A Gig-By-Gig Account of BBK Live. Day One.

Guest Feature Review:Howard Gorman

Editor in Chief/Associate Features Editor
Twitter: @HowardGorman
Website: http://www.ppsf.co.uk/

Photographs: Musicsnapper & Tom Hagen

On the back of last years more than successful festival, the organisation took it upon themselves to consolidate BBK Live as a major player on the European circuit. Given the bands in store this time round, we were clearly in for a more consistent offering. If the attendance figures are anything to go by, they couldn’t have made a wiser choice.

When people think of Spain, they think of sun and sangria but Bilbao has seen more that it’s fair share of rain over the past couple of months. This brought back memories of REM’s quagmire accompanied concert back in 2008. This concern was quickly nipped in the bud when Bilbao awoke to a glorious sunny Thursday morning, raising expectations tenfold.

A surprise pre-festival concert was celebrated slap bang in the centre of Bilbao with a Rolling Stones tribute band, “Rollin’ Stoned”. This was swiftly followed by the formation of an alarmingly long queue at the bus stop for the shuttle service up to Kobetamendi, the festival site. Further to the numerous complaints received following last year’s event, regarding shoddy transport services, 38 shuttle buses were provided this time round, meaning we managed to get on a bus in about 20 minutes in spite of the hefty queue spiralling around the city centre.

No sooner had we entered the site, we stumbled upon the new, 3^rd stage, where the Basque quartet, Belako were performing a short set they had managed to score thanks to beating off all competition in this year’s Gaztea Basque radio contest. I had heard nothing about them prior to today and although they are still very much in their prime they do appear to have promise, with their effective blend of dark rock with captivating vocals. Regardless of being in bloom, they displayed an impressive, energetic and mature repertoire of songs.

 Next up were one of the highlights of the whole festival for me. I caught them a while back in Camden and I couldn’t wait to see how much of a progression that had made since then, particularly as NME had tipped their debut album, ‘Baby’, as an early contender for album of 2012. It was a shame that they were given such an early, condensed slot but they got in all the festivals faves whilst including new song ‘Dance of Healing’. As always, guitarist, Dan White manages to inject life into the party with his strange sense of humour. The crowd were more than responsive and loved every bit of the music and the banter, even though the band was the first to admit their extremely limited Spanish skills. In short, up there with the best of the fest. 

I ran straight over to yet another band I had high expectations for and they certainly did not let us down. Brits are renowned for their punctuality over here and ‘The Maccabees’ confirmed this by coming out on the dot, opening with the track ‘Child’. You could tell they were loving every minute, and, despite having “learnt their Spanish from the Tribes” (i.e. absolutely zilch) there was plenty of banter with the crowd and the band sensibly dosed their biggest hits, making for a great set list. This was easily one of the best surprises on the Thursday. The set was ‘Given to the Wild’ heavy but the band made a wise choice in dusting off a few old favourites such as ‘No Kind Words’ and ‘Love You Better’. My particular favourites were ‘X-Ray’ and ‘Can You Give It’ and a band/audience rendition of ‘Happy Birthday’ for the drummer.

Given the additional stage, this year brought with it the overlap dilemma. We opted for Snow Patrol, on the main stage, rather than “Jon Spencer Blues Explosion” but, in hindsight, this may have been a mistake on our part. That’s not to say that the Scots did anything wrong. They just didn’t do anything worth writing home about and it was pretty clear from the audience’s reactions that they were more bothered about finding a decent spot to catch The Cure than anything else. Most of the time I heard a lot of the Spanish audience muttering how they sounded like Coldplay. I say no more. The band did what they could but it was only “Chasing Cars” that was met with a huge applause and this was because it has been played to death recently given its constant TV time on this year’s Spanish “Big Brother”. To cut a long story short, the audience had had enough main course, and were ready for the dessert.

