Hyde Park Calling 2007

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Now in its second year London’s Hyde Park Calling Festival boasted an incredible line-up for an event so young, with former Genesis front-man Peter Gabriel, Crowded House and The Feeling topping the bill on day one, before mighty US rock institution Aerosmith made their long-awaited return to the capital, eight years after playing the old Wembley Stadium, on day two. By Aerosmith’s request former Soundgarden/Audioslave hero Chris Cornell and Ireland’s The Answer were added to a bill populated by guitar legend Joe Satriani and strangely popular young Australian rockers Jet.

In direct competition with Bon Jovi‘s show officially opening the O2 Arena in South London and Iron Maiden‘s Clive Burr MS Trust gig at the Brixton Academy (and some daft pop event on a farm somewhere), London was full of rock fans, and I suspect many had a tough time deciding which to go to. Hyde Park Calling certainly had the line-up on its side, but the two indoor events had the poor weather in their favour.

So a damp day in Hyde Park it was to be, with only the smaller Pepsi Stage and Stage 3 offering any shelter, enclosed as they were in large tents. The queues at the front gate were huge, and seemed to be moving rather slowly. With gates seemingly only just opening at 2:30pm I expect many people missed the start of the first two bands, McQueen and Enjoy Destroy, who both started at 3.

Some surprising but impressive selections were made for the line-up for this day. Aerosmith were the first band confirmed and presumably, as well as requesting Cornell and The Answer, the American veterans had a hand in the selection of Tab, featuring Joe Perry’s sons, and Arckid, whose number include Steven Tyler’s son-in-law. The last band to be confirmed were the new Toby Jepson-fronted line-up of “Fast” Eddie Clarke’s Fastway who joined a second stage bill which also included fast-rising American rockers Black Stone Cherry and immensely impressive jam band Rose Hill Drive. The third stage featured a more indie/teen line-up with raucous rockers Reuben topping a line-up which also featured Yourcodenameis: Milo and eternal support band Brigade.

As with any event such as this, where multiple stages are running concurrent bills, it is not possible to see every band on offer, and inevitably you will have to miss all or part of a band you wanted to see. In my case Rose Hill Drive and Joe Satriani suffered from clashes with either end of Chris Cornell’s set, and since Chris was one of the main attractions I would rather have seen all of his set than parts of all three sets.

The grounds themselves were laid out well, with food and merchandise stands lining two sides, and a make-shift Hard Rock Cafe, the event’s main sponsor, set up at the back (reportedly housing Queen guitarist Brian May for some of the day). It might have been nice, once the majority of the crowd had arrived and shuffled through the gates for the big acts, to have had a little more space to spread out. The area of Hyde Park hired for the event, on the Eastern edge between Hyde Park Corner and Marble Arch, is very narrow and it did mean everyone was packed shoulder to shoulder in front of the main stage for the latter half of the day.

Otherwise the organisers did the best they could in unfortunate weather conditions, and the bands did them proud…

Bands in this review:
Aerosmith | The Answer | Black Stone Cherry | Chris Cornell | McQueen

Bands NOT in this review:
Arckid | Brigade | Reuben | Rose Hill Drive | Enjoy Destroy | Fastway | Haunts | Jet | Joe Satriani | Kids In Glass Houses | The Micki Free Electric Blues Experience | Tab | Yourcodenameis: Milo

McQueen

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It’s actually harder at the moment to escape McQueen (who ironically enter the stage every night to the theme tune from The Great Escape) than it is to find an opportunity to see them. Already this year they’ve had their own headlining tours of the UK, Germany and Italy, a UK support tour with Wednesday 13 and appearances at several major European festivals. Now they’ve opened Hyde Park Calling’s rock day, have been added to the bill of the forthcoming Hard Rock Hell festival and were selected as support for the much anticipated Tesla London show the other week.

I was very quickly able to gauge the relative intelligence of some of the audience at this particular show when a shout of “get yer t*ts out” came before the first song had even begun, and later someone remarked “these are quite good actually, I was expecting something like McFly“, evidently relying on that well known indicator of musical style, the same beginning to the name. Perhaps that means Abba and Abomination sound the same?

With only a 25-minute slot McQueen had to pack the songs in, with minimal banter, and managed to pull out the eight best tracks from debut album Break The Silence, delighting existing fans and impressing newcomers. They sounded a little distant in the cavernous Pepsi Stage tent, but everything was nice and clear. You just had to listen a little harder than normal.

