Live review: T in the Park Festival 2011, Day 3 (10/07/11)

Day 3 at T finally sees the Main Stage casting aside all bubblegum pop pretenses (that honour is shifted to the unsuspecting NME Stage, where Tinie Tempah, Bruno Mars, Professor Green and euck, Youmeatsix bump manufactured uglies) and taking up its well-earned mantle as bastion of the finest quality indie rock known to the good people of these United Kingdoms, delivering a line-up fit to burst with the legendary, the stupendously talented and Cast. Frankly, the less said about John Power the better, and his successors All Time Low for that matter, although a surprise guest appearance from Rivers Cuomo at the very least raises an eyebrow or two.


No, it’s the return of everyone’s favourite punk-pop pioneers Blondie that’s the catalyst for the stage’s redemption, Debbie Harry still looking like the coolest fucker in the world, resplendent all in white (yes, even her hair) and effortlessly crooning her way through every last one of her band’s timeless, instant, life-affirming hits. With an Atomic here, a Heart of Glass there and the occasional Maria thrown in for good measure, this is the kind of set that most bands would sell their grannies to be able to play, jam-packed with tantalising singalongs and ridiculously addictive melodies. And so what if Debbie forgets a few words here and there… having paid her dues a million and one times over, she’s allowed the odd slip-up. Or three. Bless her, it’s all in good fun, right?


Rivers Cuomo certainly seems to think so. As the heavens open and the rain proceeds to lash down on everyone’s heads, the Weezer frontman takes it upon himself to lighten the mood and bring smiles back to our faces by continuing the midlife crisis he began at last year’s Reading and Leeds Festivals and being, quite simply, daft as a brush for 45 minutes. In a hit packed set that takes in covers of Teenage Dirtbag and Paranoid Android, the bespectacled one clambers down into the quagmire, getting up close and personal with both his audience and the mud, spending five minutes trying to figure out how to don a T in the Park poncho during the Undone intro before ultimately giving up and and wearing it as a cape. He high fives everyone, wears our hats, takes photos of himself with our cameras and occasionally, when he feels like it, plays a little bit of guitar. It’s a deft move, accurately judging the mood of the crowd and giving them exactly what they need to take their minds off the fact that they’re drenched from head to foot; by the time an extra-bouncy Buddy Holly rolls around, no one really gives a shit anymore. A triumph all round, then.


And while the precipitation withers and the sun breaks through the clouds for My Chemical Romance’s return to these hallowed shores, this doesn’t make their job any easier. Faced with a withering crowd and an air of palpable disinterest, MCR have everything to prove and by gosh, do they know it. Striding onstage with guns blazing, looking every bit the cartoon characters depicted on their most recent LP, Gerard, Mikey, Frank and Ray storm through a visceral speed-punk set, mixing the finest cuts from their colorful 2010 release Danger Days with the usual Three Cheers and Black Parade classics. This is no nonsense, four-to-the-floor stuff, an attempt to showcase the talent at the heart of the often image-conscious band and it works. The effort is commendable: Ray works more spidery wonders than usual, delivering guitar riff after guitar riff after guitar riff, Gerard finds whole new rock star poses to pull and shapes to throw and Frank nearly breaks his neck in the process of losing himself in the music. By the closing Famous Last Words, the crowds have doubled, the moshing has multiplied and the victory is assured. A job very well done.


There’s just enough time between the smoke settling on MCR’s blistering set and Jarvis Cocker strutting suggestively onstage to hot-tail it over to the BBC Introducing stage to catch Beth Jeans Houghton dazzling twenty or so mud-splattered individuals - one dressed in a crocodile onesie - with her quite remarkable voice and unique blend of traditional folk and softly-spoken indie. If there’s any justice in the world, she’ll be a household name in a year or two; Pulp, on the other hand, have been a household name for nearly twenty years, but one that was barely spoken for over ten, until Cocker and co did the admirable thing and found each other again. Sensibly, they trot out a greatest hits set, opening with a beautiful Do You Remember The First Time? and finishing on a glorious, celebratory, rip-roaring Common People. Unfortunately for Pulp, the section in-between, with the exception of a cathartic Sorted and a bootylicious Disco 2000, falls a little flat… although through no fault of Pulp’s. This certainly isn’t for lack of trying - Cocker is an instantly likable, extremely engaging frontman, telling stories, cracking jokes, handing out sweets and wiping his arse with the last ever edition of the News of the World, but sadly, this simply isn’t Pulp’s crowd. These rabid, rock-starved individuals are here for the Foo Fighters and this hour of terribly twee indie seems out of place on a day characterised by the heavier end of the guitar based spectrum.


Alas, no matter. Pulp are delightful anyway, and Dave Grohl and his band of merry men certainly surpass everyone’s expectations, delivering an appropriately apocalyptic two hour set to accompany the torrential downpour that resumes in full force. The show is essentially a downscale version of their Milton Keynes Bowl extravaganza, but the Scots love every whirlwind, rip-roaring moment… probably as much as the hundred or so devotees who make up the T-Break Stage audience for Kilmarnock’s finest Fatherson, singing every last word back at the three-piece, a shockingly young bunch to be peddling such obvious talent. Thankfully, the band respond in kind, blowing the roof off with their Manchester Orchestra-esque alt rock stylings and proceeding to experience, in their own words (or thereabouts) “the best thirty minutes they’ve ever played”.