 The headliner’s set was delayed for the best part of 40 minutes but, thankfully, this provided the audience with something very few people can say they have witnessed: Robert Smith took it upon himself to come on out, all alone, to play a three song acoustic set in front of almost 40,000 people. In a subsequent interview, he claimed the idea had all started as a joke until the other members of the band urged him to do it. Smith played “Three Imaginary Boys”, “Fire in Cairo” and “Boy’s Don’t Cry” before deciding to call it quits as he said that everyone had come to see ‘The Cure’, not ‘Robert Smith’.”

With the technical hitch resolved, the entire band took to the stage to play for almost three hours. It was a great concert but three hours? Even the most devoted Cure fans started glimpsing at their watches from time to time. Did they honestly fail to realised that many of the festival goers were only there for the likes of ‘ Why Can not I Be You ‘and’ Friday, I’m In Love ‘ and “Boys Don’t Cry”, the latter of which they ended with.

Finally, at 2:30 in the morning, Bloc Party came onto stage 2 to inject a bit of sorely needed life into the party. Although Robert Smith and co. were still playing on stage one when they started, the first guitar hooks to sound on the smaller stage were enough to tempt people over in their thousands. Kele Okereke was as audience friendly as always, greeting fans in Basque, and we were treated to both old and new with the likes of “Banquet”, “Here We Are”, “Hunting For Witches” and the brilliant “This Modern Love”. Standout tracks from their new album ‘Four’ included “Real Talk” and “Octopus”, with the latter having been released only just last week.

All in all, not a bad thing to say about the festival so far. The organization has seriously raised the bar and Friday promised to be even more spectacular with the likes of Radiohead and Mumford and Sons.

​Day 2

The second day of Bilbao BBK Live dawned with everyone looking up to the skies given the forecast for rain. The queues for the shuttle buses snaked even further than on Thursday, making it clear we could expect yet another handsome turnout. In the end, the festival welcomed approximately 39,500 festival goers on Friday, smashing the previous record set in 2007 when Metallica were headliners.

First up was Noah and the Whale, over on stage 2. Unfortunately, they didn’t really get much of a turnout, failing to get much of a reaction from the crowd regardless of the fact that many more Brits than ever had flocked to Bilbao this time round. They didn’t do anything particularly wrong but they just played a set that pretty much followed their studio recordings to a tee. To make matters worse, growing winds blew one of the large screens off the side of the stage, putting the audience in danger. Luckily, nobody was harmed and the situation was dealt with swiftly. All in all, they managed to keep their audience happy for a while but many, including myself, didn’t last until the end of the set, as we all headed off to make sure we were in a good spot for the next concert over on stage one. We couldn’t have made a wiser choice.

Mumford and Sons showed us what serious folk music is all about. The show they put on was everything that the Noah and the Whale hadn’t been. Mumford and Sons managed to brush aside any signs of studio production tricks to orchestrate folk music as it was meant to be played, grabbing you where it hurts. Not only that, but we were treated to a great brass and string ensemble and all the pieces of the puzzle just fit together perfectly.

They were brave enough to kick things off with a new song, “Lover’s Eyes” from the upcoming album “Babel”, due in September. This wasn’t the only new song either. A further four were included in their set: ‘Below My Feet’, ‘Lover of the Light’, ‘Ghosts That We Knew’ and ‘Whispers in the Dark’. The audience danced and applauded as if they’d been played to death on everyone’s headphones already. If I had a tiny complaint, it would be that Marcus Mumford couldn’t play guitar given his hand injury. Having said that, he did give it a shot for one song and the rest of the set saw him giving it his all, banging away at the percussion with his healthy hand and feet. ‘Little Lion Man’ and ‘The Cave’ proved to Bilbao that folk can rock, when played with the right attitude.