As on near enough every other occasion I’ve seen the girls play, album title track Break The Silence was the most popular with the audience, producing the most movement and the biggest cheer at the end. Being their heaviest and least punk-influenced track it more readily, and often irresistibly, induces headbanging. Perfect for a rock festival.

By the end of the set the tent was probably three quarters full. I don’t doubt it would have been full had the gates been opened earlier, but there were just too many people to get into the grounds in just 25 minutes, and with another band on at the same time on Stage Three, it was always going to be difficult to fill both tents in such a short time.

Each of these shows however are raising McQueen’s profile and perhaps next time they’ll be higher up the bill, or on a bigger stage. Their progression certainly shows no sign of abating at the moment.

“ irresistibly induces headbanging ”

Setlist: Not For Sale / Running Out of Things To Say / Dirt / The Line Went Dead / Break The Silence / Blinded / Neurotic / Bitch

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Black Stone Cherry

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The crowd for Kentucky stoner rockers Black Stone Cherry was remarkable. The Pepsi Stage tent was so full that security were having to operate a one-in-one-out policy at the doors. This was at 15:30 in the afternoon for a band with one album, no radio play and only three previous shows in this country, supporting Hinder. Worth noting at this point that if it was this full at this time of day for a small band like Black Stone, Joe Satriani‘s headlining set at 19:25 was going to be manic.

With a tent full of enthusiastic fans BSC clearly relished this opportunity and attacked it with aplomb. Like McQueen their sound was a bit muffled and a little distant, but that didn’t seem to be putting anyone off. More audience members than I expected were fully conversant with the lyrics to most or all of the songs, and several sing-a-long sessions ensued.

I think it’s safe to say though, despite the enjoyment everyone felt from the band’s debut album material, that the most well received song was their closing cover of Jimi Hendrix‘s Voodoo Chile, given a nice, heavy southern metal make-over it took those unaware that this is a staple of the BSC live set by surprise and was met with wide-spread approval.

The rapturous reception BSC’s big-riff style received from the packed tent must have been thrilling for the band and is indicative of a shift in public attitude towards bona fide rock music that is long overdue, and that BSC themselves should be able to enjoy a headlining club tour next time they’re here.

“ heavy southern metal ”

Setlist: Rain Wizard / Backwoods Gold / Rollin’ On / Lonely Train / Hell & High Water / Maybe Someday > Voodoo Chile

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The Answer

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Ireland’s increasingly popular rockers were the only band we saw today who suffered, through no fault of their own, from terrible sound. The following band, Jet, sounded fine as we rushed past, and later acts on the same stage also sounded great, so why things were so bad for The Answer remains a mystery.

For much of their set the sound would fluctuate in volume in a similar way to an outdoor show in high winds. But there was no wind, only occasional rain, which probably meant sound engineers were frantically twiddling nobs trying to sort out the horrible mix. Nothing seemed to work though, and James Heatley’s snare drum continued to echo dully like it was being played under water.

With only 40-minutes to play they did the right thing in dropping some of their slower blues tracks and songs that they often jam on and picked only the short, sharp, catchy rockers from the debut album Rise for a crowd that was almost entirely unfamiliar with them (indeed one pair of Answer fans were ecstatic to see me in an Answer t-shirt as it was the only other one they’d seen).

Cormac Neeson (vocals) did his usual Chris-Robinson-meets-Robert-Plant bit to brilliant effect, exhibiting his superb voice as much as was possible with the appalling sound, but The Answer are an honest rock ‘n’ roll band. That means there’s very little show and it’s all about seeing four guys play the hell out of their music. So they are exactly the kind of band that can be completely destroyed by a bad sound mix (Lordi wouldn’t have this problem, for example).

It was a great shame to see such a good band be let down in this a way. Like McQueen their profile has been rising fast and hopefully they were still able to do enough today to make it rise further. Certainly interest from Aerosmith, Deep Purple and Whitesnake amongst others hasn’t done them any harm.

“ appalling sound ”

Setlist: Come Follow Me / Never Too Late / Keep Believin’ / Under The Sky / Preachin’ / Into The Gutter / Be What You Want

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Chris Cornell

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Of the three main-stage acts we saw today Chris suffered the most from the weather. It rained constantly for his entire set meaning the view for 90% of the crowd was blocked by the inconsiderate audience members further forward who all put their umbrellas up – the most annoying of which were the ones who had had the forethought to bring a poncho or mack, but still put their umbrella up.

