As Joy Division, and then New Order, Bernard Sumner, Peter Hook and Stephen Morris have been responsible for some of the most spellbinding, groundbreaking and downright brilliant music of the past twenty-five years. With their new album Waiting For The Sirens' Call in the top 10, the legendary trio here sound-off about the legions of bands they’ve influenced, Madchester, Ian Curtis, 24 Hour Party People, Bez, Gwen Stefani, and why they intend to continue their quest for sonic innovation for some time yet.
New Order will play this summer's Oxegen festival and there is a strong possibility that Queens Of The Stone Age and the Cocteau Twins will also be added to the bill
New Order are giants, the four-piece that saved guitar pop. At a terribly dull time in the '80s, they brought the rush of possibilities of electronic music to the knuckle-dragging indie masses and added sophistication, sex and mystery to their genre of choice, a genre dying on its arse. Every guitar band that has added electronica to its palette without fear of the sky falling in – from U2 to The Killers – owes New Order a cut.
New Order are giants, the four-piece that saved guitar pop. At a terribly dull time in the '80s, they brought the rush of possibilities of electronic music to the knuckle-dragging indie masses and added sophistication, sex and mystery to their genre of choice, a genre dying on its arse. Every guitar band that has added electronica to its palette without fear of the sky falling in – from U2 to The Killers – owes New Order a cut.
Just before headlining the main stage on Saturday night, New Order - all of them - drop into the Hot Press chat room to regale us with their rock'n'roll tales.
STEPHEN MORRIS takes time out from humming the theme to Green Acres and terrorising everyone within a five-mile radius of his newly-aquired Yorkshire farm (with his equally newly-acquired heavy artillery) to talk to STUART CLARK about his and Gillian Gilbert's New Order offshoot The Other Two.
Having established their cult credentials with Turn On The Bright Lights, Interpol are back with a new album that looks like earning them a place at rock’s top table. New York City fop Sam Fogarino tells Colm O’Hare how they’re sharp-dressed for success.
Annual article: The Electric Picnic wasn’t just one of the musical events of the year; it also let us chow down and have a natter with some of the top pop combos of the day, including Bloc Party, Gang Of Four and New Order.
Just before headlining the main stage on Saturday night, New Order - all of them - drop into the Hot Press chat room to regale us with their rock'n'roll tales.
As the punk revolution took hold in the UK, Manchester was notable for the bleak, industrial soundtrack even its most successful bands were making. But that all changed with the explosion there of a new and hedonistic culture, centred in and around The Hacienda, a club run by the city's most influential music biz entrepreneur, the boss of Factory Records, TONY WILSON. The story of the transformation of the city into the centre of rock'n'roll's emerging drug and club culture – of the change from Manchester to Madchester – is told in 24 Hour Party People. With the Happy Mondays as it primary musical focus, there's no shortage of on-screen drugs and fighting – but this is really the extraordinary saga of one of the great rock'n'roll towns, in all its gory glory… Tara Brady reports
It was inevitable that some bright producer would make the connection between the monochrome guitars of pre-acid house bands like New Order and Gang Of Four and the decadent grooves of Italo. Joakim is first past the post with this prowling, Hook-meets-Moroder affair.
London’s electro-rockers mark the special edition release of We Are Not The Infadels by releasing the fifth –yes, fifth – single from the album. And rather than sounding like warmed-over dregs, it’s actually a catchy little number, using monotone to its benefit while cribbing some moves from New Order. Better still, the bleepy cover of ‘Steady As She Goes’ is worth the sticker price alone.
Eight re-mixes of this track taken from the debut album of Ireland’s answer to Hot Chip might be seven too many for most people. But there’s no denying the skill and studio wizardry going on here especially if you like your tunes to come in different flavours. The ‘Corrugated Tunnel’ mix which is a kind New Order-meets-the Human League stands out among the bunch but with this much choice on offer there’s a version for everyone in the audience.
You do begin to wonder how the Pet Shop Boys keep managing to court critical favour, then you hear a record like ‘Minimal’ and that godfathers-of-electro tag makes sense. A little bit of New Order here, a touch of Kraftwerk there and a big dollop of dry English humour - in other words your typical classic Pet Shop Boys tune.
Currently on the comeback trail following 2002’s much under rated I To Sky LP, Mark Greaney and co have gone on a New Order kick. Pushed along by synthesizers and with a thumping bassline from new member Sarah Fox, ‘She’s Gone’ is vaguely reminiscent of the Mancunians' 2001 hit ‘Crystal’, particularly in its conclusion.
