Watch this week’s highly sensational performances in the feature below.

MP3: Athlete – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Watch today’s superb performance of ‘The Getaway’ in the feature below.

MP3: Athlete – Lucy In The Sky With Diamonds

Britt Lundborg attended last night’s gig and offers an extensive report! Last night, South London foursome Athlete played the Bowery Ballroom. You probably know their one big hit (“Wires”) since its epic melancholy was inescapable in 2005. I’ll give you a second to Google it. Ear-worms in? Good. Athlete’s a funny outfit – sure handed when piecing together melodies and highly competent live, but perhaps a touch out of step? I mean, they look like indie rockers: the drummer is festooned with ugly eyeglasses and a silly beard, lead singer Joel Pott tones down his super good looks with boring clothes and work boots, the bassist even has a face piercing. Swimming in all these alt signifiers, you’d think it would take, but their sound is Top 40 Radio. Proudly, unabashedly, straight for the middle. Their first LP was nominated for a Mercury Prize and they’ve picked up a highly-coveted Ivor Novello song-writing accolade. So, what’s the problem? Well, backlash for one thing. As typical with music fame in the UK, as soon as the Brits skyrocket your LP up the charts, they loathe you. See: Coldplay. Like Athlete, Coldplay started as a rinky-dink piano/kee-tar group held together with little more Chris Martin’s tears. They made perfectly accessible, square music and got hugely famous. Coldplay occupy Athlete’s space in the charts. Their built-in earnestness is a crucial part of both these bands’ appeal. When you want to soar or when you want to weep, this is the kind of easy-listening music that acts as a low-grade beta-blocker. It calms you down. But don’t get me wrong – the audience last night was rapt, singing along, loving every carefully-constructed moment. Does love flow in when irony’s gone? There were moments – the choral breakdown on “Wild Wolves”, Pott’s strange jaunty dance on the edge of the stage – but the night’s hatches felt fully battened.

View another photo & download an Athlete tune AFTER THE JUMP…

(Read the article)

Catch ‘em at:

MAY 31 Hoboken NJ Maxwell’s
JUNE 1 New York NY Bowery Ballroom
JUNE 2 Cambridge MA Middle East Downstairs
JUNE 3 Philadelphia PA Johnny Brenda’s
JUNE 5 Brooklyn NY The Bell House
JUNE 6 Vienna VA Jammin’ Java
JUNE 7 Toronto ONT Lee’s Palace
JUNE 9 Chicago IL Double Door
JUNE 10 Minneapolis MN Triple Rock
JUNE 12 Denver CO Bluebird Theatre
JUNE 14 Seattle WA Crocodile Cafe
JUNE 15 Vancouver BC Venue
JUNE 16 Portland OR Mississippi Studios
JUNE 17 San Francisco CA The Independent
JUNE 19 San Diego CA The Casbah
JUNE 21 Los Angeles CA Troubadour
JUNE 22 Phoenix AZ Rhythm Room
JUNE 24 Dallas TX Cambridge Room
JUNE 25 Austin TX Stubbs Bar-B-Q
JUNE 26 Houston TX Walters On Washington
JUNE 28 Birmingham AL WorkPlay Theater
JUNE 29 Atlanta GA Vinyl
JUNE 30 Chapel Hill NC Local 506

Watch ‘The Getaway’ here.

MP3: Athlete – Wires

Enjoy ‘The Getaway’ below. Be certain to watch ‘Black Swan Song’ here.

MP3: Athlete – Wires

11/3 @ Bowery Ballroom.

Wanna attend with a guest?

If so, then e-mail us ASAP!

A winner will be randomly chosen on 10/30 @ NOON.

Watch ‘Black Swan Song’ here.

Visit Athlete on MySpace.

MP3: Athlete – Wild Wolves

Enjoy ‘Black Swan Song’ below. Be certain to visit Athlete on MySpace.

MP3: Athlete – Wild Wolves

The Caped Crusader checks for crime at T. Shortly afterwards, he headed for the Slam dance tent while Robin went in search of some ‘legal highs’. Just a normal Sunday at T in the Park.

Rachel Fuller, with Pete Townsend on the far right of the stage.

Biffy Clyro strike some rock god poses.

Go on, guess who this lot are!

I did not see Razorlight out of stubbornness, I went because I had already seen Sons and daughters. Who I should have seen again instead.

Snoop Dogg and companions.

Kaiser Chiefs. Should have been on the main stage.

Bloc Party. If they’re a party, then it’s the kind Louis Tully throws in Ghostbusters for his clients. No possessed dogs here, though.

The mighty Green Day. Unfortunately we were too far out to get any good shots, but I’m really only posting this to make everyone feel jealous.

9:39AM Text message received waking me up on a Sunday morning “Sunday: The campsite is woken to the sounds of Guns and Roses ‘Paradise City’, as the crowd prepare to sacrifice themselves to the altar of rock.” Sounds a bit Big Brotherish to me.

11:50AM I text Skye to tell him that my mate Sea saw Razorlight open for Muse and they were very underwhelming. I wanted him to see Sons and Daughters perform their new material anyway.

11:58AM “Well I think since I’ve never seen them [Razorlight], I may go…it’ll give me something to complain about.” Skye=most stubborn person I know. Must remember to implement reverse psychology on him in the future.

