System of a Down at Wembley: a review, if you can call it that

It was one of those gigs where the music finishes, the band leave the stage, and you are struck dumb. You don’t know whether to go home and pass right out, or get a stiff drink, or just stand there staring into space because your mind is blown.

System didn’t have a supporting act. They were on a mission to raise awareness of genocide. Who would they invite on tour for that?

In the crowd are System fans of all flavours. Two young, soft-spoken guys from Reading have looked into the genocide as a direct result of the band. Two loud, stocky Yorkshiremen have a conversation about how Derbyshire is to Yorkshire what mushy peas are to fish and chips. They don’t sound very interested in the politics. But what unites everyone around me is our passion for the music. When I shelled out more than £100 for a reseller ticket, my colleagues were evidently doubting my sanity. So was my partner. But this band do not play often. They have split up in the past. So I did it. Now, in the crowd, everyone has paid a similar price. Everyone saw it the way I did. I’m with like-minded people here.

System take us on a journey with their music. The lights dim and before the band come on stage, we see an animation explaining the Armenian genocide, and System’s view that the lack of recognition and reparation set the tone for genocides such as the Holocaust.

The words ringing in our ears, the band sound the opening notes of Holy Mountains. This has never been one of their big hits, but it is one of their most explicit references to the genocide.

The first part of the set is a display of prowess, ripping through some of their most popular and lively hits. Chop Suey! is dropped in surprisingly early. When your fans know your music this well, there’s no need to save your flagship track until the end. Since the lyrics are in fact some of System’s least interesting, you may as well drop it when the crowd is still full of energy.

After their second video, the music takes a more reflective tone. The lighters are in the air for Aerials, and during the delicate, jangling introduction to Question!, I reflect for the first time that this band plays beautiful music. I have listened to them more times than I’ve had hot dinners, and they have evoked many things, but this is the first time I have thought of beauty.

This is a testament to the band’s musicianship. They are in fine fettle tonight: razor-sharp synchronization and driving rhythms make for fast tracks that pack a punch, if you can say that about an anti-violence tour. The end of Mr Jack is electrifying.

Older System footage contains some less than tuneful moments vocally, and part of me was worried that I would have to consciously ignore my classical training to tolerate that. But there is not the slightest whisper of an off note in Serj and Daron’s keening vocals, which soar above chunks of guitar you could use to build a mountain.

Live, their faces are every bit as expressive as their photos suggest. As Serj sings the Deer Dance lyric “service with a smile”, he pulls a sarcastic, poster boy smile – which drives home the thunderous rage that follows. The whole band even manage to evoke the meaning of Needles, urging us to throw out toxic received window and think for ourselves. You know, if you can get over the repeated yells of “Pull the tapeworm out of your ass!”

Daron stops to tune his guitar between tracks. “I tune my own guitars,” he tells us. The viola player in me is delighted. He plucks two strings: flat. “Eurgh,” he says. “Come on, say ‘Eurgh!'”

The most exhilarating thing about the crowd tonight is the utter passion evident on every last face. I mean, there was The Guy Who Knew Every Lyric. I’m pretty good on their lyrics, but they pack in a lot of lyrics. He knew them all. It makes me sad on a regular basis that this musical dedication is lacking in so many of the circles I move in.

Were they noodling between songs in a way that suggested more songwriting? Honestly, it would be hard to say. They said nothing about new material. But one thing is for sure: the moment they do, I will be right there in that pit.

My glasses went in the pit and survived: in defence of moshpits

Recently, I found this post by punk musician and feminist, Stephanie Phillips. Moshing, she argues, drives women and smaller people out of the scene with its aggression.

“Moshing and aggressive behaviour at gigs has forever been a frustration in the alternative scene, but how should it be dealt with?… I personally could happily see the end of all mosh pits… I could never understand why you’d choose to flail your limbs aimlessly and career yourself into random strangers,” she writes. “I’d also ban headbanging.”

Well, Stephanie, I beg to differ!

