The Same but Different

During my trip to England last week I was hoping to get a feel for the music scene. Unfortunately I did not get to listen to any radio except for about five minutes in a cab. During those five minutes the DJ said after talking for some time, “Oh it looks like we only have about two minutes left to play Enrique Iglesias which is not necessarily a bad thing”. Ha! Our second night both A and I were up in the middle of the night for hours watching music videos. I wrote down the videos that came on in an hour to give you a feel for how similar and how different the music scene is.
Cherry Ghost
Enrique Iglesias
Robin Thicke
Take That
Calvin Harris (getting lots of press there)
Arctic Monkeys
The Killers
Mutya Buena

Then to my great surprise, more than one of the BBC television stations ran performances from Glastonbury so I stayed up way too late on Friday and Saturday to watch the coverage. On Friday I saw performances by:
Rufus Wainwright
Mumm-Ra
Kasabian
Amy Winehouse
Arcade Fire
Arctic Monkeys
The Automatic
Gogol Bordello
The Hold Steady

Amy Winehouse was only as good as her band. The broadcasted performance was actually her second of the day at the festival and I think she was drunk. If the band hadn’t been chugging along, she would have been in trouble. She covered the song Cupid, which actually was the highlight of the set. Gogol Bordello goes into the unnecessary category. They call themselves gypsy punk but in the end it’s polka music. It’s not that I’m against polka music but let’s just call it what it is folks. Even though I know that Arcade Fire gets tons of critical praise and is a favorite of David Bowie, there is something about their look, the number of people in the band and their attitude in interviews that just makes me angry and not even able to have an open mind and listen to the music. The highlight of what I saw was a band called The Automatic doing a cover of Kanye West’s Gold Digger. NME reports it will be released so look for it. This version contains flute and screaming punk vocals.

On Saturday I saw less of the coverage which included the following:
Iggy Pop
The Klaxons
The Pigeon Detectives
Biffy Clyro
The Killers
The Kooks

Much to A’s chagrin and my delight, they ran The Killers’ entire set. The BBC announcers called them “the best British band to come out of Las Vegas. I thought it was interesting that the band played up the Las Vegas schtick maybe because that doesn’t hold much water with American audiences. Brandon Flowers told the audience that they were from the “jewel of the Mohave Desert” as he stood in front of the audience in a gold lame and rhinestone suit. Fireworks and a beautiful light show punctuated the beginning and ending of the set and the crowd and commentators loved it. Here is a rough setlist:
Sam’s Town
Enterlude
When You Were Young
Bones
Somebody Told Me
Smile Like You Mean It
Jenny was a Friend of Mine
Uncle Jonny
The River is Wild
Read My Mind
On Top
Bling
Glamorous Indi Rock n Roll
Mr. Brightside
My List
Too Good to Be True (cover)
Joy Division Cover
For Reasons Unknown
All These Things I Have Done

It was a treat to get to see almost the same set I saw last month in St. Louis, but up close and personal and with more flare. --J