This summer hasn’t been kind to music festivals.
Escalating costs and fluctuating sales have contributed to the cancellation of more than one, including Perth’s own Otherlands at the beginning of August.
In which case, Dundee’s Sunset Live – this weekend’s return of big outdoor shows to Slessor Gardens, which is bookable as a mini-festival – should be celebrated even more.
The headline line-up features two big-name artists of different generations, with the more old-school section of the bill arriving this evening with James’s headline set.
The Mancunian rock group released their first recording exactly 40 years ago, but have very creditably kept their sets and music full of life since then, ensuring ‘classic’ shouldn’t be confused with ‘nostalgic’.
A bona fide pop success in the late ‘80s and early ‘90s, with their biggest hits Sit Down, Born of Frustration and Laid also bringing them fame in America, the group travelled through an experimental period with Brian Eno in the 1990s and a brief break-up in the 2000s.
Now they stand as a credible current career as a band which dishes out top five albums every few years and still packs out concert halls.
Razorlight on Sunset Live bill
Even this year’s 17th album Be Opened By the Wonderful, which took a step which often signals superannuation in its classical recording of previous hits, delivered an enjoyable new spin on what had gone before.
The furiously energetic gigs which came with it were marshalled by singer Tim Booth’s unending energy, and with support here in Dundee from hit-friendly 2000s rockers Razorlight, this will be a show worthy of their headline billing.
Bastille celebrating 10 years of Bad Blood
On Saturday night, meanwhile, Londoners Bastille are celebrating a not-insignificant anniversary of their own.
They’ve a while to go until they catch up with James, but 2023 marks a decade since they released their debut album Bad Blood, the first of four albums which have brought them global success, especially with 2013’s anthemic megahit Pompeii and the 2018 Marshmello collaboration Happier.
The band are celebrating with a special edition Bad Blood X release, which came out on July 14 – the same day as both France’s Bastille Day holiday and the group’s founder and singer Dan Smith’s birthday.
“We completely redesigned the artwork, I’ve written out all the words again for this and we’ve dug out loads of photos, new and old, and revisited videos and everything from the vinyl artwork to the CD, to all the extra tracks we put on there,” says Smith, in an interview to celebrate the release.
“We just wanted people who are going to buy it to know that we care about it.”
Fan favourite album will be played in entirety
The celebration continues, as fans will hear in Dundee this weekend, with a live rendition of the album in its entirety.
“Everyone who’s bought a ticket I assume will know everything we’re going to play, and that’s such a nice feeling,” says Smith.
“When you’re touring a new album, like we did last year, it’s obviously really fun, but you’re taking a bunch of creative leaps choosing to play lots of a new record that people won’t be as familiar with and might not know at all.
“We’re lucky enough to know that we have a batch of songs that will make people who come to our gigs really happy and they’ll know the words to, and that’s ****ing awesome.”
It’s a privilege, says Smith, to be in a position where they have a record that has that instant classic appeal throughout.
“I think this just feels so nice, warm and comfortable, because we’re just so lucky to have this album that means a lot to a lot of people. It was a nice realisation, I think, for us, because I obviously don’t think about it.
“I think we are really good at separating the band and the success we’ve had from our normal lives and our everyday selves, so it’s quite rare that we talk about or confront – in a nice way – the success we had and how mad that is.
“We’ve only done one gig so far, but (it was) really lovely fun, and an exciting moment of ‘oh wow, we did this’. It’s so nuts, and people still care.”
London band’s ‘life-changing’ success
Just as cherished songs and records form waypoints in the lives of fans, they’re also huge markers in the lives of those who create them – not that they necessarily have the time to reflect on it, until an occasion like this comes along.
“Having a song and an album that are that successful, if you’re not expecting it, it’s such a cliche, but it’s such a wildly life changing experience,” says Smith.
“You go from living in London doing gigs in the evening and having to take time off work to go on tour, to suddenly that being your life and you’re away, like, 95% of the year.
“It’s such a mad inversion of things, and it’s fun, but it’s also hard work, as it should be. I think it’s so rare in life that you get to look back at a moment and be like ‘oh, I wish I’d enjoyed that more,’ and this tour almost feels like us actually being able to do that.”
- Sunset Live features James supported by Razorlight, tonight, and Bastille supported by Dylan, tomorrow, both at Slessor Gardens in Dundee.
