Mercury Rev not glum ba*tards shocker!
Monday, September 1st, 2008hahahahaha. They will actually kill me for that if they see it. But that’s unlikely as Jonathan, Grasshopper and Jeff are far too busy promoting their excellent new album Snowflake Midnight and its sister release Strange Attractor. We hooked up with them, sadly in the downstairs room of a hotel and not in the back of their tour bus yomping across the wastes of upstate New York, but you can’t have it all. Or in my case, anything. Suffice to say we were in garrulous spirits, which resulted in us all failing to conform to the perception that the Rev are miserable, glum, intense musicians and instead resulting in a rather strange but highly amusing conversation taking in a world petting zoo tour, the contractual obligations of their album artwork bunny rabbit, and, er, Jonathan’s lack of glumness. Dammit guys – why d’you have to be so funny and so talented? I feel small.
Keep your eyes peeled for the interview in the next episode of Flyposter. Not a dry seat in the house……


Apart from the fact that there is an increasing number of folk who, like me, are slightly grossed out by Iggy, who still don’t get the fuss about The Zutons and who could go the rest of their born days without hearing another spew of spittle soaked mockney bile from Lydon and his deeply un Sexy Pistols. Yeah, apart from THAT, the festival wasn’t half bad. Now it may have been the liberal jugs of Pimms available on site, but we found ourselves actually enjoying a NERD set, with Pharrell managing to inject some humour and charisma into his tiny unsmiling frame, and at least four recognisable from the original songs making their way over the heads of the arena. Oddly, The Wombats also managed to reach the increasingly rowdy fans (I blame the free drink pavilions that looked over the arena crowd) whilst as usual The Kooks succeeded in taking an open and happy crowd and sending them all off to the burger stands during their set.
One thing – if you’re the headline act who’s taken the lucre for an appearance, and justified it in some convoluted inversion of your original manifesto, surely you would at least repay your loyal fans by spending some of the fee on a few lights and a bit of a show? Given your vocal performance and staged bile no longer cut the mustard, a few strobes and bit of dry ice wouldn’t break the bank would it? So why did Lydon and co ask us to crown an otherwise great days’ music with lukewarm delivery and 8 60 watt bulbs framing the stage?…something to dwell on as you wait on your bus home….

