Time to take another glance backwards across Editors' past at Glastonbury 2008, as featured in this BBC 3 highlights show. There's a reason why they have such a strong relationship with this festival, which this video will hopefully illustrate. Sadly, one of the songs that was omitted from the broadcast when it aired on the BBC was No Sound But The Wind, possibly because of its status at the time as an unreleased track. However, you can still check it out if you download the MP3s of the set from the Archive using the link further down.
It's introduced as a new song and that's extremely accurate, considering NSBTW was clearly still in the embryonic stage of its existence at this point.
My favourite part of it is that there's a single note that starts everything off, and it's held throughout the entire song right until it ends. It remains completely the same and doesn't change in pitch or tone, acting like an anchor to all the other sounds that are swirling around it. Every time there's a more quiet part of the track you can hear it, even if you forgot that it was there. There's all these key changes happening with the other instruments but it remains unaltered. I love that, and I have no idea why. I just do.
You might not believe this, but Glastonbury in 2008 was a massive talking point among music fans. Why? Well, brace yourselves for an incoming scandal...they invited Jay-Z to headline. Oh mercy. Read it again and feel your outrage ignite like gunpowder.
Sigh.
When I got started down the road discussing the values of exposure to different syles I ended up with several paragraphs of ranting, so I've chopped it back for this final cut. A life in a musical bubble isn't really anything I'm interested in experiencing, and neither should you be. There are so many possibilities for joy in music, irrespective of genre, so take in as much as you can and keep what makes you happy.
This was a festival gig before the later days of confetti, streamers and moshpit-roasting flamethrowers. What they did have, was a smoke machine. If you're the Sisters of Mercy in 1985 and your aim is to partially obscure yourself in a mysterious veil of dry ice, it's the perfect accompaniment to your music. Suddenly you go from being 4 ordinary dudes on a stage to being 4 shapes in a mist, sending in spooky and deeply meaningful vibrations from another world. If you're Editors and it's the middle of the day at Glastonbury, however, you just...vanish.
Glastonbury saw them delivering one of the best, and fastest, versions of Blood they did in that first lineup of the band. I actually feel like King Leetch really had to earn his money at this concert, trying to keep up with his partner in rhythm who appears to have chugged a bucket of coffee prior to hitting the stage. Powerful Ed Lay! Playing with the speed of a man who just remembered he forgot to turn the iron off when he left the house. It's the same when they do Munich which has the solo, crowd-baiting intro from Tom and the first chorus fake-out which you can hear the audience sing along to. Music done at a trot rather than a canter.
Watch out for the very end of Smokers when everyone decides to go a bit nutty before they leave the stage, including Mr Smith attempting multiple sloppy pirouettes like Baryshnikov, all while slapping the crap out of his guitar. Enjoy the show ;)
Highlights Setlist
1 Bones 0:00
2 Racing Rats 4:29
3 AEHAS 8:50
4 Escape The Nest 12:54
5 All Sparks 17:16
6 Bullets 20:34
7.Blood 23:40
7 Munich 26:59
8 WOTW 32:20
9 Fingers 36:44
10 Smokers 41:00
To see and hear much more from Editors at Glastonbury 2008:-
lemmingarchive.blogspot.com/2...
For more Editors stuff, drop by the Archive
lemmingarchive.blogspot.com/2...
brought to you with lots and lots of lemming-love ) x