A couple of weeks ago, I went to Bloodstock Open Air. That’s right: even the name sounds menacing. I told someone at work and she looked a little bit scared. Bloodstock is a metal festival. And there are lots and lots of moshpits.

As I hurtled into my first pit of the weekend, I couldn’t help think that my colleague would actually have been quite upset if she’d seen it. I saw one guy with a bleeding tooth. My own legs were still black and blue almost two weeks later. I got me a nice, round egg on the shin. This is dangerous! Surely it must be stopped for the good of us all!

You might think so. But there is order in the chaos.

Your average pit goes something like this: the music gets heavy. A hole in the crowd opens. And the mayhem begins. The people on the edge of this circle know they’re at the edge of the pit. If they don’t want to be there, they move: the pit is usually a defined area with people standing around it watching. Spotting, almost. There are plenty of other good vantage points if you want to watch the band.

In the pit, it’s a bit like a game of British Bulldogs for grown-ups. We push. We shove. We headbang. We run around like loons. But we’re there because we want to be, and in a good pit, we respect each other. Case in point: I am a bespectacled lady. While moshing to viking metal megaliths Amon Amarth’s Bloodstock set, my glasses fell off into the mire of mud and thundering New Rocks. I almost had a heart attack. “My glasses!” I screamed. “Help, I’ve lost my glasses!”

Like magic, the four guys around me stood stock still and held their arms out, bellowing: “Glasses!” in their best death metal growl. I groped around on the floor for a few seconds, and quickly found my muddy but otherwise unscathed specs. “Glasses!” we all roared, and carried on our merry way.

That wasn’t an isolated incident. It happens with shoes, too. And rule number one: if someone falls over, you pick them up. I know outsiders often suspect metalheads of being deeply psychologically damaged in some way, but I haven’t actually met one who enjoys being trampled unconscious yet. Moshpits have their own culture.

 

Good pits and bad pits

 

Earlier, I used the words “in a good pit”. Not all pits are good pits. In some pits, you get a culture clash, and that’s when it gets hairy. Metal pits tend to be some approximation of Mr Blobby playing human dodgems on steroids, but hardcore pits are more likely to involve, well, aimless limb flailing. I remember a Bleeding Through and Caliban gig where the half crowd seemed to be whirling their arms round in circles as if they were trying to take off.

These gigs also more likely to involve emo kids. Perhaps it’s that homophobia problem that the metal community is still grappling with. Perhaps it’s because, by glorifying slim figures, make-up and carefully coiffured hairdo, they subvert the traditionally masculine. Perhaps, as Tom Dare has argued in Terrorizer, it’s because they directly draw on the sexuality which so much metal studiously avoids. But metalheads really don’t like emos.

So, in a pit where aforementioned emo kids engage in aforementioned flailing, metalheads sometimes think it’s funny to clothesline them or push them over. It’s a nasty, antagonistic dynamic. But it’s also the exception, rather than the rule.

 

Transcendence

 

Why do we mosh at all? Well, why do the Burning Man crowd go for earth-shaking dubstep or ravers for hypnotic psytrance? Stepping out of the confines of conversation and moving to the music that is pummelling you allows you to zone out. For a glorious moment, you are sucked into a liminal zone where there is no speech or thought or people; just the overwhelming immediacy of the now.

That’s why we leave the pit bruised, battered and bleeding, but positively exuberant about it.

It’s telling that metallers are far less likely to do drugs than most other subcultures. Perhaps we mosh because we get our highs through a more visceral, physical sensation. While others seek a vortex inside their heads, we reach the same place by being physically tossed about like a boat in the maelstrom. And perhaps it’s because, well, can you imagine someone on ketamine trying to mosh? Thought not.

