News from the Garden of Eden... Yes, it's been found. Heaven on Earth.
Over there across the Channel.
Proof that all is not going wrong at the moment on the British Island. If only the right people were in charge...
Enjoy the account.
Cornwall cacks its pants as Massive Attack bring the bass and politics to the Eden Project
Sublime and they're back to do it all over again tonight
The bass. Oh the rolling, booming, quaking bass. You didn’t know whether you were going to touch cloth or touch the face of God.
Massive Attack are one of those bands that have been mentioned as a dream Eden Sessions headliner since the concert series started back in 2002. Finally it happened – a homecoming of sorts. Although as Bristol as they come, both the remaining kingpins Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja and Grant ‘ Daddy G’ Marshall have homes in Cornwall.
It was worth the wait, the first of two nights – their only UK shows of 2018 – was an all-out art attack, but without that annoying Liverpudlian presenter. The audience’s senses and synapses were bludgeoned by the perfect amalgam of groove, noise and visuals.
And what visuals. Daily Mail readers would have been exiting through the biomes. With quiet stealth over the past 20 years, Massive Attack have become the most political band on the planet; skewing party and global politics, warfare and anything that sullies their radar, often giving voice to protesters and activists in the process.
So on Friday night, quotes from Trump and Farage knowingly sidled up to those by Goebbels as a meaningless morass of Facebook posts collided with ever-growing, brainwashing LIKE, LIKE, LIKES and affecting images of Syrian refugees made you feel uncomfortable for dancing in a safe European greenhouse. The photographs were by Giles Duley, who lost three limbs in Afghanistan and talks about the legacy of war at Saturday’s Eden Session.
3D and Daddy G, augmented by a cracking band of musicians in the shadows, make you think as you sway. Was it right to be taken by the rhythm while the screen showed the moment by moment dialogue of a drone attack? Chilling.
It was anything but hard-going though. A wonderfully serpentine Inertia Creeps was accompanied by the day’s headlines, from the serious to the Kardashian. There were two local stories – low flying aircraft spotted over Cornwall and a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it dig at last week’s headliner, Gary Barlow’s Confetti-gate, when the pop star got all environmentally unfriendly in the garden of Eden.
The sound was stunning, among the best I’ve heard, not just as Eden but anywhere. Maybe it had something to do with the new state-of-the-art bass speakers Massive Attack brought with them. Twelve of the mighty things, I believe.
For a casual Massive Attack fan, the set started perfectly. Their ecological classic Hymn of the Big Wheel was the obvious opener in such surroundings, Horace Andy’s mellifluous tones as familiar and warm as a hug from your dad, while D and G arrived on stage for the sinister slide of Risingson.
But this is Massive Attack so we were never going to get an easy ride. There was a spattering of latter period MA’s darker, more challenging songs from 2016’s Ritual Spirit EP, including the title track, where they were joined by the dreamlike tones of gig opener Azekel, and unexpected encore opener Take It There – not an obvious choice when favourites like Teardrop and Paradise Circus had been omitted.
Then there were the songs with Young Fathers – Voodoo in My Blood and He Needs Me (a track only available on the Assassin’s Creed soundtrack). Mesmerising, yes, but not built for mass appeal.
The Edinburgh post-rap trio were unbelievably good in their own slot earlier in the evening. Up there with Vampire Weekend and the Beta Band as the best support act in Eden’s history. Their tribal collision of hip hop, soul, funk, punk and gospel is unique (unless you’ve heard New York’s TV On The Radio before, though Young Father’s stew is much more palatable); tracks like Toy, Get Up and In My View, though punishing, drew a big crowd who danced to the stentorian groove.
With just a drummer and backing track (which broke down at one point much to member Graham Hastings’ visible annoyance) all eyes were on the fabulous Alloysious Massaquoi and Kayus Bankole, the latter looking frightening even when wearing a canary yellow shirt and shaking his bum at the crowd. Scowling off without a word, they meant it, man.
Massive Attack scoured their back catalogue from beginning (a sublime Unfinished Sympathy with guest singer Deborah Miller surpassing Shara Nelson’s original vocal) to end (incessant versions of United Snakes and Splitting The Atom).
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Massive Attack Eden Sessions setlist
Hymn of the Big Wheel
Risingson
United Snakes
Ritual Spirit
Eurochild
Girl I Love You
Future Proof
Voodoo in My Blood
He Needs Me
Angel
Inertia Creeps
Safe From Harm
Take It There
Unfinished Sympathy
Splitting the Atom
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The highlight? Safe From Harm is always immense, if only for that circling Billy Cobham bass line and another exquisite Deborah Miller vocal. The version at Eden went somewhere else entirely though. As the song broke down around a rising wave of guitar it suddenly exploded into a rampant, hypnotic collision of noise and groove (I’ve used that word too often but it IS all about the groove). You didn’t want it to end. Just when you thought it would end but hoped it wouldn’t, it didn’t.
My mate turned to me at its climax and said he'd reached sexual heaven three times during the song ... but not quite in those words. I know exactly where he's coming from.
Begbie himself, actor Robert Carlisle, was watching. Now that's a seal of approval.
I caught up with Sessions founder John Empson after the gig who told me it was in his Top 3 Eden shows. I wouldn’t argue with that. It was so good I’m going back tonight, if only for the final few minutes of Safe From Harm.
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