Category: Music
Right...
Here we finally go with part 3 of LSP...
The most recent time I saw Lee Scatch Perry was at the Royal Festival Hall in 2003. It seems absurd it was that long ago, but doesn't it often???
Anyway, each year, the Royal Festival Hall does The Meltdown Festival.
Once a year, they basically get in some credible pop musical luminary to put on their choice of acts over a month or so - or maybe it's 2 weeks. They've had curators like David Bowie, John Peel, this year it's Jarvis Cocker and in 2003 it was Lee Scratch Perry...
Perry chose a very political line up. It was populated by acts like Spearhead and the Asian Dub Foundation, as well as mostly living legends like The Sun Ra Arkestra and Public Enemy..
I could have happily atended all of the shows, but instead decided to go for just the one: Tricky, with LSP as a late guest performer...
At the time and still now, I think this show was about the most peculiar and flawed, yet excellent show I've ever seen...
For those not familiar with the venue, as it's name suggests, The Royal Festival Hall is a venue primarily designed and built for 'Classical' music shows. It's the kind of place that's all about High Brow Culture.
Nowadays it's trying to get it's piece of the zeitgeist, hence The Meltdown Festival, but you can bet your arse there won't ever be a concert featuring Girls Aloud (Though if they do make a comeback show with Nick Cave moaning away on piano in 10 years time, it's possible..)
I've seen a few good acts play at the RFH now, but none have ever fitted the location. Femi Kuti was brilliant, but the venue was far too po-faced for his kind of a show. It was like having a boxing match in a polite tea room....the atmosphere was all wrong...
To be frank, I really don't buy this idea of putting on radical and decent acts in old colonial and stuffy venues that are trying to be hip by covering up their inherently poncey nature. I don't see it as revolutionary or as payback in anyway. It just makes good acts look ropey, out of place and shit most of the time...
So:
Tricky was preceeded by the Mad Professor doing a live PA.
As with Femi Kuti, there was nothing wrong with the Professors set - it would have been great in the right sort of venue, but in the RFH, the sound was complete shit. Half the speaker stack appeared to blow at some point and even without this, there was no crispness or seriousness of bass that's been the definition of the Professor every other time I've seen him play..
By the time Tricky came on, people had started to leave and after about 10 songs, a big whole bunch of folk had upped and left. It was a constant stream of people wandering out, and whereas in some venues this kind of exodus can be hard to detect, the wide aisles and wide view granted from where we were sat made the main event..
The problem was two fold:
Firstly, the sound was completely shit again.
And secondly, Tricky had no voice. He said that had it have been any other gig, he'd have called off sick, but because it was Perry, he did it..
But he had no fucking voice at all...
And much as i wanted to love it, I was getting tired and borred.
But I hate leaving anything early and i certainly wasn't going anywhere without seeing Perry...
And I was glad I stayed..
Because the strangest thing about this show, was that Tricky got better with time. His voice seemed to pick up, or else the sound people found a way to bring it out more. And when it came to Perrys turn, the gig became vital...
Perry and Tricky did a couple of songs. I have no idea what they were. Large parts consisted of them bigging one another up. But whatever these tunes were, I had the idea they were completely essential and from being a complete nightmare of a gig, it suddenly become absolutely important and brilliant...
To this day, i can't put my finger on what this turn around was all about. Maybe it's me idolising Perry, or that Tricky performed this Lazarus like recovery. I really don't know....
It was a fucking great show though...
 | Currently listening : Vulnerable By Tricky Release date: By 17 June, 2003  |
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