Dancing to a different tune

Oh dear. That’s rather unfortunate. The story of David Glowacki being strongarmed out of a performance of Handel’s Messiah for whooping and moving to the music shows that despite classical music’s best efforts, it still has an image problem.
For those of you who didn’t catch this one, during the Bristol Proms, art director Tom Morris encouraged the audience to enjoy the music however they wanted – chill out, have a beer, chat, and generally do what people at other gigs do.
Not needing to be told twice, Glowacki “raised his hands in rapture and let out an almighty cheer”. Apparently piqued by this, the man standing behind him gave him a swift smack in the kidneys, hissed abuse at him and frogmarched him out.
The story caught on. Most articles claim that he was crowdsurfing, although his own account suggests that he didn’t actually make it that far. It was reported in The Independent, Metro, a couple of German-language papers, and several metal magazines. Glowacki published the piece linked above on The Guardian. Morris’s best intentions backfired horrendously as the international media zoomed in on this sole act, which said: We don’t tolerate fun in here!
Why are we so amused by this story? I mean, it went viral. It obviously struck a chord. If it had been any other kind of gig, we would probably just have sighed at the bonkers audience vigilantes, muttered about whether they’d ever been to a real gig before, and moved on. Would it be reading too much into things to say that there was an element of schadenfreude in this case? A reminder that however hard you try to pretend otherwise, your true colours will show through. A cautionary tale to those who try to be cool.
That in itself is worth unpacking, though. Classical music is seen as the music of the elite, and the elite is not cool. Whether there is a good reason for this is a matter for a different post entirely, but the point stands. Classical music is the string quartet playing Mozart at the film villain’s soiree. Classical music is the pretentious music that sees itself as “art”. Classical music is the music you can’t have a dance to. And classical music is, as this incident suggests, the music where if you even try, you will be stopped. Painfully.
This is what makes it funny when the audience are just such anal retentive that they actually try to have fun. Nobody is writing: “Man assaulted at Bristol Proms”. We have no idea what this “white middle-aged man” was actually thinking. But we’re only too happy to take him as representative of an entire musical culture. As Glowacki told The Independent: “Classical music, trying to seem cool and less stuffy, reeks of some sort of fossilised art form undergoing a midlife crisis.”
Also worth note are the constant references to the fact that Glowacki is a scientist. It is almost – almost –as if those covering the story are trying to split up the sciences and the arts. As if they are trying to resonate with those who claim that the arts today are one huge study in the emperor’s new clothes: meaningless, pretentious, and a waste of public money.
In fact, Glowacki’s status is a relevant point. He had in fact been on stage as part of the proms the previous night, in a project visualising the vibrations from Nicola Benedetti’s violin. His own conclusion was that the rules are created from the ground up: whatever the directors say, it is the audience who are the judges of good taste – and also jury and executioner, if this is anything to go by.
My personal view is that there is a special place in hell for people who crowdsurf. That has nothing to do with classical music and everything to do with years of metal festivals: nothing spoils your enjoyment of the music like a New Rock to the head. But what happened to Glowacki was unfortunate not only for him, but for classical music in general.
Oh, and this is entirely unconnected with the fact that my one attempt to crowdsurf ended in me being dropped unceremoniously on my bum. Honest.

Musical fairytales

When you ask people to name a famous composer beginning with M, they don’t say Martinů. This is what I call Doing It Wrong.

Martinů’s symphonies are some of the most evocative pieces of music I’ve heard in a long time. It honestly feels like listening to a fairy tale, from the bit where they think it’s a good idea to wander off into the woods right the way through to the dragon getting shoved in the oven, or the wicked queen being killed by an axeman, or whichever way round it was. If you’re into fantasy, I can’t see how you could fail to enjoy this music.

Click to listen: Martinů’s Symphony no. 1.

Unfortunately, in terms of accessibility, he did that thing where he gave them the kooky, memorable names “Symphony 1”, “Symphony 2”, etc. I used to wonder why composers didn’t think of nice, poetic names for their pieces. Later, I realised that half the beauty of music is that it is something intangible, something you can find your own stories and meanings in. Why prescribe? Unfortunately, it doesn’t quite have the same ring to it as “I am the Walrus”.

Trying to define it in words misses the point, though. The texture of the orchestra right at the start is like nothing I’ve heard in any other kind of music.