By this point in his career, after the relative disaster of Porno For Pyros and messy end to Jane’s Addiction, Perry Farrell should by rights have found himself as one of yesterday’s men. Yet here he comes again for another bash, this time in the bizarre company of members of Extreme and New Order. As with everything he has ever done, Satellite Party could easily hover on the brink of disaster, but ‘Wish Upon A Dog Star’ is fine stuff, helped no end by Peter Hook’s distinctive bass that drives the song into the realms of disco punk. What is waiting around the corner in terms of albums and live shows is unknown territory, for the moment though there’s life in the old dog yet.
This soundtrack is essentially a collage of the work of three bands - Joy Division, New Order and the Happy Mondays - with a few house tunes and the Sex Pistols, Buzzcocks and The Clash thrown in for good measure
Look, these guys are set to be cool this year, so you’ll have to like them, OK? It’s Daft Punk, Chic, New Order, Kraftwerk, Depeche Mode… you know the du jour drill. Except, instead of the usual deadpan ice queen vocals you’d expect from such a venture, there’s a pop heart beating at the core of this record.
With bands like New Order, Nine Inch Nails, Bauhaus and Snow Parol announced for the bill, this year's Coachella looks set to blast the Californian desert
Extreme heat can provoke strange reactions. People lose the ability to fret over pointless dilemmas. Such as: do I watch New Order or the Super Furry Animals? Or, when are Audioslave on and is there time to visit the loo first?
From their inception, Electronic were always going to be dogged by high expectations. Let's face it, what act could possibly translate into music the point where three Manchester angles (The Smiths/Joy Division/New Order) trisected?
It’s easy to see A Certain Ratio as a less remarkable sister band to Joy Division/New Order. Sonically, their careers followed a roughly similar path, arriving at a danceable sound, following more post-punk beginnings.
Belfast’s Alloy Mental on supporting New Order at a pre-retirement gig in Liverpool ahead of the release of their debut album and the latest dance news.
Whilst the old authoritarian ethos of the church is losing its grip on Irish society, a new order of conservative moralism has arisen to take its place.
Will the election of Barack Obama to the White House usher in a new era of peace and global harmony? Or is there a danger we are pinning too much hope on the shoulders of one man?
Manchester bands may be notoriously bad travellers, bur Nine Black Alps are planning to do what the likes of the Mondays, Roses and New Order failed to do before them and that’s conquer America.
From Sheffield via New York to Montreal, Stars vocalist Tarquill Campbell is happy to fetch up in a place where “loving The Smiths is not against the law, yet”.
Disco house and electro are credible dance music flavours, but Les Rythmes Digitales Jacques Le Cont has nonetheless been slated for his love affair with the 80s. In an exclusive interview with Digital Beat, Le Cont defends his musical passions.
Take one Super Furry Animal, one lap-top wizard and one disgraced motor industry executive and you get synth revivalists Neon Neon and the year's best concept album.
Having grown up in Scunthorpe, Stephen Fretwell found his muse – and mates like Elbow and Doves – in Manchester. And the record company haven't even asked him to get his hair cut.
Her dad’s got the keys to St. Andrew’s Observatory, her mum’s texting to say she’s just seen Prince William playing hockey, and her new album Eyes To The Telescope is currently bewitching audiences throughout Britain. Things could hardly be better for Scots singer-songwriter KT Tunstall.
Whether with THE SMITHS, ELECTRONIC, THE PRETENDERS or in brown trouser mode sharing a stage with PAUL McCARTNEY, GEORGE MICHAEL and NEIL FINN, he remains, by his own admission, the best JOHNNY MARR-style guitar player around. GEORGE BYRNE meets the cat others like to copy.
The former NME rock crit, ZTT founder and hyper of Frankie has written a book. But it s not about pop it s about the suicide of his dad. PETER MURPHY reports on how Nothing matters.
In a year that saw events which will forever change the world in which we live, selected hotpress contributors offer some personal recollections of the past twelve months. We begin by listing the critics’ choice of 2001’s single and album releases
They've been known to hand-craft their own instruments and, just for the hell of it, once toured Korea. Little wonder that boy/girl partnership Mirakil Whip are fast earning a reputation as one of the country's most eclectic new bands.
