Oct 182011
How does this performance by Fleet Foxes make you feel? What most stands out for you in the performance and the editing? What do you think my 3 favorite cuts are? What article of clothing is missing from this performance above all else? What do you like about this performance? I think even members of the Bad Attitude Club would acknowledge some good in this.
I look forward to your thoughts.
Sorry, no can do – there’s nothing good about this. Hairy folkies with absolutely no fashion sense don’t do a thing for me. Button-down blue shirt with knee-high shit-kickin’ boots? Missing piece of clothing: bandanna tied around neck. Sub-sub-sub Crosby, Stills & Nash (no Young in sight) without electricity or inspiration. Big snooze. I guess that puts me irretrievably into the BAC. I’ll deal with it – in fact, I don’t expect to lose a second of sleep over it if this band is the criteria.
I love this song and I love this album. Mr. Royale and I caught Fleet Foxes on their first show out of Seattle opening for Blitzen Trapper at a small club in SF. They were amazing and their harmonies great. That said, it still surprises me how quickly they rocketed to Arena Status. And, to be in touch with the inner curmudgeon in me, I don’t like the second album as much as the first – too many references to Simon/Garfunkel, CS and Y – thank you Simon Reynolds!
I can only guess at your favorite edits given your posting of the Steve Miller Band video yesterday.
Ha! No, I was hopeful at one point, of my favorite ridiculous festival concert display taking place, but no dice.
Makes me feel quite sad that I wasn’t there to see it – I’ve been to all but two Glastonburys since 1989, and it looks like there was a nice mellow vibe going by the time they hit that number, with the mud beginning to dry out after the deluge of the days and nights of rain which had gone before.
A couple of times I’ve ended up in the far car park the camera pans in from, which reminds me of how very, very far it is to walk from there with all the gear to the field we always camp in. I can smell the fresh and dusty smell of the site in years when it’s been warm and dry, and the very different aroma of the years when the mud has been so deep that it takes well over an hour to walk from the Pyramid Stage to the John Peel Stage, and another to get back again.
The wellies on stage reminds me that, no matter how warm and sunny it looked when they were playing that song, the folks watching would have been sinking slowly into the mud of Pilton, smiling as the great big boom arm with the camera on the end swings out over them, then going back to trying to stay upright again as the earth tries to claim them.
They only film one stage at Glastonbury, and unless you’re still at school it’s generally where the least interesting stuff happens. The guys working the cameras always look as if they are more used to keeping fairly still while filming sports events, and rarely look comfortable with pop groups – especially ones who move about, which leads to some fairly odd camera work. They do it with rarely more than three cameras, and there is no editing other than someone who hasn’t slept for three nights pressing random buttons to switch between them while hoping that the portacabin they are in doesn’t sink or float away. “The Last Waltz” it is not.
The clip is definitely lacking anyone walking on stilts, or wearing top hat and tails while stiltwalking, which is another indicator of the conditions underfoot. On a nice sunny day at Glasto you don’t have to scan the horizon for long to spot a posse of them, or a gang dressed as tea ladies pushing a works tea trolley around the site, or people spraypainted silver pushing something large made out of pieces of bent metal, which depending on which angle you approach from could be either a giant butterfly, a dragon or a pirate ship, or maybe all three at once.
I like Fleet Foxes, they are how I imagine the Beach Boys could have been if Mike Love had lost the plot instead of Brian Wilson, or if Neil Young had decided to settle down and get on with people. They are exactly the right band for the Pyramid Stage at Glastonbury on a warm, dry, sunny-if-at-all-possible afternoon, and that clip makes me wish it was summer and I was sitting on the grass of Worthy Farm once more.
How do I feel? Unoffended. But also largely unimpressed, especially as the 3-minute mark rolled on towards 4 minutes towards 5 minutes. There just isn’t enough going on lyrically or musically to justify taking that much time. Lastly, deliriously happy I wasn’t there, as the idea of ever being in a crowd that large makes me ill. My favorite cut was at 2:58 to the stuffed giraffes and pink pony on a stick. Happiness Stan, is that some sort of Brit thing that we are not aware of on this side of the pond?
Now there are some great impressions, from a Townsman who’s been to many of these festivals! You touch on one of my 3 favorite shots in this clip: that of the parking lot. Your explanation of their rubber boots was also most helpful.
I feel nostalgic — I haven’t been to a big outdoor show in years — no bikini tops at the concerts I go to these days!
As for the music, Fleet Foxes are OK by me, but I liked The Thrills, who did the retro-Beach Boys thing a bit earlier and a bit better in my book.
