I’ve always quite enjoyed Bright Eyes in spite of, or perhaps even because of the feeble nature of Conor Oberst’s whinings. I’m one of those people who truly loves Radiohead though, so no amount of whinging can detract from what I deem a good record. There comes a time, though, when enough has become enough and, despite Bright Eyes’ leagues of rabid fans who’ve been obsessing about this appearance for months and would surely say otherwise – it was getting a little boring.
I was surprised therefore on two counts: firstly, to find Conor’s new material – this time under his given-name – to be quite upbeat by comparison. Secondly, Mr. Oberst, played none of his Bright Eyes back-catalogue, surely to the chagrin of some die-hard fans in attendance, instead bringing along The Mystic River Band to this shindig and blazing through a thoroughly luminous set of his new Folk-Americana gems, though all still topped with his trademark singing-underwater stylings. I’m now looking forward to hearing more from Conor in the future.
Is anyone else getting bored of Tenacious D? Sure, I found the whole first record moderately amusing for a short while and ‘Tribute’ was actually a comedy-rock masterpiece. But the movie? Eugh! The accompanying soundtrack/difficult second LP? Bleugh! This Reading festival performance? Not so much. The audio was frankly poor throughout and despite my initial joy at seeing the boys turn out a full band rather than just themselves and a few acoustic guitars, I was soon disappointed when I realised that this meant they themselves would hardly be playing a note, merely relying on a whole bunch of daft theatrics – akin to a giant Punch and Judy show – with two characateurs of themselves and a man dressed up as a robot as ‘The Metal’. They did play Tribute, but only after a lot of tired attempts at rock/metal/toilet humour and some truly terrible renditions of terrible songs. To quote The Smiths: that joke isn’t funny anymore.
Metallica really aren’t my cup of tea. When I liked metal, as a nine-year-old, I liked Iron Maiden, and Metallica just wouldn’t have cut it back then.
By the time of their landmark eponymous black album, they represented corporate, mainstream, cock-rock to me, and despite what are unarguably catchy tunes, I could not bring myself to get onboard with them. Since then I have seen them churn out ever more pop-hard-rock records, make fools of themselves in the courtroom and in their hilariously Spinal Tap-esque behind-the-scenes video ‘Some Kind Of Monster’. When I was a metal-kid for the second time ‘round, listening to the likes of Deftones and Soulfly, I witnessed them lamely trying to turn their collective hands to ‘Nu-Metal’, culminating eventually with the woefully poor results featured on their album ‘St. Anger’. As you can imagine – despite the hype surrounding them – I was not expecting to enjoy their Sunday night headline set at Reading Festival this year.
And I didn’t.
OK, ‘Nothing Else Matters’ is a foot-tapper.
