Glastonbury Coverage on the Beeb Website

I caught some of the Arctic Monkeys’ set on Friday night on the telly (I think it was BBC2), and went to the BBC website to check when the rest is broadcast (or repeated).

I found out that they put up 40 of the live acts up on the website, and you can watch it up to 1 week after it was originally broadcast (that one-week thing is similar to Channel 4’s 4od, which nota bene I still haven’t been able to get to work, so I stopped bothering with it). The BBC site is pretty cool though (just make sure you *don’t* install the bloaty fuckware RealPlayer - instead, go for this Real Alternative).

Earlier, I watched the Maximo Park Glastonbury gig (yus!). Their set is roughly 30 minutes’ long and features most of their hits, though they didn’t play Our Velocity (it might have been an encore - only the main set seems to have been uploaded). It’s definitely *much* better than watching some fan’s mobile phone video recording of a gig, such of the type you can find on youtube.

Some points about the Maximo gig:

• Paul Smith looked a bit pudgy (stop drinking those beers and eating those pies you sexy beast )
• they introduced ‘Apply Some Pressure’ like this: “This song is about staying with a belief in something or other, it’s called ‘Apply some Pressure’”. which made me think of my friend Andraco, because he quoted some lines of this song on his blog.
• The keyboarder looked hot (I remember him from the £3 - Maximo club gig we went to - he jumps around and is really energetic, I love that!)

I’m also just now watching a little bit of Bloc Party, but they’re shite live! I’ve seen a few gigs of theirs on the telly, and they’re really crap live. Though I do like their albums.

Note also that the Arctic Monkeys’ gig on the website only features one song! It says underneath:

Now Playing: Arctic Monkeys - ‘I Bet You Look Good On The Dancefloor’

(Sorry, we only have permission for one track)

WTF? I wonder who’s responsible for that. I’m quite disappointed as it looks like the Monkeys don’t want their stuff to be broadcast for free. Greedy fucks £££££££££££. There again, they were never particularly ‘alternative’ in their attitude, it’s just that their music happens to be quite cool and punky (well, I don’t have the new album as I heard it’s not as good).

Currently I’m checking out the Editors gig. I don’t think Editors are that great, and the singer’s voice reminds me of Alan Partridge, oh dear! Still, they’re much better live than, say, Bloc Party. Maybe their music translates better onto a stage. Actually they are quite cool.

BTW Editors also remind me of some 80s / early 90s gothic and new wave bands, which isn’t a bad thing. I got a similar vibe from the Klaxons’ album (Myths of the Near Future), which BTW is great too! I just love British bands at the moment - over the last 2-3 years or so a lot of excellent postpunk /post-wave / indie+art rock has come out of Britain. I really don’t like Britpop and such, I find Oasis, ‘Madchester’ (Stone Roses etc.) etc. rather dull. But Maximo, Fratellis, Noisettes, Long Blondes, Kaiser Chiefs (the new album, not the old one! the old one sucks), etc. etc. and I’m happy

PS: I phoned my mate Dave earlier (to prepare him and his missus for my imminent arrival in Edinburgh), and I ended the conversation with:

See you later, daaahhhling!

Good god! I’m starting to take on London mannerisms (down here, people call you either ‘daahhling’, ‘babe’, or ‘love’). I’m really looking forward to going to Edinburgh though. It’s just so annoying that the good jobs are down here, but the good people are 8 fucking hours away! It’s killing me