While some white label mixes are illegal, Belgian outfit Soulwax have gone through an arduous process in order to licence the music featured on their 'legal bootleg' album 2 many DJs, as Eamon Sweeney reports
The Smiths: the band who helped re-write the book of guitar rock, the indie darlings who became mainstream legends, the dream of a group which gave the world the unique reality of Morrissey. guitarist Johnny Marr recalls the thrilling heyday of Manchester’s finest.
Grappling with weighty political themes is grist to the mill for Colin Meloy of Oregon art-rockers The Decemberists. He’s even written a song about the Shankill Butchers.
Ten years after his last solo album, and twenty years after he formed Frankie Goes To Hollywood, Holly Johnson is back with a new album and a new outlook on life. Interview: RICHARD BROPHY.
He helped invent synth-pop and is famous for his huge open-air shows. Now Jean-Michel Jarre is going back to basics to reprise his landmark Oxygene album.
Discovered that there is life after Brett-pop, that is. nick kelly gets the lowdown from "the bloke who left Suede", Bernard Butler, whose mightily impressive solo debut People Move On, has just been released.
Patrick Freyne interviews chief Charlatan tim burgess, about 20 years of music, a new collaborative album and his role as a mentor for this year’s JD Set band competition.
As soul-pop heavyweights M People gear up for another assault on the charts and a brief Irish tour, Nick Kelly shoots the breeze with their well-travelled Mancunian music maestro, Mike Pickering.
Luke Unabomber explains how Manchester’s electric chair night has progressed from a “shitty little club” into one of the UK’s most successful dance events, with special guests, mix cd on release and worldwide touring dates. It’s about the music, apparently
Following in the footsteps of Joy Division, The Smiths and The Stone Roses, Mancunian rockers Doves have continued the tradition of musical excellence for which their hometown is internationally renowned. With their new opus Some Cities in the offing, vocalist Jimi Goodwin here discusses apocalyptic weather, urban decay and those abandoned recording sessions with Madonna’s producer.
Torquil Campbell, singer with Canadian indie achievers Stars, is a thoroughly nice guy – when he’s not plotting to put photographs of his naked, crucified, Spiddal-born wife on his album covers.
As the final countdown to Blur’s Oxegen comeback gets underway, Alex James talks about falling in and out with his bandmates, collaborating with New Order’s Bernard Sumner – and why Clonakilty Black Pudding will definitely be on the band’s Punchestown rider.
The boys are back in town for Galway s Big Beat and SHAUN RYDER is back in the saddle. I m actually now becoming some sort of poet-film-directing-intelligent-motherfucking-artist-luvvy-darling sort of guy and it s wonderful, he tells PETER MURPHY. Pics: Michael Quinn
Ash guitarist Charlotte Hatherley impressed a lot of people here last year with the quirky guitar pop of her debut solo album Grey Will Fade. hotpress catches up with her as she wows the masses at Japan's Fuji Rock Festival.
The star-spangled story of how Richard Melville Hall learned to relax and love sex, drugs and rock'n'roll. "Don't tell anybody but I'm actually the lead guitarist with Slipknot," he informs Stuart Clark.
UNLESS YOU’VE BEEN FREQUENTING THE LATE-NIGHT HOSTELRIES OF DUBLIN, YOU’RE UNLIKELY TO HAVE HAD THE OPPORTUNITY TO ENGAGE IN A BATTLE OF WITS, ER, MANO A MANO, WITH ACE QUIZ MASTER GEORGE “I KNOW A LOT MORE THAN YOU DO” BYRNE. WORRY NOT. THAT’S WHAT THE HOT PRESS QUIZ OF THE YEAR IS FOR. NOW GO FOR IT. SECONDS OUT!
In a 25th anniversary rose-tinted special, Hot Press' dance correspondents select their 25 most influential floor fillers. The editor's decision is final and all that
EDITORS’ new album finds them re-booting their sound with the help of super-producer Flood and the Prussian soldier’s helmet gifted to him by Bono. Also on the agenda when the band meet Stuart Clark are fatherhood, baby poo, Brooklyn block parties and stealing Michael Stipe’s megaphone.
He’s spent years trying to live down his bubble-gum pop days but, two decades after the event, former hearthrob Jason Donovan is finally going back to his roots.
In Perth, Western Australia, Michael Dwyer sees two sides of REM on the opening brace of shows in their first world tour proper in five years. He also reports on behind-the-scenes developments, including the marriage of Pete Buck.
