Back in 2004, Placebo came to Arras for an exclusive gig on the main square. This happened to be the first edition of what is now known as the Main Square Festival. What was a simple opener + headliner event is now a 4 day festival with about 25 artists/bands performing. For its 5th anniversary, the main square of Arras was welcoming Brian Molko and co back as headliner for Day 3.
The bass drum head states : We come in peace.
Placebo was here on support for their new album Battle For The Sun (released June 8.) so they naturally started the gig with songs off it, including the first two singles – Battle For The Sun & For What It’s Worth – but most of the setlist consisted of obvious hits such as Special K, Bitter End, Every You Every Me. There was no real surprise apart from being introduced to the band’s new drummer, Steve Forest who made it look like drumming is a matter of power and hitting as hard as you can. It’s all in the wrists, M. Forest. My highlight was the almost acoustic first part of Meds followed by the explosion of energy when the full band jumps in. On a global note, I found the band distant and not too impressive. Maybe I’m simply over Placebo.
The rest of the day consisted of :
- Expatriate : Australian rock band I knew nothing about but they did a decent job considering they were playing first at 3pm sharp with the sun staring down on them.
- Ghinzu : I remember liking this Belgian band’s second album, Blow. They were pretty good but the fact they had the bass and bass drum so loud you could feel the vibrations throughout the gig was quite damageable to the overall enjoyment.
- Gossip : They were the reason why I got a ticket for the festival and they were GREAT, as expected. They opened with Pop Goes The World, a song off their new album, Music For Men (released June 22) and it was the starting point a one hour of non stop dancing around, jumping and singing along. They played 2012, Men In Love, Love Long Distance [I realized I love that song and it was cute to see Hannah sing along to it], Vertical Rhythm, Jealous Girls, Fire/Sign, Yr Mangled Heart, Listen Up and ended with Standing In The Way Of Control (while Beth was walking through the crowd – and stopping right before reaching me) and the current single, Heavy Cross. There were some short bonuses in between songs with a few lines from What’s Love Got To Do With It and Beth offering us an a cappella rendition of Whitney Houston’s I Will Always Love You. There was also a foot incident; the stage being black and the sun directed right on it, it was as hot as a cooking pan, that resulted in Beth asking for socks to protect her already blistered feet, thanks to Tracy for the very sexy socks.
Overexposed photo but you get the idea.
Gossip gave the best prestation of the day, hands down. Their contagious positive energy, Beth’s charisma, hesitant French and jokes, Hannah’s drumming that’s as pleasant to hear as to watch and the guitar/synth/bass driven by Nathan and the fourth member whose name I can’t recall make for an explosive combination leading to one of the best shows ever. You’ve never been to a concert as long as you haven’t seen Gossip live.
The rest of the day was pale in comparision. Bloc Party was boring, every song sounded the same, apart from the ones with xylophone in them. Props to the drummer, though; he had some pretty fast patterns.
Kaiser Chiefs had the heavy task of being the last band before the headliner but they did a great job. Ricky was running around/juming/climbing the whole time while singing and obviously having a good time and everyone on the Main Square was enjoying it too. The fact he came to the center of the square to actually greet everyone who was all the way in the back was a nice idea. Second best performance of the day.
This man is crazy but he’s a good showman.
So July 4, 2009 was a good concert day but it’s a shame Gossip never gets to play longer than just one short hour as they were everyone’s favourite act. Even the article in the newspaper had three times more lines and qualificatives about Gossip than about Molko and the rest.
mel :: Jul.06.2009 ::
Arras, Beth Ditto, Bloc Party, Brace Paine, Concert Review, Expatriate, Ghinzu, Gossip, Hannah Blilie, Kaiser Chiefs, Main Square Festival, Nathan Howdeshell, Placebo ::
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