BBK Live forever

Bilbao, year 7 a.c. (after the crisis). Today, for the first time, I have a special guest star as a writer for this post: Mel B, Dj and my husband amongst other things. So, don´t expect any comments about politics or about Greece or even about the polemic new Spanish abortion law... Here it comes. And in both, Spanish and English.

Jesus and Mary Chain

You can’t fault the promoter’s criteria for selecting the bands to play at the BBK Live Festival. Certainly the fact that there were no three day season tickets left, and that Saturday night was sold out well in advance means that the policy of booking some big, big headliners and filling out the line-up with just two or three reasonably well-known acts and then many, let’s say, lesser names does in fact guarantee a financially successful, albeit slightly imbalanced event. Mumford and Sons were the drawcard on the first night, old-timers Jesus and Mary Chain had the peak Friday night slot, while on Saturday Muse were the band that most of this year’s BBK festivalgoers wanted to see.

This punter’s attendance was limited to just Friday and Saturday evening. James Bay came highly recommended but his finely crafted tunes seemed to lose strength in the festival arena. Next, a quick dash to the Bilbao stage to get a good vantage point to see Jesus and Mary Chain perform their 1985 “Psychocandy” album. Given their track record for feedback, sound problems on opener “Just Like Honey” seemed appropriate. This was soon overcome and the band faithfully ran through the entire album, the strong melodies superbly obscured in a crystalline cloud of guitar fuzz. The insistent groove of the album’s final cut “It’s So Hard” sounded remarkably contemporary, almost like a dance track, providing one of many highlights in a set which panned out with a four single treat comprising “April Skies”, “Head On” “Some Candy Talking” and a brilliant “Reverence”. A performance which cemented Jesus and Mary Chain’s place in my rock heaven. 

Alt J

Alt J were next. If you press “Alt J” on my laptop, nothing actually happens, which is a little disappointing. Apparently, if you do it on an Apple computer it “saves the QSO and creates a new QSO record”. Having no idea what that actually means, I imagine something random happening on the Mac which takes the user to some unexpected corner of a “virtual world”. I’m not sure if Alt J took me anywhere like that, but their interwoven patterns of sound do have that random element to them: you never know quite where a song is going to next. This is maybe the beauty of their music, but it can confuse a festival crowd who might liken the combination of lights and sound to some big opening ceremony for a new Apple Store. Impressive, interesting, but a real concert experience?

Saturday kicked off for me with a quick glance at Murcia’s Neuman playing “Bye Fear/Hi

The Ting Tings

Love” which, as is often the case, sounded less annoying live than it does on Radio 3.  But, I abandoned them quickly to nip off to meet some friends for The Ting Tings who were making their second appearance at BBK Live. We were miles back, but the sound was good as they romped through “Great DJ”, “Shut Up and Let Me Go” and later on, their own little masterpiece “That’s Not My Name”. The set was padded out with a not-so-great-DJ destroying Talking Heads’ “Once In A Lifetime”. Even singer Katie White joined in the massacre, “scratching” the record to bits. But, the kids seemed to enjoy the frivolous fun of it all.

Of Monsters and Men

Next: Of Monsters and Men, but bad news: their set was to be cut short “due to illness”. They came on and none of them seemed to be looking too green around the gills, but by the third or fourth track I think I was. The fact is, rather than cut the number of songs, things would have worked out much better if they had cut two or three minutes off each song. As one interminable track followed another, the crowd became restless. But all was forgiven when they got some singalong football type chanting to the catchy, ubiquitous “Little Talks”.

Muse

Next: a quick look at Bear’s Den, who sounded very impressive before they succumbed to an ill-judged Mumford and Son banjo moment. And then a lull before what everybody was waiting for: Muse. They’re big: big songs, big sound, big lights. Matt Bellamy, the Edward Scissorhands of Rock, played his songs and played the crowd. The strange thing about Muse, is that they like to indulge in long, long songs with operatic Bohemian Rhapsody-style “movements”. But it’s the short, pithy singles that do it for me. Second song, a three and a half minute “Supermassive Black Hole” is just vastly superior to seven minute opener “Psycho” while singles “Plug In Baby”, “Starlight” and “Time Is Running Out” are the highlights. The anthemic and extended “Uprising” starts the encore while the epic (and long) “Knights Of Cydonia” completes the night. You can’t fault the attitude, musicianship and the spectacle and the seventeen song set meant that the Muse multitude headed home happy. With tired legs and ears I joined them, leaving the younger generations to carry on until a new dawn, a new post-BBK day. 

Kobetamendi, the venue for the festival