day two review

The second day of Open’er was a short one for me, I must confess. With torrential rain and no Wellingtons (the website promised sun and fun!), I almost didn’t make it to the festival site at all, in favour of exploring the town which, at least, was concrete under foot, not shin-deep mud. But being the old sucker I am, and remembering the entire reason I decided to embark on this trip in the first place, I plastic bagged my feet (bags which lasted about 4.6 seconds once they contacted the mud) and got that shuttle bus so that I could see Beastie Boys – my god-damned maddafunkin number one band in the whole bruddy world. WORD!

Groove Armada played before them, but, you know the crowd was tiny, simply because there was so much mud and rain. I sat in the press tent feeling sorry for myself as I had flashbacks to Glasto the week before. But by the time the Beastie Boys’ are ready to take the stage, I’m braving that rain no matter what – their my best chance of greatness this weekend, after all.

Ever hear the one about the latter day hip-hop band so consumed by their own creativity that they had to tour TWO shows at the same time just to accomodate the sum total of their eclectic musical tangents? MCA once bragged having 'more rhymes than he's got grey hairs' and although that may no longer be true of the Dad-aged rappers, they're still doing things that our contemporary hiphoppers could only dream of. As their double-tour hits Europe, they unveil a show that brings them full cycle, digging deep into their punk origins, playing as a full live band alongside long-term DJ Mix Master Mike, to deliver a career-spanning retrospective that re-confirms what we already knew - Beastie Boys are the greatest act of the last twenty five years.

The crowd are w*nkers, mind. Perhaps the festival taking place in an army airfield explains the militant atmosphere, and why the crowd don't dance, they march. As the Brookly trio appear on the main stage for the first of their two shows - in the guise of 70's funk detectives, wrap around shades hiding their eyes from the crowd - their enthusiasm to perform is soon made weary by the crowd chant for cop-chase cruiser "Sabotage" that persists for the entire show, as if it were the only hit from their three decade career to leave its mark on Polish jukeboxes. It’s still mind blowing, as old school cuts like 'Sure Shot' and 'So Watcha Want' juxtaposed with punk terrifiers 'Time For Livin' and the rarely aired 'Egg Raid On Mojo' shafting any pretender crossways for doubting their might.

I leave happy to know that the Beastie Boys are still amazing, but even happier to know I’m due to see them at least another four times this summer (once more tomorrow for their instrumental show, then in London at Brixton and twice more at Bestival) and that they’re likely to be equally as ace but with an enthusiastic crowd to match.

It’s still raining though, and I hate Muse. I think they’re pompous, over-blown and cater to a repressed middle-strata of society who make up for their lack of personal talent by investing righteously in something that has glitzy façade of greatness, when in fact the well-meaning bastards (that’s Muse, not the fans) have climbed further and further into the realm of sci-fi franchise wank-off with each pretentious, tune-less album. Ohhhhh, catty! Yes, I know they sold out two nights at Wembley, but that’s precisely because they are so average that they now can now cater to a massive strata of boring Brits who channel their social repression into this seriously lame musical Star Trek escapism. F*ck Muse, f*ck them up their whiney little buttholes.

Because of the rain, I didn’t bother watching Muse, although people said they were ‘alright’ and that the crowd were a bit non-responsive (as with most acts this weekend). One thing to say, to those mega fans who’d flown over after seeing them at Wembley a couple of weekends before is that Open’er probably seemed like a huge downsizing. In fact, in Muse terms, you could probably class this as ‘intimate’. They’re still shit though.

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