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I have been contributing to this team at FujiRock for six years now, and I’ve never covered a headline act. I usually leave this duty for guys with a lot more experience like Phil, guys who write for a living. But when I saw no one else had selected to review this seminal group, I had to take it on.
I came here from a disappointing Ian Brown. I’m amped for something more. More what? Well, more good. I chose to walk along the back road so I could have a view of the stage from behind with the audience aglow. It’s a special view that I’ve added here after the jump. Apologies for the no tripod fuzziness. I managed to be watching from here just as they came on and the crowd rushed forward, quite a sight I’d not experienced from afar before.
Massive Attack come on stage. Viewed from the back of the Green stage.
Rushing down from here takes a few minutes, so I missed the first few tracks. By the rime I was in place, the crowd were entrenched and entranced. The rain comes and goes. The crowd doesn’t. This is downtempo delightful. Nothing is getting anyone to move off.
I situated myself in the worst position possible. A great view, drinks a stones throw away, up the hill with a modicum of shelter from the rain. What made this place so bad? It seems that everyone I know at Fuji Rock deemed fit to walk past me and engage me in conversation. Which is great and all, but doesn’t lend itself to concentrating on the music, or producing readable input.
One of the things I love about festivals. You’ve been here for three days. Things didn’t go according to plan. That show you so looked forward to was crap. You got really drunk last night, and now you’re hung over. You lost your mates. Your tent got flooded. Your gumboots split open. You dropped your ice cream. You lost your stash. Then you go to see that one band. Maybe you planned to. Maybe you didn’t. But you watched them, and now, everything is just sooo much better. Massive Attack I can see being that band. I’ve had a pretty damn good weekend overall. But I just missed Air for Ian Brown. And this show has made that all better.
The light show behind is a treat. Looking like a CNN news feed, it seemed maybe even to be so. The Japanese and the English seemed to bear no reletion to each other. A critique of contemporary times. Rush Limbaugh. The Republican Party. A long list of corporations flashed up in quick succession, ending with BP. Nice.
They haven’t rocked out. We didn’t expect them to. They haven’t needed to. They’ve played a great set peppered with classics. Unfinished Sympathy was of course a highlight. Piercing wails. The place is as full 90 minutes after they started, despite the aforementioned steadily increasing rain. Doing the Sunday night slot that guarantees you won’t be at work or school in the morning. Usually there’s a steady exodus of the crowd through this slot. Not so tonight. That’s a feat I haven’t seen many pull off.