Renewing acquaintances with Hot Press, a chipper Noel Gallagher reveals how he helped Italy bag the World Cup, explains why Oasis are better than U2 – sort of – and tells us about the band’s new 'best of' collection.
One of the greatest penslingers in rockdom, he’s championed U2, Joy Division and Kylie and taken a critical scalpel to Oasis, The Strokes and their “miserably narrow mates”. he’s also locked horns with Germaine Greer, helped Frankie to relax and let The Frames slip through his fingers.
The first time The Killers played Oxegen they fretted whether anyone would turn up to see them. Now they’re sweeping in to headline the main stage. They talk to us about being chased by papparazi, growing up in Middle America and sharing a bill with Bono and, er, Gary Barlow
It was inflight double entendres all round as Bell X1 donned cabin crew attire for a special Hot Press photoshoot. When not showing an unhealthy interest in women’s clothes and fancy Raybans, they talked about their chart-topping new album Blue Lights On The Runway, their imminent breakthrough in the US and freezing their arses off on The Late Show with Dave Letterman
James Dean Bradfield on The Cult of Richey, The Spanish Civil War, Jon Bon Jovi, and the new album This Is My Truth, Tell Me Yours. Truth Serum: Peter Murphy. Light Detector Test: Simon Clemenger.
Or not without crediting your sources at any rate! Their first three Top Ten singles sampled Annie Lennox, Kate Bush and Phil Oakey. Here modernist electric dance crossover ???? Utah Saints argue the morality - as well as the aesthetics - of sample-theft, explain its problems, name the guilty men, and then glimpse a vision of the future playing support to U2 in Portugal. Interview: Andy Darlington.
In a rare interview, DJ, Sabres Of Paradise mainman and all-round geezer andrew weatherall tells stuart clark about why he won t be working with Primal Scream again, comes clean about his Van Morrison obsession, and does his best not to slag off Kula Shaker and Mansun.
...And the kids just keep on comin’, as Hot Press investigates another assortment of motley crews with songs in their hearts and stars in their eyes, and concludes that the future is indeed so bright, you’ve gotta wear shades.
FLEXIHEAD, MEXICAN PETS, THE GLEE CLUB, IN MOTION
Fame has come remarkably quickly for Lily Allen, with her sensational debut album Alright, Still hitting the No.1 spot in the week of its release. But, with babysitting for Bez on her CV, anything is a breeze – and the bolshie young singer is taking it all in her stride. Plus, having lived in Ireland for a number of years, she has more than a few interesting tales to tell. Just don’t ask her about Bob Geldof...
Morrissey of The Smiths has taken the place of both Duran Duran and the Thompson Twins, single-handedly wiping them out, at least on my one increasingly [used] cassette. When I told him whose conversations we were taping over he said, "Good. I'll talk louder then." Not a man to be taken lightly.
It is every boy's wildest fantasy (bar, perhaps, Brett from Suede) to make a living playing with a fantastically successful football side. Craig Johnston was there, saw that and quit while he was ahead. But he has continued to make his dreams real. Gerry McGovern meets the kangaroo who won't be tied down, sport.
An overnight success story that was years in the making, The Strokes have been dismissed as flagrant hype and lauded as the saviours of rock 'n' roll. Eamon Sweeney, a journalist who has spent more time in their company than most, gets the fullest account yet of the rise and rise of New York's band of brothers. "Whatever happens, we'll be there together," they tell him. "we won’t let each other fall."
It was one of rock's most bizarre and impressive spectacles - the MANIC STREET PREACHERS live in Cuba, in front of an audience including Fidel Castro! STUART CLARK was there, and spoke to JAMES DEAN BRADFIELD about Bill Clinton, Top Of The Pops, Bono, Elian Gonzales and the band's new album
Andy Darlington travels to Manchester to meet the Stone Roses, an outfit who’ve progressed past the point of being just a band to become something altogether bigger...
Long before boomtime Ireland there was boomtown Ireland, a country where the national symbol was not a tiger but a rat. to coincide with the release of the best of the boomtown rats, Bob Geldof looks back to the tepid Irish scene of the mid-’70s from which the rats emerged, biting, snarling and laughing, to take on the establishment, Britain and, almost, the world.