I’ll say it right now. I have never been much of a Kooks fan but they actually put on a great little show over on stage 2. I have to say that they gave it their all and the stage even seemed too small for them, with Luke Pritchard snaking between cables and stands with his guitar. Festival favourites “Sofa song” and “Shine on” got the crowd jumping around, something which is not seen all too often at BBK Live for some reason. Radiohead were up soon over on stage one and rather than head over there early to get a good spot I as surprised as to how many preferred to stick with the Kooks than go and find a good spot over at the other stage.

In the meantime, the Main Stage played host to Four Tet, with his light and sound extravaganza.The English producer, who is far from a newcomer when it comes to supporting Radiohead, was the protagonist of what is probably the most “advanced” set that the BBK Live organisation have opted for so far. Although most of the audience were more eager to find a good spot to catch a glimpse of Thom Yorke, the Vodaphone tent, a few hundred yards behind the audience, turned into one hell of a rave, with people getting jiggy throughout the set.

As soon as Four Tet’s mixing desk had been whisked away, the crowd went wild, knowing it was only seconds before tonight’s headliners, Radiohead, would be taking centre stage after having recently cancelled pretty much all other appearances following the stage collapse in Toronto that had killed one of their drum technicians.

With a complex light display and flickering video screens, the Oxford quintet drew largely from thair latest album, kicking off with album opener ‘Bloom’. What caught my attention was Thom’s stage presence. No longer did we see the quiet, serious little man behind the guitar. Thom’s moves and expressions had me thinking of Russell Brand prancing around on stage at times. It was a strange sensation to say the least, but everyone loved it.

Maybe it was just me but I got the feeling that the band were so intent on creating all the little niches of sounds that make up each song that a lot of it got lost on the audience. There were glances and smirks between the members when they got the right sounds coming out of the speakers but I don’t think the vast majority of the crowd caught onto this, particularly those towards the back of the field. Considering all the technicalities involved in each song, they couldn’t have been any tighter.

The crowd roared when some older tracks were played, such as ‘Karma Police’. This is always the case at festivals though, as I mentioned with The Cure’s set yesterday. More casual listeners seemed to just go with the flow, only bobbing their heads to ‘OK Computer’ songs that littered the set list.

The two encores put any causal listeners’ doubts to rest though. The first of these saw them cover a short section of Neil Young’s ‘After The Gold Rush’ before leaping into ‘Everything In Its Right Place’. Unfortunately, the last encore was cut short, probably due to the rain, with the band finishing up with the great ‘Paranoid Android’.

As a side note, Thom Yorke chose to make a few cutting comments regarding the current state of affairs in Spain. In between playing ‘The Daily Mail’ and ‘Myxamatosis’, he said: “We know in Spain you’re having a lot of trouble. Cuts cuts, no money no money. Well we think you should be taking to the streets. Someone stole money off you. The banks.” His comments were applauded and cheered but I don’t quite think the main sponsors, BBK, a Spanish Savings Bank, were with the crowd for this one.

As the set drew to an end, there was a crazy dash to get to the queues for the buses back down to the centre of Bilbao. Those who chose to stay on for the party headed over to the second stage where Vetusta Morla changed the festival’s tack completely. Having played twice here already, the stage seemed to small for them, again. They played well into the night with an all-singing all-dancing audience. Just like Bloc Party the night before, their set was a well needed pick me up and a great end to the penultimate day’s proceedings.

Here’s a video recording, taken by a member of the audience, of Radiohead playing ‘After the Gold Rush/Everything In Its Right Place’:

Day 3

Festival goers started making their way up to Kobetamendi on the Saturday with the distinct feeling that, given there was no clear headline act, it was going to be a poorer state of affairs than the previous two days. Nevertheless, thanks to Glasvegas, Eli “Paperboy” Reed and, to my amazement, Garbage, the day wasn’t a wash out, with the entire festival securing BBK Live as a much more presitigious event as a result of the more compact and solid lineup the organisation opted for this time round. The quality of the groups, the extra thrid stage, together with the running the risk of going head to head with the great FIB festival, put BBK Live on the national festival circuit map once and for all. To problems that I hope to see sorted out by next year were as follows: Firslty, the abusive festival “tokens” that festival goers had to purchase to spend on food and drink on the site. Not only that, but the bars wouldn’t even give change, when due. The other problem involved site access. More shuttle services were indeed provided this year, but most of the time these buses left us at a good ten to fifteen minutes walking distance from the site with everyone having to traipse uphill with rucksacks and camping gear in tow. Regardless of these minor gripes, the festival manages to ramp up the expectations each year.

