So here I am….I finally made it to Roadburn! Flying into Amsterdam the day before it all kicked off, the sense of excitement was palpable. Who would I get to see? Who would surprise me? Who would be a let-down? Well, read on….
I decided to head to the Midi Theatre, just around the corner from the main venue – the 013 – after having picked up my guest/press wristband, in order to see The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, whom I recently reviewed for this very website.
Since the weather outside was so pleasant and sunny, the band had opted to play with very subdued lighting, in order to help conjure up some moody late-night ambience to match their music. It worked a treat. Dark, mean and sultry, the band slithered out deep shuddering slabs of bass, splintered, almost atonal, piano and Chet Baker-esque sobbing trumpet lines, accompanied by a back projected movie with a definite hazy urban-noir quality. A disembodied female vocalist spilled out booze-soaked blues atop the audio collage, chilling the hearts of all present, making us all forget that outside all was sunny and bright.
An inspired choice for an opening act, as the laid-back doom and gloom purveyed by TKDE was exactly what was needed to ease us into the spirit of the festival.
Cutting the set short, I headed back to the 013 in hopes of catching some of Quest For Fire. Sadly, I was denied due to the band playing in the ‘Bat cave’, a tiny room right at the top of the 013 that holds a very small amount of people. The room was RAMMED, with a good many people standing outside too. A shame, as I’d been really enjoying their latest album, but there were plenty more fish in the sea, so to speak!
I managed to catch the tail-end of Year Of No Light‘s set on my way back over to see the wonderful, and highly divisive, Ghost and mighty fine sounding it was! They do the majestic Neurosis-inspired epic post-sludge thing very well indeed, and I heard a great many good things about their live ‘Vampyr’ soundtrack accompaniment the following afternoon too. Another casualty of timing clashes I’m afraid.
Continue reading: The Sleeping Shaman – Roadburn 2011, Tilburg, The Netherlands – Day 1.
Tags: Quest For Fire, Roadburn, Roadburn 2011, Roadburn Festival, Roadburn Festival 2011, The Kilimanjaro Darkjazz Ensemble, The Sleeping Shaman, TKDE, Year of No Light
This entry was posted on Tuesday, April 26th, 2011 at 2:12 pm and is filed under 2011, Festival News . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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