By order of the Hot Press Department of Corrections, we'd like to confirm that the Red Hot Chili Peppers play Dublin's Lansdowne Road on Tuesday, June 25th. Oh yes: and it will rock
Although there's been no official confirmation, the word on the industry grapevine is that this year's Electric Picnic headliners will include Bjork, the Beastie Boys, Primal Scream and Damon Albarn and Paul Simonon's new outfit, The Good, The Bad & The Queen.
Former graffiti artist turned DJ/producer Richard Sen hand picks a selection of tracks that inspired the work of his Bronx Dog alias and his own solo projects.
And while the quality dips in places, thanks to a restrained and niftily back-referencing production job from Flood, it’s never anything less than an interesting listen.
Exploring the mystery of how one human being can survive being thrown from a horse with barely a scratch while another is near death after a quiet drink in a country pub
Released on the web fully two months before it hits record stores, Bloc Party’s third album is as gleaming and hermetically sealed as one of Kubrick’s monoliths.
A new Danny Boyle flick is never complete without a hyped to the hilt, in yer face compilation of the current cream of trendies, and The Beach is no exception.
Saville are proud bearers of all the best kooky traditions of pop - dreaming and not scheming, singing paeans to the stars when everyone else is getting a market strategy plan.
Setting its cap firmly in the camp of mid-’80s widescreen indie it has a self-assurance, and gentle surety of tone that, really, should only appear a few more records down the line.
For the most part, the guitars jingle and jangle, the percussion is non-intrusive and Yorn's voice is that of a troubled troubador who has seen enough of life's underbelly to rejoice in its happier moments
They make few out and out pop albums like this any more, with songs that shamelessly attempt to make you fall in love with them at first sight and wherein catchy hooks (sorry) are far more important than meaningful lyrics.
A double set of singles compilations released in 1998 prompted many a pundit to speculate on the future of one of the most prolific, influential, traumatic and twisted sonic soap operas starring David Gahan in the world today.
South London’s Add N To (X), when not making hardcore porn promo cartoons, specialise in a bolstered and reupholstered variation of what used to be known as electro-rock (pre-post-post rock anyone?) constructed from real-time drums, manipulated synth, robot bass and vocoded vocals.
Somewhere, possibly despite yourself, you've heard the work of Rollo Armstrong. The co-founder of Faithless, the 'man behind' Felix's 'Don't You Want Me' and a remixer of acts such as New Order, Bjork, U2 and Suede, Rollo is nothing if not a radio, MTV and club friendly man.
Having parted company with Primal Scream, Kevin Shields has remixed two Bow Wow Wow tracks for Sofia Coppola’s latest blockbuster-in-the-making, Marie Antoinette.
Fresh from picking up an Ivor Novello award with Gary Lightbody and co., ex-Patrol man Iain Archer is hoping for similar good fortune with the re-release of his 2004 effort Flood The Tanks.
Each track is a distinct little hit-single, destined for the global Saturday night dancefloor. Some are too twee for my taste, pure bubble-gum, but most of these songs are much deeper and smarter than your average poppy dance tune, with lyrics that reward repeated listening, and a plethora of up-front musical references that read like an encylopaedic history of excellent pop.
"And the sweetest sounds that you've not found are waiting there beneath the clouds." In cold print that might read like some sad-o, hippy-dippy sentiment but just listen to it radiating from the speakers as 'Plenty Times' kicks off The Frank and Walters' third album.
Neither a ‘best of’ nor a collection of new material (the 14 tracks on the first CD are re-recordings of old songs); it’s a record that forces you to recontextualise the band’s work – asking questions about how their critiques of Thatcher’s Britain retain relevance in Blair-weary days.
Half way through the second track, ‘Boss Of Me’ and we’re back in familiar territory – toe-tapping guitar pop with a chorus as infectious as a regurgitated bacteria sandwich.
Over the course of a whole album their inherent idiosyncrasies can wear a bit thin.
Moby’s last album, 18, bore the marks of a record weighed down by expectation and record company pressures. Up until that tiresome 2002 release, he had made a succession of wonderfully diverse records. From the full on techno of 1991’s Go through to the ambient chill-out of Play, each had been a progression from the previous. Thankfully his latest, Hotel, sees a return to that sort of eclectic creativity.
Funeral is a diverse collection of absorbing songs, each rich in both its thematic and sonic content. Colours of death, love, life, youth and family are splashed across a lush soundscape that seamlessly blends searing violin and subdued cello with indie riffs and disco beats.