However, with careful positioning it was possible to watch Chris on the screens for the most part and to both see what a great showman he is, and to hear what great shape his voice is in. He came under heavy criticism from fans towards the end of Audioslave for his live vocal performances, and video evidence of Audioslave shows seems to, in part, support this. But with new album Carry On and his new solo tour Chris sounds back to his powerful Soundgarden-era best.

As great as Chris’ performance was, and pleasing in its make-up to the majority, for a Cornell fan like myself the song selection was disappointing. Carry On is one of the most thoughtful and mature albums to be released this year. It’s amongst Chris’ best work of his career (Billie Jean cover aside), so to include just the two singles and nothing else from it was a bit of a let down. Likewise nothing at all from his introspective first solo album Euphoria Morning was a shame.

However, cinema-theme-music guru David Arnold joining Chris on piano for his Casino Royale movie song You Know My Name, an excellent crop of Soundgarden classics (Outshined and Let Me Drown impressing in particular) and majestic versions of many Audioslave classics served to fill Chris’ 90-minute slot with a string of great songs.

Of the Audioslave songs Like A Stone stood out (you haven’t heard this song until you’ve heard Chris do it solo acoustic), the unequaled Cochise (without the teasing intro) and the surprise inclusion of What You Are were the picks, especially given that the last three Audioslave singles have all been rather soft, radio-friendly and largely unimpressive songs (Doesn’t Remind Me, Be Yourself and Original Fire – the latter sounds much better as an acoustic song).

It will be interesting to see if Chris comes back and changes up the setlist. After all, he’s got a whole new album of material to play, plus another solo album, and an Audioslave album, Revelations, which has never been toured. Some different tracks from the awesome Temple of The Dog self-titled album apart from Hunger Strike would also be welcome.

“ powerful Soundgarden-era best ”

Setlist: Spoonman / Outshined / Show Me How To Live / You Know My Name (with David Arnold) / Hunger Strike / Original Fire / What You Are / Rusty Cage / Be Yourself / Like A Stone (solo acoustic) / Doesn’t Remind Me / Cochise / Arms Around Your Love / Let Me Drown / Black Hole Sun / Jesus Christ Pose

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Aerosmith

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There really isn’t much to say about Aerosmith that hasn’t been said before. They truly are the well-oiled rock ‘n’ roll machine everyone’s been saying they are for 35 years. This was the second time in three weeks we’ve caught them on their first European tour in eight years, and even with identical shows (just a couple of different songs) they impressed both times.

Currently rolling out the greatest hits set to match their re-issued greatest hits CD is nothing original, obviously, but they are such professionals it honestly doesn’t matter what they play. They also have so many hits that unless you’ve seen them on this tour already, which ones they actually pull out could be a surprise. For instance, there’s no Mama Kin, no Back In The Saddle, no Toys In The Attic and no Crazy. In fact, What It Takes, Falling In Love (Is Hard On The Knees) and Last Child were also dropped and even Dude (Looks Like A Lady), arguably their most recognisable song in this country after Walk This Way and mega-hit I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing (until Eminem sampled Dream On at least) was replaced with Same Old Song And Dance.

Elsewhere, as on other nights, Tyler and Perry took up wooden deck chairs for a short acoustic version of Hangman Jury and the magnificent ballad Seasons of Wither, a couple of blues standards covered on the Honkin’ On Bobo album (their last studio effort) separated the rockers, and exclusively for this show Run DMC namesake Darryl “D.M.C.” McDaniels joined the band to reprise the hip-hop-meets-rock pioneering re-recording of the ’70s classic Walk This Way as an encore.

Everything about the Aerosmith show exudes well-aged class and with the body of hits they have at their disposal, pulling out a killer set is the easiest thing in the World. Putting on a killer performance to match requires the skill and showmanship only one band has, and when they’re done it’s only then that you realise they had no pyro, no gimmicks and no special effects. They were just five guys playing their music. Outstanding once again.

“ well-aged class ”

Setlist: Love In An Elevator / Same Old Song And Dance / Cryin’ / Eat The Rich / I Don’t Want To Miss A Thing / Jaded / Baby Please Don’t Go / Hangman Jury (Acoustic) > Seasons of Wither / Dream On / Livin’ On The Edge / Stop Messin’ Around / Sweet Emotion / Draw The Line // Walk This Way (with Run DMC)

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Written by Andy Lye
More: Festivals, Hard Rock, Aerosmith, Black Stone Cherry, Chris Cornell, McQueen, The Answer