Doesn’t it sound like castles? Castles and forests and tension and adventure. Sure, some music out there is more passionate. This doesn’t sound like a heartfelt lovesong, to me. There is music out there that is more dramatic. But in terms of pure musical castle-conjuring, this is right up there.

Goths aren’t the only ones to write about witches

This piece shouldn’t need any introduction, really. Think of it more as telling you the name of someone you keep seeing around at parties, when it’s got to the too-awkward-to-ask type stage.

Night on the Bare Mountain is basically your quintessential piece of stormy, Russian mood music. It’s about St John spending a night on a rugged mountain while the witches dance naked around their cauldron and do their thang with the devil.

The original was written by a Russian named Modest Mussorgsky, but it was then arranged by Rimsky-Korsakov (of Flight of the Bumblebee fame), who really hit the sweet spot.

I was at a festival a couple of weeks back and by about 8am, the DJs were feeling really creative. Cue a techno version of this.

Even though I’ve known this piece for years and have played it with an orchestra at least once, it never fails to get my pulse going. Click here to listen.

Mussorgsky was pretty good at witches. His other witch piece, also really well-known, is The Hut on Hen’s Legs. It’s about Baba Yaga, the witch in her hut in the swamp. She has teeth of iron and lives on human flesh. I call the piece Shark Music, because I’m pretty sure it’s been used as that at least once. It runs straight into the Great Gate of Kiev, which is full of Russian pomp and bombast in the best possible way. There’s just something so much more stirring about it than our polite, reserved British equivalent.

It’s from his Pictures at an Exhibition, a group of pieces meant to describe paintings – they are accordingly expressive and lyrical. They were originally written for piano, but Ravel (on whom more later!) arranged them for orchestra, and did a damn good job. You should listen to all of them if you get the chance, but for me, these are definitely the highlights.

Music that makes you see things

Sometimes, I hear a piece of music and get visions in my head. Not in a “Let’s think what this reminds us of” type way. In more of a “The music is so powerful that I’m immersed whether I like it or not” type way. 

One of those pieces is Hindemith’s viola sonata: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=__YqHcliHM0

When I listen to this, I’m on a windswept moor somewhere in Scotland. There may or may not be a stag. And there’s definitely a babbling brook. 

Apparently, he wrote this in anguish after serving in a military band during World War I and returning to his home town in 1919, only to find that it had been torn apart by bombs. So not quite a babbling brook, then. But that doesn’t make it any less beautiful

He was also friends with Debussy, who died two years earlier, but whose influence can be seen here, according to this guy: http://www.timsummers.org/?page_id=51 

If you liked this, or almost liked it but wanted something a bit more perky, try his flute sonata: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K3J-UHfNzCg

I really need to write a post about Debussy, because his music is exquisite. But it still doesn’t touch on Hindemith’s angsty Weimar intensity. No wonder all the hipsters do their hair like him.

 

“Find what you love and let it kill you”

“Find what you love and let it kill you”

Next time someone tells me that I “just have to make time” for the things I love, I’ll have to scream. Those of you who spend time with me will know that I’m pretty much always doing something hobby-related – even when I’m just sitting watching sci-fi, I have the knitting needles out. So my hackles were up after reading the first couple of paragraphs of James Rhodes’ Guardian blog post about how we could all be musicians if we just made the time for it.

But his point that setting yourself up to start playing an instrument is really not that much hassle really bears thinking about.

Baching up the wrong tree

This evening’s post is brought to you by Bach’s Chromatic Fantasy and Fugue: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GBvzrJR0TQo

Baroque music is still a mystery to me. It has a poker face. I can’t work out what its game is. Personally, I’ve always conflated “beautiful, artistic music” and “expression” – the music I love is the music that moves me. That’s not to say that that’s the only motivation for musical taste, but hey – they’re my ears and I’ll subject them to what I want.

Anyhow, that may be why I’ve never really taken to baroque as well as to other eras. It’s a lot earlier than the other pieces I’ve posted on here, and I used to think of it as a bit like early portraits. 

