Contemporary note : These days the BJM are better known as the band who provide the opening music to the ever improving BOARDWALK EMPIRE. If you want a great tip on how to make Boardwalk even more watchable, and Downton Abbey actually quite bearable go here
THE BRIAN JONESTOWN MASSACRE, Pyramid Stage
7 out of 10 (music)
8 out of ten (vaudeville)
Sunday 2.30pm
Very much in the shadow of Ondi Timoner's classic music film DIG!, the Brian Jonestown Massacre set on Sunday afternoon on the Pyramid stage did not disappoint on any level. In the film the BJM and its main artistic centerpoint Anton Newcombe are the crazy, tragic and amazingly prolific counterparts to their early friends and rivals The Dandy Warhols. Newcombe, a living self destruct mechanism, blows every chance at the big time by rowing and sacking band mates (often on stage) while producing a hypnotic 1990s Indie drone that ultimately stands up next to the far more successful
and settled Dandies.
The band sidled onto the stage below a languid sunny afternoon amid cheers with a minimum of fuss in from of the smallest crowd I have ever been part of on the Pyramid stage at Glastonbury – something I'm sure the definitely Indie BJMs will appreciate. When the instantly recognisable Newcombe appeared he already seemed to be in some problem with a photographer off-stage, snatching her camera to 'take a picture of the BBC' When he slouched backstage to return it three very large Somerset policemen appeared from nowhere to joke with him.. Throughout the set Anton played with his back to the nearest BBC camera and responded to one taunt by suggesting that the BBC was only covering the band to catch 'rock star shit' to be shown presumably at some future date on BBC4 after Timoners's documentary
What band line up was this? It included Joel Gion (perhaps also the long missing Matt Hollywood, difficult to see through all the hair) and was presumably the one which has been recently touring the UK but such is the fluid nature of the bands personnel and influence it is the work of a cultist to keep track. Despite beginning with typically arcane new material, the set did not include anything from the recent new album and relied on old
favourites from their prolific year of 1996. They knocked the tunes out with unexpected care and professionalism, as if knowing this would be a career highlight captured on for posterity by the BBC media of which Anton seemed so wary.
Mostly, they would not listen to hecklers, except to provoke occasional ranting from Mr Newcombe very much in the mode of the film. One rant beginning with an attack on Jay-Z AND Noel Gallagher ('Noel can kiss my crumpet") was particularly poignant, going from the old arrogance of the band that would antagonise and revolutionise the old order in the early 1990s to the modern band which Anton admitted quietly 'probably does not deserve' to be here and who considered the Glastonbury slot 'a real honour'
A genuine speech about Glastonbury's hippie ideals provoked real cheers from the crowd and his tactic of attacking both Jay-Z and the Gallagher's certainly disorientated the hecklers for a while giving us a chance to study the hecklers instead. This is the first time such a massive fan of the DIG! Film such as myself has seen the BJM and it came as a shock to realise that the hecklers seeking to provoke Anton into one of his band splitting rages
actually seemed to be the biggest fans in the crowd, otherwise singing along and dancing to all of the tunes.
Does Anton realise this? Is this how the fans are supposed to behave? Is that perhaps the secret to enjoying them?
The chaos, the creativity.. is the Brian Jonestown Massacre less a rock back and just a crazy mixed up cult that feeds on itself?
Whatever reservations you may have about the music (it at the very least added a touch of genuine Indie to Glasto 2008) they are a uniquely scary and amusing experience as a live music act. I cannot say I want to meet them, but as they say across the pond, I will drink the cool-aid.
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