I’ve just got home from the first night of the new Faithless tour and am pleased to say that it was a great night out (even though we couldn’t get standing tickets and were high up in the seated area at the side of the venue).
Although I’d heard the first track (Bombs) on Radio 1, I didn’t have a copy of the new album (To All New Arrivals) and so hadn’t listened to it until we were on the way to the gig (Stuart brought a copy with him for the car). I was reasonably impressed after the first play (it’s very chilled) and it will definitely grow on me over time. Although the tour is clearly promoting the new album the set didn’t just include new tracks – old favourites like Insomnia, God is a DJ, We Come One and Salva Mea were in there too.
For anyone who has doubts about a live performance by an electronic act it works really well – in the late 90s, I saw The Chemical Brothers at the Glastonbury Festival and that was really just a DJ set in a marquee but then, a couple of years back, I saw Moby supporting Robbie Williams at Knebworth and that gig was huge (about 120,000 people each day). About 9000 people were watching Faithless tonight and the atmosphere was electric.
Oh yes, and in case you’re wondering what a 34-year-old father of two is doing at a Faithless gig – that’s the great thing about dance music – even crusties like me can have a good time (although I remember when people held lighters up in the air – these days it’s mobile camera phones)!
Links
- Faithless (iTunes).
- Official Faithless website.
- Faithless podcast (only two episodes so far but includes a trailer for the new album including live footage from a previous performance and a high-definition version of the video for Bombs – banned by MTV and very thought provoking as the UK’s present war-mongering administration prepares to invest in upgrading its nuclear arsenal…).