Massive Attack Provoke to Overwhelming Effect at Montreux Jazz Festival

A storm, much needed to break the eerie stillness in the air, brewed over Scéne du Lac, Montreux before Massive Attack took to the stage at the Montreux Jazz Festival on Monday evening. Delayed by an hour to let the pregnant clouds empty and the sky to scream – perhaps in solidarity with Bristol’s politically strong, electronic collective – the show opened with a brief intro of ‘In My Mind’ by Dynoro and Gigi D’Agostino, followed by the brilliantly atmospheric, dark ‘Risingson’.

For the next 90 minutes, Massive Attack’s show injected the sedated world with an antidote of marvellously spirited realism. Artfully curated, striking visuals – condemning wars and corrupt leaders, and highlighting social injustices, corporate control, computer surveillance and the annihilation of history – provided the backdrop to their hypnotic, darkly sensual sonic palette, which itself dips experimentally into punk, industrial, hip hop and dub music.

Staying true to their style of using guest vocalists, interspersed with their own brand of spoken-singing, they were joined onstage by Jamaican Roots Reggae icon Horace Andy for ‘Girl I Love You’ and then by the wonderful Elizabeth Fraser for a performance of ‘Black Milk’. Young Fathers also joined them for ‘Gone’, ‘Minipoppa’ and ‘Voodoo In My Blood’.

Elizabeth Fraser. Credit: Kevin Thornton

The most poignant moment of the show was provided by Elizabeth Fraser’s stunning version of Tim Buckley’s ‘Song to the Siren’. Delicately sublime, her rare performance was all the more mesmerising, against the backdrop of the brutal horror of the suffering in Gaza.

‘Inertia Creeps’ with its eerie atmospherics, fuzz-tone guitars and a myriad of effects succeeded in creating a brilliantly unstable sensation. The crowd lifted again for the rousing cover of Ultravox’s ‘ROckwrok’ (which ‘Inertia Creeps’ samples), before Horace Andy was back on stage for the atmospherically perfect ‘Angel’ , which – with its progression – becomes darker, deeper and more epic, before emerging full circle with a perfectly faded outro.

Horace Andy. Credit: Kevin Thornton

Robert Del Naja – introducing Deborah Miller to the stage – dedicated the brilliant ‘Safe from Harm’ to the people of Palestine. This was followed by the band’s hugely popular ‘Unfinished Symphony’ before they left the stage, briefly returning with ‘Karmacoma’. Liz Fraser was back then for the entrancing and otherworldly ‘Teardrop’ and stayed for an unlikely cover of Avicii’s ‘Levels’ and the final song ‘Group Four’.

Thankfully, this was not a gig for the safely nostalgic. Massive Attack provoke to overwhelming effect – and never have the group’s passion and politics been more vital.

We are reminded of Orwell’s 1984. “History has stopped. Nothing exists except an endless present in which the Party is always right.”

Grant Marshall. Credit: Kevin Thornton