Do you want the good or the bad news first? Here’s the bad news: Christmas came and went, the goose got fat and the bean counters at EMI got plain tetchy. Paralysed by self-doubt and pressure, Coldplay set in motion the album that was to make or break them. How impressive and honorable, then, that this is their most hearty, ambitious and effortlessly striking work to date. But as we all know, nothing good ever comes easy.
YOU CAN BET your life that any record called Lughnasa is going to have more than its fair share of Celtic influences and, sure enough, Chimera's debut album indulges in the same sort of wistful romanticism that has kept Clannad in gainful employment these past 20 years.
As openings go, Kissin' Time really could not have a worse beginning than 'Sex With Strangers', the first of the much vaunted Beck collaborations
After such travesties, Kissin' Time does rally somewhat in its closing moments
Hot Press is again among the big winners in the latest JNRS results, with an increase of over 50% in readers over the past twelve months making it the best performing magazine in the survey for the second period in a row. This is the sixth six-month period running that Hot Press has increased its reach.
In the first installment of Hot Press' Oxegen coverage, Phil Udell, Steve Cummins and John Walshe pick out their personal favourites of the weekend. This Thursday's Hot Press will feature extended coverage from Kim Porcelli & Ed Power as well as more exclusive photos from Liam Sweeney, Graham Keogh & Andrew Duffy - PLUS the Phantom reports from backstage!
Online Gallery Of Live Shots Here
Confronted as we are these days by hordes of fame-hunger, toxic, teen princesses – Stefani’s odd-ball, retro-futurist bubblegum pop can be seen as a heartening example of individuality in a field that’s more often creepily exploitative and conformist.
By some bizarre coincidence, the new album from The Smashing Pumpkins hits the shops within a week of Oasis' new offering, as both bands approach their latest outing on the back of line-up unheavals, mounting media opprobrium and a previous release which sold roughly half of the one before that.
There’s no shortage of showcase events vying for the attention of young acts these days, but IMRO’s tried and trusted model remains refreshingly free of bells and whistles.
The Sex Pistols are back! In what has the look of a major coup for the event, punk’s great trailblazers are among this year’s headliners at Electric Picnic 2008, which takes place in Stradbally over the final weekend in August.
THE BALLOT–BOXES HAVE BEEN OPENED, THE VOTES SCRUTINISED UNDER THE STRICTEST OF SECURITY AND NOW THE RETURNING OFFICER STEPS UP ONTO THE STAGE TO ANNOUNCE THE RESULTS OF THE 1993 HOT PRESS READERS’ POLL
THE CRITICS PANEL WHO VOTED FOR THE TOP 30 ALBUMS AND SINGLES OF THE YEAR ARE AS FOLLOWS: BILL GRAHAM, LIAM FAY, GEORGE BYRNE, STUART CLARK, LORRAINE FREENEY, TARA McCARTHY, GERRY McGOVERN, NEIL McCORMICK, DERMOT STOKES, OLIVER P. SWEENEY, SIOBHAN LONG, STEVE AVERILL, ANDY DARLINGTON, COLM O’HARE, JOE JACKSON, HELENA MULKERNS, DAN OGGLY, CATHY DILLON, NIALL CRUMLISH, OLAF TYARANSEN, PATRICK BRENNAN, JACKIE HAYDEN AND NIALL STOKES.
With so many quality movies being screened, buffs will be spoilt for choice at this year’s Jameson Dublin International Film Festival. To help you out, Hot Press has picked its 20 essential flicks, with appropriate ‘tasting’ notes.
...it was a year like any other year at Féile - except that there were dozens of extra acts on show, on not just two but three stages. There was also the Jim Rose Circus Sideshow, the Chris de Burgh stripper incident, Michael Hutchence dispensing condoms...and a rather loud Little Red Rooster that nearly got itself strangled. And the crack Hot Press team of reporters who attempted to keep up with it all? Words: Bill Graham, Stuart Clark, Tara McCarthy, Lorraine Freeney and Chris Donovan. Pix: Cathal Dawson.
Music Review | Live
20% | 7 Sep 2006
They said it couldn’t be done, but this year’s Electric Picnic achieved the impossible by being even more joyous, vibey and action-packed than its predecessors. Hot Press was in the thick of things as 200 acts and 30,000 music lovers descended on one very big house in the country.
They’ve embraced the big sound of America but The Killers still aren’t fully comfortable with the burdens of stardom, reveals frontman Brandon Flowers.
