OPEN'ER FESTIVAL: MUSIC REVIEW

Diversification isn’t an issue at Open’er. They had the heavy hitting rock band ‘Red Hot Chilli Peppers’ a few upcoming talents like ‘Nothing But Thieves’ & ‘Savages’, some more commercial artists such as ‘Wiz Khalifa’ & ‘Pharell Williams’, dance acts like ‘Caribou’ and your modern rock powerhouses like ‘Foals’ and ‘Tame Impala’. Despite being a four day festival there wasn’t really an overwhelming amount of music on, granted this meant we didn’t have the clash scenario where you find yourself with your hands on your head wondering which direction to go. But I think they definitely have some bandwidth to take on a few more bands next year. At no point did I find myself rushing from one stage to another desperate to catch the next band, the voids were instead filled with drinking, chatting, eating and waiting for the next act we wanted to see. Realistically there were only 5 bands that we were willing to break our backs to see over the weekend. Red Hot Chilli Peppers, Tame Impala, Foals, Nothing But Thieves and The Last Shadow Puppets. Several other acts also drew our curiosity like Sigur Ros, Caribou, The 1975 and Florence BUT they weren’t integral to our weekend plans. Some native polish acts were staged over the weekend that could have been quite interesting to check out, but unfortunately we didn’t manage to get too any. One criticism would be how they packed four of our five picks into the first two days, sure you schedule music of a similar genre on the same day to be in keeping with a theme but, to be honest, there was no fluid theme each day. It would have been better to spread the acts across the four days, this is us being extremely picky though realistically that’s not a valid argument to table.

Now, if you’ve read our previous blog post where we review the festival and divulge the tale our extraordinary journeys then you probably know that we missed The Last Shadow Puppets. Fuck that hurts, everytime it’s mentioned is like prising open a healing wound. Seriously though who puts an act of that stature on the first, main arrival, day it’s just asking for anguish and heartbreak. Not to worry, we saw them at Castlefield Bowl in Manchester the following week…. which reminds me, that review is currently still on my long list on things to do. All you Turner & Kane fans keep your eyes out for that over the weekend. Back to business, now obviously we missed the first of our desired acts on the Wednesday but to ease the pain we had Tame Impala on stage at 12:30PM.

Tame Impala have easily grown to be one of our favourite bands in recent years, Kevin Parker is a musical mastermind. Their latest album ‘Currents’ is a whirlwind of dreamy phsyc rock that encapsulates the parameters of your explorative imagination. It was formed on the notion of taking the normality of natural substances and warping them into distorted visuals. With the prominent example being air/ wind before and after it travels through an aeroplane’s turbine, this vision was emulated on the albums artwork. They’ve come a long way since the days of Innerspeaker in 2010, their sound has managed to remain in the genre but variate significantly throughout their decorated career. Each album has offered a new stance on your traditional Psychedelic Rock tendencies, with Currents being the least fuzz/rock driven with more focus on funk/ synth flairs. It’s difficult for bands to balance the forward movement of their creativity; you always get a handful of fans reluctant to like a new album because they’re so hung up on the prosperity of its predecessor. Rarely do bands break down this barrier and exceed the success of the albums that brought them fame; Arctic Monkeys are a good example of both sides. Their debut album was the fastest selling debut record in history, how on earth do you follow on from that? A year later they came storming back with Favourite Worst Nightmare and fans loved it. It certainly wasn’t more of the same and it still managed to please the masses. Then along came Humbug and with it the self-righteous arse holes, who’s stunted vision can’t take them past the glory of the first two albums. Humbug is a fantastic album, in our opinion maybe even one of the best, but still the point stands, it created uncertainty within the Arctic Monkeys fan camp. Tame Impala haven’t come across this problem yet, granted they’ve only released three albums, but each has seemed to follow on from the next in perfect succession.