There’s a similar situation taking place over at the Red Bull Stage, where the tent is packed to the rafters for Noah and the Whale, indie kids, pop freaks and alt-leaning chin-strokers alike uniting under a common, heartfelt love of the band’s really quite lovely new record. These are the kind of singalongs that beget headline slots; indeed, it’s arguable that these guys should’ve occupied that hallowed position on the bill this evening based purely on numbers alone. However, although less people seem interested, that honour deservedly belongs to Eels who tonight, play a 16 track, 50s-inspired rock-soul-and-roll bonanza, each band member dressed up to the nines in waistcoat, tie and suit pants, the brass section swinging into overdrive and E on uncharacteristically jovial form, barking bizarre adjectives at his audience and telling us all that he’s glad to be “fighting Foo”. Every track is shot through with an extra layer of urgency and a healthy dose of fun, Flyswatter developing a whole new lease of life with extra guitars, I Like Birds sounding like it’s on crack and Fresh Blood quite literally scaring the bejeesus out of everyone. For all the Foos got the numbers, Eels gave us the surprises, delivering one of those sets that you just WISH you’d been at. It’s a fitting end to a rich three days, demonstrating that more often than not, you just have to look a little harder to find the real magic. More T next year, vicar? Don’t mind if we do.

Review: My Chemical Romance (Newcastle Metro Radio Arena, 22/02/11)

Look alive, sunshine. My Chemical Romance are in town, transported back through the annals of time from the desolated wasteland of the Divided States of America circa 2019, and they're about to paint the streets red, yellow, blue, orange and just about every other colour that still exists within the futuristic Californian rainbow. So BE RESPONSIBLE, boys and girls, TAKE YOUR MEDICINE; KILLJOYS, do your duty and MAKE SOME NOISE and everyone else, ready yourself for the comic book punk rock extravaganza of a lifetime. MCR are here to BUILD A BETTER YOU and they're about to do it now and do it oh-so-very loud.

Taking to the stage bathed in shocking Technicolor, looking like characters from Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World or some such, this is My Chemical Romance at their most bleedin' obvious, stripped of the funeral obliquity of the Black Parade era and free, once more, to engage in pure, dumb rock 'n' roll fun. Tonight's notably lengthy set is heavy on the 'Danger Days', and while the 6,000 strong Metro Radio Arena may save the loudest singalongs and most rapturous applause for the earlier material, it is the steampunk synth 'n' scuzz of such gems as the filthy 'Vampire Money' and the ass-shakingly sexy 'Planetary (GO!)' that shine the brightest and leave the most indelible impression.

For all 'The Black Parade' was a fantastically brave reinvention, and a superlative record, you get the feeling that this is what MCR were born to do; that these larger-than-life, unashamedly over-the-top fantasy figures that stalk the stage, battering their instruments and throwing the kind of camp poses that put Paul Smith to shame (we're looking at you, Gerard Way), are at their most comfortable in this environment, playing science-fiction tinged punk rock and blistering their way through their back catalogue like their very lives depend upon it. Just check the unwieldy sense of urgency that ploughs its way through a breakneck 'Na Na Na', surely one of the finest rock 'n' roll pop songs of the last ten years. The energy is exhilarating, the speed spine tingling and the brevity breathtaking.

And while 'Danger Days' may see MCR at their most cohesive, when they do plumb the depths of their earlier material, the chosen tracks complement their contemporary counterparts exceptionally well. Once-in-a-blue-moon 'Our Lady of Sorrows' benefits from six years of increased technical skill, sounding far more bombastic than it was ever meant to be; 'Give 'Em Hell, Kid' and 'Hang 'Em High' thunder along faster than a speeding bullet; 'Mama' brings the carnival to town, coming on like a slice of hyperbolic pantomime and prompting a mass clicking-of-the-fingers; and of course, 'Welcome to the Black Parade', 'Famous Last Words', 'I'm Not Okay' and 'Helena' rock like absolute bastards, aided and abetted by Ray Toro and Frank Iero's deliciously savage guitar assaults.

Inevitably, the crash queens and motor babies lose their minds to all of these, screaming each word 'til their lungs give out and, on a particularly rowdy 'Teenagers', threatening to obliterate the Arena's overly expensive flooring (it doubles as an ice rink, you know). Interestingly, however, for all these visceral rock 'n' roll thrills are invigorating, it is the quieter moments that provide the biggest highlights. The piano-led reinterpretation of 'The Ghost of You' drips with bitterest melancholy, while 'Cancer', featuring merely James Dewees on keyboard and a barely visible Gerard (bathed in smoke and cutting an eerily imposing figure in silhouette), sends shivers down the spine, so delicate and cracked is the boy Way's voice. It's a soberingly serious moment amongst the dumb fun of the rest of the evening and it's all the more powerful for it.

As boys, girls, mums, dads, freaks and creeps alike stumble out of the Metro Radio Arena tonight, their T-shirts emblazoned with slogans like ART IS THE WEAPON, their hearts and minds battered and bruised from the Technicolor punk rock show they've just witnessed, there's a sense of victory in the air. Victory for My Chemical Romance, who, by their own admission, were teetering on the brink of collapse after 'The Black Parade'; victory for the killjoys, whose devotion continues to prove well justified, and victory for the genre as MCR prove, categorically, that punk rock can translate to the cavernous corporate opulence of the arena environment without losing any of its heart. Louder than God's revolver and twice as shiny, MCR pump out the slaughtomatic sounds to keep you alive and look fucking fantastic doing it. The future IS bulletproof; the aftermath IS secondary and tonight, my friends, My Chemical Romance ARE fucking outstanding.