There are some other missed opportunities with the likes of Ralph McTell, Seth Lakeman and Supergrass! 

I don't think music will ever reach a place where it has gone stale. There may be a current trend with the Top 40 of today, with the recipe for a chart hit consisting of David Guetta. Period. But the periphery to the mainstream is bursting with fresh, exciting new acts across all genres. To a certain degree our auto-tuned chart is actually bustling with good vibes if you're keen for some mood-improvement. One of my favourite things to see in the chart is a well used sample, like Etta James' vocal sampled in last year's Avicii - Levels. It reinforces to me that some of the stand-out material derives from the old-school music scene, which is the most rigid reassurance that music will continue to surprise. 

My current wonderment does come directly from the past and links back to the satisfaction I get from knowing older music can shape today's.

I interviewed Jack Savoretti a while ago and during the conversation we hit upon the subject of best albums of all time, where he remarked Paul Simon's Graceland was the one he'd take to a desert island with him. I thought nothing of this at the time, despite the popularity I have since grown to learn it had commanded in it's hey day, I wasn't aware of the album.

A few weeks later I was shopping in Milton Keynes with my girlfriend and we hit upon a vintage market outside John Lewis. She went off in search of bunting, I set about looking for vinyls and retro music. I found a stall who had turned CDs into place mats, sim cards into ear rings and among many other things, vinyls into book ends. These book ends immediately caught my eye and I had a browse through their selection. A Thomas Dolby 1984 Parlophone vinyl immediately struck a chord - complete with Hyperactive! I then hit upon Paul Simon - Graceland; the artwork was pretty standard, but I decided to make a purchase anyway... I remembered Jack has mentioned it, and there wasn't much other choice... 

I got home, immediately fired up Spotify and hit play on Graceland. Oh my goodness.

I listened to the album twice through, then listened to the audio description of Graceland. It's one of the most diverse, instrumentally sound and pure records I've ever heard. One of the most amazing things about the album is every instrument/vocal track on a song could easily be isolated and played on it's own and it would still captivate you.

The other incredible thing I took away from my listens was how worldly it was. With so much African influence and an embellishment of tribal sounds, you feel as if you're on a journey. I now feel well-travelled after listening! It actually evokes more of a desire to hit the road and discover. 

The lyrics are so genuine. You've probably heard those kinds of songs where you are shocked out of listening passively by hearing two or three poetic lyrics strung together. It's the same story with this album, you keep hearing eloquent lyrics all the way through it. 

You wait for a bus then three come along at once, after having had that first indirect introduction to this album by Jack, then by chance igniting the fire to have a listen in Milton Keynes, the final straw was earlier this week when we had Liam Blake in the studio to lay down some covers for my radio show - he brought along his loop pedal and started to build up a familiar pattern... all of a sudden You Can Call Me Al bursts into life and the Paul Simon incendiary sparked up again...

Refresher

Meet on the ledge!

It all went down smoothly last night, the Tales of Cropredy hit the air! The listen again page is on www.banburysound.co.uk and it's on again Monday night at 9pm.

Incredibly proud of the result of months of hard work - have you seen Connor's brilliant Introductory video yet?



Full of vibes... I want to be back there!