Boston veterans the Pixies conquered a packed Edinburgh stadium through a pair of dodgy speakers while two of Britain's top younger bands triumphed on a smaller scale with adrenaline and killer tunes
Lynsey Hanley Sunday September 4, 2005 The Observer
Pixies Meadowbank Stadium
Razorlight Corn Exchange
Franz Ferdinand Princes Street Gardens
During August in Edinburgh you can't take a step without being entertained. To books, comedy, theatre, movies, random didgeridoo incidents and the inescapable bagpipes we can now add rock'n'roll. In a couple of years, the T on the Fringe festival has grown from an overlooked Edinburgh sideline into a kind of urbane Glastonbury with none of the downsides. Well, almost none.
The best of this year's line-up, the festival's most ambitious yet, encompassed the past, present and future of alternative rock. Boston band the Pixies, recently reformed after a 12-year break, have seen their reputation balloon to the point that they can fill stadiums on nostalgia alone; Franz Ferdinand are back after the briefest of absences to reclaim residence in the top 10; and Razorlight have the gumption, and the anthem-writing potential, to become the next U2.
The Pixies had no problem filling the Meadowbank athletics stadium with everything but the sound of their brainy, deranged music. The crowd of 20,000, spread around the oval-shaped vastness, had only one speaker per 10,000 people - one on each side of the stage, forlornly attached with what appeared to be gardening twine to poles which blew around in the prematurely autumnal wind. Whether you could hear the music was entirely dependent on whether you were downwind or upwind.
The lack of ceremony with which the band - led by the part-bouncer, part-bouncy castle figure of singer Charles Thompson (known as Black Francis during the Pixies' late- Eighties heyday, then as Frank Black in his 10-year solo career) - walked onstage and rattled off a dozen of their contributions to the cult-rock canon suggested it would take more than wispy sound quality to knock a hole in their new-found solidarity.
For over a year the re-formed quartet have been playing to five-figure crowds without a sniff of the growly tensions that broke them up. It's often said that the Pixies disbanded because Thompson grew jealous of bassist and co-singer Kim Deal's popularity with fans; on this occasion the pair poked fun at each other like cuddly marrieds, despite the squeals - from a two-thirds male crowd - that greeted Deal's dowdy soccer-mom outfit and high-pitched harmonies.
Thompson proved he was still capable of injecting the fear of God into us with his ability to conjure up a terrifying screech amid a friendly pop melody. 'Monkey Gone to Heaven', abetted by stormy gales, sounded appropriately ghostly until his refrain 'God is seven!' caused the entire audience to leap in terror. An hour later he was clucking 'Goodnight everyone' as though it didn't occur to him he had just freaked out 20,000 people in one go.
While the Pixies prevailed over imperfect conditions, Razorlight, half their age and nowhere near as patient, had to contend with the Corn Exchange - a venue seemingly designed to conjure up images of Alan Partridge presenting awards to regional sales reps rather than sweat-drenched epiphanies. Since their career-launching performance on Parkinson last September, this gawky, badly dressed but unfashionably passionate band have seen their audience transform from a hard core of floppy-footed London dandies into a vast army of fairweather rock fans.
Singer Johnny Borrell toddled on wearing sunglasses and referred obliquely to 'heavy events' the night before - possibly, given newspaper reports this week, his alleged, unprovoked butting by Pete Doherty backstage at last weekend's Leeds festival.
What Razorlight have going for them, despite their bad trousers and knock-kneed rock poses, is a thrilling commitment to making every gig they play exciting. Despite his evident bleariness, it still took only a couple of minutes for Borrell's hair and T-shirt to become drenched in sweat as he paced around during the blistering get-on-the-dancefloor exhortation 'Rip It Up', kissed his star-jumping Swedish bass player, and generally acted as though he'd drunk from a bottle labelled Barely Repressed Hysteria shortly before showtime. Before long, the whole room felt bound to match his manic performance, word for word, stare for boggle-eyed stare.
Franz Ferdinand, meanwhile, reaffirmed their reputation as the most exciting band in Britain, announcing their arrival with the thunderous spookatronics of the Dr Who theme tune then serving up whammy after whammy with indecent ease, as though writing hideously catchy pop songs is something they do between completing Sudoku grids and cooking the tea.
Alex Kapranos, looking like a regal vampire in a blood-red shirt and evil sideburns, grinned constantly, as though making up for bass player Bob Hardy's trademark glumness. New songs 'I'm Your Villain' and the relentlessly boppy new single 'Do You Want To' won them an even more excitable response than speeded-up run-throughs of last year's hits 'Matinee' and 'Michael', suggesting that their forthcoming second album, the unwieldily titled You Could Have It So Much Better, will be a party-popping winner to match their first. And you can't really get much better than Franz Ferdinand in Edinburgh in August.
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starmekitten
Posted - 09/04/2005 : 05:53:46
quote:An hour later he was clucking 'Goodnight everyone' as though it didn't occur to him he had just freaked out 20,000 people in one go.