The Thrills — One Horse Town from So Much For The City
http://youtu.be/aR7bqYYFPFE
However, The Thrills ran out of gas — and Fleet Foxes is still going strong.
Geez did that song ever end? I’m not really familiar with this band, but it seems like the kind of thing to put on the stereo when you want to chill on a Saturday afternoon. In other words, exactly not what you want to hear with 50,000 other people swarming around you, 5,000 of whom are sitting on some poor bastard’s shoulders.
And shouldn’t they be wearing some kind of rustic hats?
At one point I saw the organist plug up one ear with his hand so he could hear himself sing harmony. Was that what caught your eye, Mod? it was very sort of Graham Nash.
The Graham Nash Harmony Ear Plug was #4 on my list. I agree with you and someone else that the song went on twice as long as necessary. It was pleasantly and enthusiastically performed for the first 2 1/2 minutes, then the band tried to get into some CSNY-style instrumental raga part, but they had NOTHING going on and no balls to pull it off. Then there was another half-hearted attempt at an acoustic jam that went nowhere. They quickly retreated, following the bassist’s strumming of eighth notes on the root note. Oh, how I hate seeing Peter Hook-/Adam Clayton-style bass playing on anything but that kind of music! Other than my few beefs, though, their singing was good. I’d like to see how they do with a really concise, well-crafted pop song, like “Afternoon Delight.”
I was also amazed at the mob of people grooving to that performance. Again, not that they were bad, but it made me question whether HVB’s complaint yesterday that the Rock Concert Is Dead was a valid complaint. Somehow, the Rock Concert seems capable of carrying on, even with the kinds of bands we were expect to be necessary to fuel Rock Concert Behavior.
So, the hand to the ear, the boots, and the girl in the bikini top on her guy’s shoulders did add much to my enjoyment of this performance, but so far only the shot of the parking lot hits on my Top 3 Delights.
The guy playing electric guitar in the rubber boots should either grow a beard or go join some band that shaves.
I agree about the hats. The most interesting hats (hattus piltonius) tend to congregate away from the Pyramid Stage lest they be contaminated by The Man and All His Evil Works. They are often found either communing or sleeping it off at the stone circle up at the top of the Green Fields, or riding unicycles (mud permitting) around the Circus Field.
I used to make a point of bringing home the most stupid hat I could find every year, and occasionally they fall out of the cupboard like prisoners begging to be released. Sometimes Mrs Happiness takes one out for a walk, which is possibly why the neighbours don’t speak to us very often.
Here’s the “original” so you can hear what a nice job they do live. And the clean-cut, beardless guy is wearing a vest so he fits in a bit better:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IH2T4Ox1gls
I lost interest. I always do with these guys. I’d say something else, but I can’t ger worked up one way or another about them. Those boots would look better on BTO, though.
Perhaps the lip-synching woman at 3:40 who looks to be straight out of Circus magazine ca. 1978 is in the top 3?
BINGO!!!!!!! She is #1 of my list, my friend.
So noonetwisting has nailed my #1 joy from this clip, as he put it, “the lip-synching woman at 3:40 who looks to be straight out of Circus magazine ca. 1978.”
#3 is the shot of the parking lot.
What’s my #2 joy from this clip?
The inflatable giraffes?
The woman near the end in the sort of Russian fur hat who starts to get into the music much more demonstrably once she realizes the camera is on her?
The shot right after her of the tent area with smoke billowing up as if from a giant bong?
Something less animated than that, but good try.
I didn’t see her before. That’s a good one! I did notice the exhaled bong hit coming from that tent. #2, for me, is really stupid, I’m sad to say, nowhere near as enlightening as the girl in the fur hat, the shot of the boots, or especially Circus Magazine Girl. It’s a shot during the first half of the song. No band members appear in it.
So it wasn’t the food is his beard???
That beardless guitar player looks like a combination of born again uber-douche Kirk Cameron and the kid who played Rudy the Rabbit in Meatballs
Hi Misterioso, more a Glastonbury thing that a Brit thing!
“from the first half of the song”? C’mon, Mod, I don’t have another 30 minutes to kill. Show some pity.
No kidding! Can you decode for us?
Thanks for hanging in, all. I am in SF. I believe rhe answer is found at the 1:55 mark, the pan to nothing but the backdroo logo. How uninspiring!
I started writing down some thoughts, but it got a bit long, so I’ve put it up on my (very occasional) blog, http://wildmanmikey.blogspot.com/2011/10/what-was-glastonbury-really-like-daddy.html
This vid makes me sad.