The first band we caught were Corizonas, intent on getting the audience dancing, and they got exactly what they’d bargained for. The standout track was “I’m Alive”, which the great Tom Jones covered recently on his album “24 Hours”. In the meantime, the Canadians PS I Love You played on Stage 3. Sadly, the duo didn’t seem to cut it with festival goers and there were no real stand out songs and most of the set was just to ‘noisy’ and I don’t think this was down to technical problems.

We made our way over to stage 2 for a well deserved dose of sixties hued soul from Eli ‘Paperboy’ Reed. Accompanied by a drummer, second guitarist, keyboard player and the token chorus girl, the Boston boy, with his turquoise pants and silver tie showed us he was no longer that shy and introverted type we were accustomer to. The top tracks from latest album ‘Come and Get it!’ were all included and we were even treated to new song, ‘Shock to the system’. Whether it was soul, funk and even gospel the ensemble didn’t step one foot out of line. Bring on the new album.

Dundee boys The View were up next and, despite my apprehensions, they actually played a blinding little set. Pete Reilly couldn’t have gone down better with the locals, sporting an Athletic Bilbao football shirt. The highlight of the set was the Scottish folk tempo track ‘Tragic Magic’. The only thing that seemed out of place here was the size of the stage. I think they would have been much better placed over on the smaller second stage, getting closer to the crowds.

Nine o’clock saw yet another overlap dilemma with Supersubmarina, Glasvegas and The Big Pink all coinciding.

We chose Stage 2 to catch Glasvegas where we found a somewhat divided audience. The Scots were well aware that this was a festival crowd with casual fans galore so they treated Kobetamendi to the darker sounds of their first record. Even so, for some reason this just didn’t ride too well with half of the audience. Many Spanish reviewers of the festival fail to understand why Glasvegas have such a large fanbase. I beg to differ, and it was clear that the other half of the audience, myself included, were in our element, enjoying one of the better sets of the day. The rest of the crowd did start to come to life in the end, thanks to the last set of five songs which included Euphoria Take My Hand and Go Square Go.

Then came Keane. What can I say here? I suppose it was enjoyable, but, with the exception of the hits from their first album, they just didn’t reach the audience with anything else on their set list. They played everything by the book but Keane never seem to have any intention of showing and form of attitude on stage with Tom Chaplin simply displaying his vocal virtuosity. The best way to describe them here is as a great support band for Garbage.

I really didn’t imagine myself saying this but, Shirley Manson was the highlight of Saturday, and possible of the entire festival. She was audience friendly, communicative and had an attitude and stage presence that other groups, such as Keane, would die for. She won the audience over all by herself. It was unfortunate that the sound cut out halfway through “Push It” but, technical problems apart, the concert proved that even their post 1990s discography is bullet-proof. There was me thinking Saturday was going to be an anti-climax.

With the festival over, both FIB and BBK Live have now announced the dates for next year. Festival goers can rejoice as there will be no need to choose between the two. Bilbao BBK Live will run from the 11th until the 13th of July, with FIB running from the 18th until the 21st of July.

We’ll leave you with a short video of this year’s highlights, courtesy of LastTourTV. See you next year Bilbao.

About the author: Howard Gorman

Associate Features Editor and Writer for PPSF Webzine / Staff Writer for Gaming Target / Featured IMDB Movie and Video Game Critic. Comedy promoter/writer. Translator.