This Martin Luther King weekend was an extra long weekend indeed. At one point I was up skiing Killington, ed at another I was heavily drinking my Super Bowl dreams away, but yet nothing would compare to the opportunity that presented itself Monday evening.
Not only was I to review the Bastille/Grizfolk show, but I’d been asked to interview the artists as well. Um… Hell fuckin’ yeah! How often do you get the chance to talk to an emerging international rock star for fifteen uninterrupted minutes? I’m guessing like… never?
I arrived at The Royale just after 4pm for sound check. Walking through the front doors, it was impossible to miss the herd of about fifty fans already out waiting for the venue to open.These people were out camping the 8 o’clock show in 20-degree weather nearly 4 HOURS before the show even started.
Once inside, I made my way to the backstage dressing rooms to meet the bands for the interviews. The interviews were an amazing experience that you can read below the review. Although having the chance to meet the bands was awesome, I was fully unprepared for how good of a show I was about to see.
Grizfolk opened the night with a set-list comprised of tracks from their album that drops sometime next month. Nearly every song that they played seemed to be better than the previous, garnering increasingly energetic responses from the crowd. On more than one occasion, they would tease their own songs to foreshadow the rest of the set-list. The coolest transition however came when they played a brief mash up of Kendrick Lamar’s “Money Trees” and Nina Simone’s “Feeling Good” – this definitely hit home with the audience because even though Grizfolk played an amazing set, most of the fans had never heard the songs before. I’m sure there will be no such problem once the Grizfolk album drops next month.
It’s safe to say that probably 85-90% of the people in attendance that night were there to see Bastille, and rightfully so. These guys truly put on a show unlike most that I have ever seen. Each song was packed with energy that lead singer Dan Smith really brings out with his stage presence. During any given song he could be playing his keyboard, jumping off the drummers platform, singing in the audience, or his personal favorite: finding any drum he could get his hands on and start contributing to the rhythm.
A common element in each of Bastille’s songs is that they have a strong, pulsing, and danceable rhythm. The encore performance of “Flaws” only underscored the track as my personal favorite. When they played it, the entire place was up on their feet dancing and screaming.
The entire experience was a great success and will go down as one of the better shows I’ve attended. I ‘m also very excited to hear the release of the new Grizfolk album in a month, so keep your eyes peeled. Just don’t be surprised when Bastille and Grizfolk dominate the national pop scene in 2014.
Bastille Interview
Host: Carter Rogan
Interviewees: Kyle and Will from Bastille
AP: How did Bastille’s music career start out?
Kyle: I guess it all started out with Dan writing songs in his room. He had all this music and needed a band to play it live, so that’s when he found us. Early on we were out playing pubs with literally no one in them just to get our name out there. We actually had to borrow our friend’s mom’s car in order to travel all across the UK.
It was a seven seater, and if you can picture it, there was all of the gear plus the four of us crammed into a tiny space. Will and I, who sat in the back, literally could not see each other through all of the stuff.
AP: How different is it playing for an American audience?
Kyle: We are actually really lucky in that even though we are still relatively small here, the fans we have are extremely loyal and will make it out to our shows. I mean we sold out our tour last year. That’s absolutely ridiculous, how could we have done that?
Will: Yeah I thought we were going to have a more traditional first tour in America. You know, drive around for six months playing to nothing but empty pubs and what not. But we seemed to have skipped that whole phase and I don’t think any of us are really upset about it either.
AP: I find it kind of strange that “Pompeii” was your fourth single. Were you expecting it to be as big as it was, or was it totally unexpected?
Will: Well we were quite lucky in that its somewhat rare now-a-days for an artist to get developed by a label. We signed to Virgin and took a more traditional approach to everything. We subsequently released each of the first three singles as a build up to our big one Pompeii. But yes, we were massively surprised with how well it did worldwide. We are surprised by everything really. As a musician you don’t expect anything to go well, and when it does you think something just doesn’t seem right.
AP: What are the biggest obstacles for a band this day and age?
Kyle: First one is just songwriting, it’s the key to everything. Its like if you are going to build a house you wouldn’t start out with a layer of shit. That just wouldn’t make any sense. Instead you start off with a solid foundation to build on and go from there. This is the same in songwriting; you just don’t start a project around a bad song.
That’s what Dan’s really good at. He’ll take a song and tweak everything until it’s absolutely perfect because that’s just the way he is.
Will: Dan’s really weird… He’s always singing into his phone at dinner.
Kyle: He’ll do it anywhere! We will be on a plane, out walking around, or in an important meeting or something and he will look a bit off. Next thing you know he will get up, walk away, and start singing into his phone. Then he will come back a few moments later and act like nothing ever happened.
This one time I remember that he did it we were at this really weird warehouse about to play a show. At some point in the night he wandered off and I had no idea where he was. When I asked him about it he said “I was in the bathroom singing into my phone. Isn’t that wicked!?”
And wasn’t that “Bad Blood” that he had recorded?
Will: Yeah it was. It became the vocal line in the chorus.
Its kind of interesting how being successful sort of legitimized it though. Now when he does it people say, “Oh that’s fine, it’s Dan and he’s in a band. Isn’t that interesting!” Where as of three years ago everyone was just like “You are fucking weird man.”
AP: Other than Pompeii, what are some of the hidden gems on Bad Blood?
Kyle: I’ve personally always liked “Bad Blood”. I think that since it was our second single building up to Pompeii it kind of got swept under the rug a little bit. I was upset that Bad Blood didn’t quite get its due.
Will: My hidden gem didn’t even make the album. It was this song called “Durban Skies” and it had slap bass all over it! I was so excited until they told me “We can’t have slap bass on a record you idiot.” So they took it off and I was heart broken.
AP: Even though the bass was good?
Will: It was sooo good. Slap bass always sounds good. Name me one song with slap bass in it that doesn’t sound mint.
Kyle: I couldn’t name you one that does sound good!
Will: Come on man.