We saw Tame Impala live for the first time at Alexandra Palace back in February and came out dragging our jaws across the pavement. Their live shows are a thing of beauty from the music itself to the visuals and aesthetics. If they could deliver such stunning performances in enclosed gig halls what kind of magical sorcery would they bring to a festival stage? The answer is EVERYTHING! Absolutely EVERYTHING. Okay, I was absolutely steaming and having a whale of a time dancing around like Mick Jagger and David Bowie in their ‘Dancing in the Street’ video but it was seriously incredible. The setlist was pretty identical to the one they played back in February so not much variation on that front but having seen both performances we can safely say their live show is made for the festival stage. They opened with Nangs/ Let It Happen as has become standard on this ‘Currents’ tour. Then swiftly into our favourite Tame Impala track, ‘Mind Mischief’, which was the highlight of the whole weekend. The bulk of the set included ‘Elephants’, ‘The Moment’, ‘The Less I Know the Better’ and ‘Alter Ego’ before the encore songs ‘Feels Like We Only Go Backwards’ and ‘New Person, Same Old Mistakes’. You can check out the full setlist here: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/tame-impala/2016/lotnisko-gdynia-kosakowo-gdynia-poland-13ffa111.html. They manage to create an odd contrast of emotions; it’s a weird environment to be part of. Majority of the crowd find themselves in a hazy dream state bopping back and forth to the sound of the beats, spellbound by the lights and colours. Others dance around like nutters in a looney bin on diazepam IV drip’s, seriously I think even Noel Fielding’s weird threshold would be put to the test with the shapes we witnessed. I suppose that’s the beauty of Tame Impala’s music, you can react to it in any way you want. The fundamental wood groove of their basslines chisels its way to your core whilst the airy breeze of guitar and synth create a cloud like aura to cage your untameable hip movement. Regardless of how Tame Impala make you move, we can all agree they are an incredible band and for us the best of the weekend.

The heavyweight of the weekend had flown all the way over from California, U.S.A to play for the Open’er crowd. They’ve been rocking since the 80’s, battled several drug addictions and basically acted as the defibrillator for 50’s funk. With no new music since 2010 the four-piece returned in 2016 to prove they can still cut it right at the top. Hopefully we didn’t “Give it Away” but we are of course talking about the one and only Red Hot Chilli Peppers. My body was trembling in shire excitement moments before they came on stage. Like most other people on this planet the Chilli’s were a fundamental part of the music I grew up listening to. I think, if asked to, I could probably recite the lyrics to their top 10 hits word for word no mistakes or slip ups. I’d do it with pure attitude aswell, just try and stop me. I’ve seen them before many years ago at the LG Arena in Birmingham, the one and only time I had the opportunity to do so. They are the kind of band that can never be seen enough; 5 times, 10 times, 50 times none will satisfy the cravings. There’s no nicotine patch for the RHCP, that’s for sure. To make an already fantastic situation even better it was my birthday. Yes sir you are correct, I saw the Red Hot Chilli Peppers at a music festival in Poland on my Birthday, #winning. They opened up with a spontaneous jam before Anthony burst onto the stage, they all dropped to the floor and bolted straight into ‘Can’t Stop’. What a way to get the crowd going, I’m literally sat here with spine tingles and goosebumps thinking about it. What a feeling, pure energy and passion. With one note they managed to capture the lives and souls of thousands of people stood in a field, who does that?! They went on to play some classics like ‘Dani California’, ‘Otherside’, ‘Snow’, ‘Californication’, ‘Around the World’ and ‘By The Way’ before coming back on for the encore where the played ‘The Getaway’ the title track from their new album and ‘Give It Away’, a spicy way to end the set. Now despite the overwhelming degree of praise we’ve been bathing RHCP’s in so far during this article we must talk about the bad points. ‘Bad points!’ I hear you say with an exasperated gasp in your tone. But yes, unfortunately you did hear us correctly; the set wasn’t really all it could have been. Now this is the Red Hot Chilli Peppers we’re talking about, a heavyweight champion in the world of rock and roll. Of course prior to the set we had so much expectation bubbling inside that it was kind of doomed to start with. More often than not situations like this never live up to the fantasy in your imagination and we understand that. But aspects of the set really were underwhelming. The new album is great and it’s important for them to tour their new tracks, but maybe a bit more out with the new and in with the old? They had the perfect back drop for a set of nostalgic beauties but instead filled their slot with promotional newbies. Like we said it’s a great album but we wanna hear the classics! The Getaway isn’t really an encore track now is it? Off the top of my head I could think of about eight or nine songs they could have chosen instead to bring the show to an end. The biggest downfall however wasn’t actually a fault from the RHCP’s themselves but with the festival. The lead sound guy should have been handed his P45 straight after the set. The sound was awful, so quiet I could hear the people next to me singing more than Anthony. It ruined the whole experience, we wanted nothing more than to hear the Chilli’s blasted around the arena so loud that my cheeks would wobble. Is that too much to ask?! Unfortunately it wasn’t a momentary blip, the poor sound quality lasted for the duration of the set and engrained a rather bumming tone to experience. The music was still incredible and we loved every minute, it just didn’t live up to the unrealistic heights we had set. You can take a look at the FULL setlist here: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/red-hot-chili-peppers/2016/lotnisko-gdynia-kosakowo-gdynia-poland-1bff9d90.html.