You know how, when you go to an art gallery, a lot of the older portraits are of lords and ladies in wigs, and they all have the same sort of expressionless but constipated look? I used to think of baroque music as the equivalent of that. You get none of the extravagant runs of 13 notes that you find in romantic music, and you wouldn’t ever get an fff (very loud!) instruction. Because that would imply passion and fancy, and we don’t want any of that. That would mean actually writing with expression, and if we allow that, then wherever next? Ladies showing their ankles? What den of iniquity do you take this for? That wouldn’t do at all! Let’s just keep a tight musical upper lip.

But then I heard my flute teacher playing Bach’s Partita in A minor for flute, and was forced to reconsider. There is an ethereal beauty in its hypnotic, flowing patterns which is nothing short of captivating. Sure, it isn’t as extravagant as what followed, but the intensity of these plaintive melodies really can’t be dismissed that easily.

So, when Andy found some heavily discounted tickets to see famed Bach interpreter, Angela Hewitt, play at the Festival Hall, I went to have a look.

Bach’s chromatic fantasy and fugue was the first piece in her programme, and the best piece of the evening. Deliciously dark and twisting, it certainly lives up to the name. Hewitt’s touch was so soft it was almost like butter – which worked really well for music in which, if you’re not careful, the notes get so short and splintery that you may as well listen to machine gun fire.

Admittedly, Bach is renowned for being born about a century too early in terms of harmony, but this piece is still a Baroque masterpiece you should be listening to. Unfortunately I couldn’t see any recordings on Youtube of Hewitt playing it, but I like the interpretation in the link I’ve posted. What about you lot?

Since it’s finally spring…

It suddenly got warm over the weekend. About bloody time, too. The freeze seemed so set to stay that I’d relapsed into knitting again. Then, on Monday morning, I wrapped up in my thermals, fleece and jacket to brave the cycle to work only to find that a bright, shiny thing in the sky was trying to do healthy, natural things to my pasty skin and I was melting in my layers.

That said, finally getting some sun is damn good. It’s put me in the mood for a bit of Vaughan Williams. Here is The Lark Ascending.

As far as imagery goes, the title’s a pretty good clue. It kind of sounds like a lark. Ascending.

If that’s not helpful, put it like this: it’s a violin with a very clear, soaring melody, like birdsong, backed by an orchestra that swells and falls like the sun. It’s one of those pieces of music that you can really lets you drift away, because it starts small – I was in the orchestra once and the conductor’s precise words were “You should be so quiet that the audience can’t even tell whether you’re playing or not” – and then grows so powerfully that it just takes you with it. Yet, it stays serene, always serene.

What my conductor said, incidentally, is one of the things I love about romantic classical music. When you put that much focus on dynamics – ie how loud or soft it is – it gives the music a shape that is almost tangible. When you listen to most other kinds of music – folk, pop, rock, techno, and most other kinds of classical music – the music Starts, and goes: “Hello, this is the intro, I’m the music and I’m doing my thing, and here is the chorus, and there goes the ending” and then it Stops again. When you have these sudden, capricious shapes, the sound works in tandem with the silence to build organic shapes in the air.

Debussy is really, really good at that – but I’ll have to save him for another time.

I leave you with a final thought – a lot of people say that The Lark Ascending sounds very English. It’s certainly true that classical music nuts can hear the difference between countries’ composing styles, in the same way that rockers can tell Bay Area metal or the Gothenburg sound, but: those of you who haven’t looked that closely at classical music, does this music sound inherently English to you? Does it sound like a lark at all? Because I’ve never really thought that the climax of swan lake sounds like graceful swans at all, so you know, your results may vary.

I’d love to know what you think. Leave your comments below!

Cracked.com article on classical music

Cracked.com article on classical music

This Cracked article is basically someone else doing what I’m trying to do here, except that he’s funny. It’s pretty US-centric (eh? They didn’t play Elgar at my graduation!) but you should read it anyway.