A group of people, including assorted members of The Black Crowes, amble onto the Brixton Academy stage and assemble at a bar set up at the back. They mill about while a bartender in black bowtie and pink dinner jacket mixes drinks. One man walks over to a jukebox and presses play. Elmore James’ Shake Your Moneymaker blasts out of the speakers.
The Ramona Flowers celebrate their ongoing success with an intimate show at Omeara that’s big on their vibrant new songs.
Size isn’t always everything. Just ask The Ramona Flowers. Over the last couple of months, playing Firenze Rocks Festival in Italy and supporting Tom Grennan at his summer shows, they’ve been able to stretch their legs on sprawling open air stages. Needless to say, Omeara’s is somewhat smaller.
The National aren’t your typical festival headliner. Their catalogue’s not big on rousing “wooah-oh” choruses. Their lyrics are opaque at best, often further obscured by mumbled delivery. They’re sometimes wilfully obtuse, following their most commercially successful album, 2013’s Trouble Will Find Me, with more challenging, introspective work.
Keith Flint’s silhouette appears above the Brixton Academy stage. That distinct looped guitar opening of The Prodigy’s Firestarter wails out. The screams of recognition are euphoric. And, as the big beats kick in, 5,000 very sweaty bodies move even more enthusiastically than they have all night. Some mimic the music video’s genre-defining posturing, rendered in lasers, with absolute joy. Others bounce or spin or jump or wave their arms in a state of wild abandon.
About halfway through The Struts’ adrenalised Shepherd’s Bush Empire show, Luke Spiller introduces a brand new song, never played to an audience before. It’s a risky move, especially considering the momentum they’ve built up by this point. But, from the opening salvo of “Oh oh-oh oh oh oh oh oh”, Spiller has the bouncing crowd chanting and clapping along as if it’s We Will Rock You.
Curating the lineup for a day-long family music event like BST Hyde Park can’t be easy. You don’t want 10 soundalike clones of the headliner. But you also don’t want anything too out there either. It’s a balancing act that, on paper, Duran Duran have got all wrong. Sure, Nile Rodgers, who helped revitalise their career in the mid-’80s, makes sense. But what about a soul singer with roots in jazz, gospel, and classical? Or a Norwegian artist always described as “ethereal” and “Enya-like” by lazy writers? Or, least of all, a sweary post-punk band with song titles like Lady Eggs and Greasin’ Up For Jesus? It’s not exactly what you’d expect in the same postal code as Ordinary World.
During a vigorous State Of Love And Trust, Eddie Vedder notices something. He motions at the camera operator to point at the audience. A boy, around 10 years old, appears on the massive screen behind Pearl Jam, smiling broadly. He’s at the rail with his dad, holding up a disposable take-away tray repurposed as a sign. It says: “1st show”. The singer welcomes him to the fray and recounts how, as a 16 year old, guitarist Mike McCready’s life was changed from the front row of a Van Halen show. In that moment, it’s clear Pearl Jam have grown into a band for everyone. The young adults who listened to Ten back in 1992 have now grown up and are bringing their families, while new generations of teens connect with the rage and anguish of songs like Once and Jeremy.
“One of my big jobs,” Mick Jagger admits in the new BBC documentary series My Life As A Rolling Stone, “is to be a show off, really.”
With 60 years’ experience, he’s incredibly good at it. At the second of two sold-out Hyde Park shows, the 78-year-old frontman prances, struts, preens, hops, strides, points, and poses for two hours with the enthusiasm of a fitness trainer one-third his age. All the while, he’s belting out high-energy rock ‘n roll standards, playing harmonica, playing harmonica and pointing, and changing outfits. After a black coat, ornately embroidered in golden floral patterns; sleek, flowing silver shirt; pink waistcoat; red and blue silk hoodie; and yellow and black colour block jacket, one starts to lose track. And he knows it. “She’s an amazing singer, but I’ve worn sparklier dresses,” the showman says of Adele at one point.
Alter Bridge bandmates Myles Kennedy and Mark Tremonti must be really competitive. Or maybe they just don’t like sitting around the house. Kennedy, the group’s singer and rhythm guitarist, doubles up on those roles for Slash while nurturing a burgeoning solo career. Lead guitarist Tremonti, who co-founded Creed and co-wrote hits like the Grammy-winning With Arms Wide Open, has recently teamed up with members of Frank Sinatra’s orchestra to sing Ol’ Blue Eyes standards. Oh, and for the past decade, he’s fronted Tremonti.
When Jack White joined his first group, Goober & The Peas, playing drums was just part of the gig. They dressed like Grand Ole Opry cowboys, so he was forced to wear the whole Hank Williams getup, from the Nudie suit to the 10-gallon hat. It wasn’t an easy fit for a kid from Detroit. But White soon realised that the band were getting noticed purely because they’d swapped out the predominant uniform of jeans and T-shirt. At that point in the early ’90s he learned that, even through something as innocuous as an outfit, he could decide what message he wanted to project.
Nils van der Linden