The next band on our agenda was Foals, the last time we saw the Oxfordshire lads was many moons ago at Reading Festival. Needless to say they’ve come a bloody long way since then, establishing themselves as one of the UK’s best live acts and a firm headliner at many major festivals. Their latest album ‘What Went Down’ is an incredible record, those of you that are yet to give it the time of day are mad. Pick up your phone, go to Spotify and play the album from start to finish whilst you are reading the remainder of this blog. They filled a late afternoon slot at Open’er playing a few hours before the mighty Red Hot Chilli Peppers. To be transparently honest we didn’t quite know what to expect from the set, it had been such a long time since we last saw Foals and their music has come such a long way since the days of ‘Anidotes’ and songs like ‘Cassius’. We’ve heard such good things about their live performances, so many people have endorsed their crown as best live act in the UK but how trustworthy were these old wives’ tales. The played a career spanning set with songs from across their discography, catch the full setlist here: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/foals/2016/lotnisko-gdynia-kosakowo-gdynia-poland-13ff9d95.html. They finished with an encore of ‘What Went Down’ the title track from their latest album and ‘Two Steps, Twice’ one of their older classics. The whole set in general was incredible, the sun was shining the crowd were singing, drinks were flowing. Foals really are just a good, solid band their music is impeccably written, so intricate and perfected these attributes taken to the big stage is just a recipe for success. We’re looking forward to seeing their co-headline set at Reading and Leeds later this month. Lead singer Yannis’s voice is just as virtuous live as it is on their recordings, he has a great vocal range from the bold and powerful we hear on ‘What Went Down’ to the softer more vulnerable aspects we hear on their slower songs like ‘Birch Tree’. Infact we are a bit bummed out that Birch Tree wasn’t part of their setlist or Cassius both of them would have slotted right in perfectly. They are a band destined for the big time, Arena tours and guaranteed headline slots are a given now for Foals, let’s just see if the capitalise on the opportunity. One thing we would pick out is that it looked a tad flat, granted Yannis did get involved with the crowd during the breaks on What Went Down, but the rest of the set was pretty static. Of course they weren’t the headline act at Open’er so the theatrics were kept to a minimum, we can imagine that their shows in general need some work maybe during a headline set they would have more license to bring together some lighting and visuals to accompany the music to create a more rounded, full bodied spectacle. This is something I am sure they’re working on but as far as the music goes there’s nothing we can do but throw an uncanny amount of praise at them. We will be heading to see them when they next tour for sure, to see how they fare on a smaller more intimate stage. On a completely irrelevant side note we actually spotted someone on the screen at the front of the Foals crowd with a Wytches tee on, you my friend are a legend. Kudo’s to you for repping and spreading the word about The Wytches.

Our final pick of the weekend was ‘Nothing But Thieves’ a band that have been poised on the lips of curious music fans for the past few years. They bring an infusion of soulful power rock straight from the shores of Southend on Sea, Essex. These lads have been impressive so far during their short career, even landing the opportunity to support the mighty Muse on their recent tour. We first caught a glimpse of their ability at Truck Festival in 2015 and have been totally fixated since. They played at Opener’s Tent Stage on Friday afternoon, so we went down to check them out between the many beers we were consuming at the Heineken Tent. They managed to draw quite an impressive crowd, almost filling the huge Tent Stage and packing the outside screen area. They opened with ‘Itch’ moving into some other great songs like ‘Trip Switch’ and ‘If I Get High’ closing the set off with ‘Ban All the Music’. They threw in an extremely pleasant surprise to their set though; everyone loves a live cover especially when it’s one of your all time favourite songs. Nothing But Thieves absolutely NAILED a cover of Pixies – ‘Where is My Mind?’ it added that extra element of quality to the band for me. It’s not an easy song to rendition vocally but they smashed it, spot on, perfect. They are a band that manages to sound exactly the same live as they do in the studio, that’s a huge selling point for us. The guitar was just as powerful yet melodic and soulful when required with the drums and bass layering the perfect rhythmic base to their songs. The selling point for this band though has to be the incredible vocals, lead singer Conor Mason is a rising star for sure, with his powerful lungs there’s not limit to what this band can achieve. You can check out the full NBT setlist here: http://www.setlist.fm/setlist/nothing-but-thieves/2016/lotnisko-gdynia-kosakowo-gdynia-poland-13ff95b9.html

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWa6yWOfvAU