I have to admit, I am very rarely one for going to big shows. When I say big shows, I mean major concerts, Grande sized headlining acts, way too many people.
So if I am going to leave the house, it’s going to need to be someone like Florence and the Machine or Pearl Jam. Neither tours with any great frequency in my neighbourhood and both have remained solid members of the family that is my record collection from their very first releases.
I’d love to see Florence and the Machine working in studio. Contextually, a diva, a harp player and a bunch of producers with 90′s dance music credits would lead to an interesting vibe. You listen to the kind of stuff they write and it’s not by any means the traditional palette of sounds. There’s a touch of classical, a smidgen of trad rock and the usual weird array of bleeps. I’d vibe on that pretty hard.
The glorious thing about both these bands is that in the face of so much crap on today’s modern adult oriented radio, the song writing stands up. They’re the kind of bands that for me, along the likes of say, Band Of Horses, stand up acoustically, just as much as they do when they’re plugged in. I’d actually be willing to pay money to see these bands play unplugged because then you actually get to hear the quality as opposed to hearing much of today’s crap simply be exposed for what it is.
If I really wanted to go and see someone unplugged and I knew I’d be able to pack a posse along with me, it’d be someone legendary, someone like say, Pearl Jam. Hear me out, because I know it sounds contradictory but that’s kind of the point. Underneath the layers of distortion, kick drums and howling, lie twenty years of serious song writing chops. The more recent stuff may be pretty pedantic but the classic stuff,, you know, Ten-era Pearl Jam is pretty intense and brilliantly written, all stuff that would lead to both a unique and pretty awesome acoustic session.
Really, let’s take it one step further and let’s have them do Ten in it’s entirety. All Tomorrow’s Parties have been inviting alternative music’s finest t come and play some of their classic albums in heir entirety over the course of a concert. The Stooges Doing Raw Power, Sonic Youth doing Daydream Nation, even GZA Liquid Swords. So why can’t Pearl Jam do Ten or Vs.?
Thinking of where you’d want to see this done. Having recently traveled to both the Decibel and Mutek festivals, I’d sure be keen on doing it again. The concept of gong to Glastonbury has always been a dream of mine, so let’s wrap this all together and have someone send me to see Pearl Jam play Ten at Glastonbury, mud, tents, sunstroke and all. So, who wants to do a contest that would allow me to win a chance to do this?