Greenbelt Review
Paul Bennett
Greenbelt 93 will never be forgotten. Like U2 playing in 1981 and
Deacon Blue's acoustic set in 1991, five minutes of Monday's mainstage
will undoubtably be recounted ad infinitum.
Peter 'Willie' Williams is U2's show designer. He's the man behind Zoo
TV; he's also a regular Greenbelter and flew into the festival on Sunday
morning. Monday night, just before DC Talk, Willie was introduced on
mainstage. He had a phone in his left hand. He mentioned Bono, wound
the crowd up a bit and asked, "Shall I give him a telephone call?".
Remarkably Bono was in.
"You know last week you said 'one day some bastard's going to call me at
home from the middle of a stage somewhere'?"
"Yeah"
"Well, this is Willie; I'm at Greenbelt."
After convincing Bono that this was for real, Willie said "Just say
'hello', and I'll leave you alone". The response? "Hello Greenbelt;
everything you know is right."
How annoying! Just when I thought I had U2 figured, Bono throws this
one in. Oh well, back to the are they/aren't they Christians debate...
Other highlights? Iona were spectacular. Drawing mainly on their first
album, with smatterings of new material and songs from 'Kells', they
proved that their music really stands out live. I'd thought that maybe
their new member, Mike Haughton, would change the feel of the band. Not
so - "Flight of the Wild Goose" is still ringing in my head. As for the
new album, I wait with baited breath. Only two months before it's released
now; the songs we heard from it were fantastic. Looking at these guys play
was remarkable - it was as if each note was carefully thought about and
selected for its importance. See them if you can.
Saturday night saw Sam Hill and the Roco Band headline in the Pleasuredome.
I last saw Sam at the Borderline club just under a year ago. It was the
first time I'd seen him with a band, and to be honest, he wasn't that good.
(I asked Sam later about this 'yeah, that was an experimental band - we
like to call them Sam Hill and the Thugs'.) This time however, he was
stunning. A very tight six-piece band (featuring ex-Stormkeeper Richard
Curran on viola and mandolin), they added much-needed body to his sound
while retaining Sam's unbelievable guitar-playing. (For those of you
who've never seen him play the intro to "Do you ever ask...", it *sounds*
as if there's three or four guitars playing - you get such a shock when
you realise it's just one man beating his instrument to death.) I knew
for certain there was something different about him this year when a close
friend of mine who'd previously *hated* his music leaned over after the
second song and said "he's quite good, isn't he?". (She followed the band
around the rest of the w/e; we're talking about a convert here.)
The band I was most looking forward to seeing didn't disappoint. Over
the Rhine gave a stunning performance on Mainstage on Sunday night, then
a more relaxed informal gig in the Bunker on Monday morning. I now know
why folk want a live tape of OTR: "My love is a fever" is truely remarkable;
such a pity they won't be able to record it for six months. (If anyone
ever *does* get this on tape, let me know :-) I was also suprised and
delighted to hear that their IRS deal is for five albums... I await the
next release eagerly; until then I'll have to convince everyone I know to
buy Patience when it's released over here this Autumn. Unfortunately the
stewards at mainstage were messing about during the show ("must have been
bored," Karin's told me when I spoke to her on Monday), so started playing
about with water pistols. One fired, another ducked and Karin got it in the
face ("I couldn't figure out what was going on"). Still, two *excellent*
gigs from them; I wish they'd come every year and do more...
Sunday afternoon had an Irish showcase gig. Seeing as I managed to miss all
but two bands, I'll just say that Watch this Space were great, but What?
didn't really grab me at all. Mind you, when I saw all the bands busking
together on Saturday night, they were brilliant. ("Who needs girls...?"
is the song that's stuck most in my mind this year.)
Supposedly Greenbelt is more than just music - it's all arts. Unfortunately,
I find myself unable to appreciate most arts so it was good to see an act I
could enjoy. For those who don't know, the Danger Brothers are jugglers and
have what is probably the most hilarious act known. They didn't do much
juggling which was technically difficult, but their patter is surely what
most people watch them for. At one point, while on their 8ft giraffe unis,
they asked a girl to pass their clubs up to them. Unfortunately, she had
difficulty undertanding the instruction, and proceeded to throw them *every-
where*, at high velocitly. When they finally had all the clubs, Howie turned
to the girl and said "when you get home, tell your mum there's too much
tartrazine in the orange juice". One word of warning: *never* take a photo
of these guys: they have a nasty trick for photograpers.
Oh well I've rambled on long enough. Suffice it to say that this was
one of the best Greenbelts I've been to (OK, second only to 1990 - I've
been going sing 88), and it didn't rain at all!
Rumours for next year include: Midnight Oil, Clannad, Walter Wangerin.
I'll let you guess which of these won't be singing.
pab.
--
Paul Bennett _ onewhe
p...@doc.ic.ac.uk | elgood
Under disguise at BT's LEC until September /|\ twowhe
pben...@lssec.bt.co.uk \_/ elsbad