12:00PM “Utterly baking at the main stage for Rachel Fuller, who has mistakenly said hello to Edinburgh. Pretty good piano led rock, deserves more of an audience than the few folk who’re here this afternoon.”

12:03PM “Wow! Pete Townsend is playing guitar in Rachel Fuller’s band! This is actually quite exciting stuff!” WTF?

1:16PM “Biffy Clyro- excellent. Surely Sunday mornings were made for jumping around like a madman while a long haired crazy man mistreated a guitar.”

2:12PM “A pretty emotive performance from Athlete, who come across as more affecting than whiney that they often do on record.” After watching them on TV I got to say that the song ‘You Got Style’ all but ruined any hope that I could like this band. The lyrics are so ridiculous and I fucking HATE the chorus with the cheerleader chant ‘It’s getting hot in here, must be something in the atmosphere’ One part Nelly, one part Bring it On and all of it utter SHITE. The song ‘Wires’ was pretty good though.

3:43PM “Razorlight played with the right amount of arrogance and swagger-if they had the songs. A bit weak to be honest, which was kind of emphasised by the playing ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ after their set.” Yeah I figured but I can’t help but love ‘Goldentouch.’

12:25AM Mind I am snuggled in bed by this point. “Now I’m no huge hip hop fan, but Snoop Dog even had me excited… mothafucka [sic]. Although he also though he was in Edinburgh, probably thinks all Scottish cities are made up of tents in fields… Kaiser Chiefs were a definite highlight-splitting the audience in half to see who could clap and sing louder. Bloc Party have some great tunes, so it’s a bit disappointing to find that they’re a bit too earnest to be very exciting. Oh well. Kasabian were pretty good-well judged with the fast numbers for a pretty pissed up crowd. Green Day. A drunk giant pink rabbit. A Scotland flag being waved onstage, Billy-Jo masturbates while the crowd ooos and aaahs, fires water guns into the crowd, gets a child onto the stage to fire the water gun, gets three randoms from the crowd to play instruments, then plays ‘Shout’ and ends the encore with ‘We Are the Champions.’ Political and funky, Green Day were awesome.” Side note about Green Day. They wouldn’t allow the BBC to film their set and show live footage on TV because they are releasing a DVD soon and are afraid people won’t buy it. This news from the presenters which elicited a response of ‘phew, Americans!’ Somehow I find this ironic given their last album title, American Idiot indeed.

Not covered in Skye’s excellent reporting was the appearance of the rockin Eagles of Death Metal (whose mp3s I am searching for right now), the always amazing Interpol, KT Tunstall throwing some sort of fit in the beginning of ‘Black Horse and the Cherry Tree’ and literally screaming at the people off stage to fix something putting her in an obviously foul mood for the rest of the song but the fact that her and the entire band were wearing kilts nearly made up for it (holy run-on Batman), Echo and the Bunnymen being surprisingly good singing ‘The Killing Moon’ and last but not least, my boys Travis with Franny wearing a vintage Live Aid tee and not being able to reach the notes in ‘Turn’ because he was too out of breath from running around the stage then after ‘Why Does it Always Rain on Me’ jumping into the crowd and having the security guards hold onto him for dear life.

And so ends The Music Slut’s coverage of T in the Park 2005. If you had the privilege of going I hope your sunburn will fade fast and if not just remember that there is always next year. Not for me though. Why? Well it’s like the old saying goes, does Jen shit in the woods? The answer is absolutely not.

Jack White and Brendan Benson have called their side project the Raconteurs and have nearly finished recording their debut album (NME.com). I can’t wait; Brendan Benson is a favourite of mine (since Lapalco, anyway) and a liking for the White Stripes needs no justification (although having said that, I haven’t heard the new album, and new single ‘Blue Orchid’ has left me feeling somewhat underwhelmed; although I did just listen to it again on BBC Collective’s playlist and quite enjoyed it; maybe it’s a slow burner. Talking of that playlist, the Coral’s ‘In the Morning just came on; damn, that’s good, and I don’t really like the Coral).

Download some free mogwai tracks, and bask in their joy(?)

Got a conscience? Got guilt? Buy your music from warchild.

Watch the video for the Shins’ So Says I at platesanimation.com and join me waiting pathetically for the awesome video for the Arcade Fire’s Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out) which I’ve seen once before but can’t find again… (sob)

Athlete play for KCRW’s Morning Becomes Eclectic (streamed). Prompted by Q‘s article on Athlete this month, I had a listen to some of their second album Tourist on the way into work today. To be honest, I’d downloaded it and then it had got lost in the depths of my iPod, but had never really given it a decent listen (and to be honest, I still haven’t); after Vehicles and Animals, which I really enjoyed even if I thought it was a bit, well, inoffensive, I’d thought that Tourist was just a bit… dull, to be honest. More Coldplay-lite. However, I think I was probably a bit unfair to damn them to the same brain-compartment as post-Good Feeling moan-rockers Travis, as Tourist has some lovely swooping choruses and a few decent hooks, although I don’t think there’s anything as good as the hooks of El Salvador and Vehicles & Animals.

*EDIT to say that after wasting much too much time looking for it, I finallly found the PlatesAnimation video for Neighbourhood #3 (Power Out); thanks go to the guys in the fora at Us Kids Know.*