The first day of the inaugural LIDO Festival, headlined and curated by Massive Attack, is the first ever fully battery-powered gig of this scale in London. The Bristol legends are a conscious pulse of progressive politics and sublime artistry whose status is recognised by opening this five-nighter across two weekends, but there are some questions rattling around before the event begins. Is the festival market at saturation point? Can a band who haven’t released an album in 15 years still shift the required tickets for an event of this size? And who the bloody hell put Tirzah on so early?
If you’ve been to Victoria Park for All Points East you’ll know it’s a sizeable venue, but today only half of the space for that event is being used across the main stage and a tent. By the time I’m on site Tirzah has already played which is annoying, and 47Soul are coming to the end of their set and clearly have the main stage crowd in the palm of their hands. Palestinian flags are in abundance, and the band are a unifying force as they meld traditional Dabke music with electronics to create their signature Shamstep sound. You can always measure how good a band are by the smiling faces of the dancing crowd.
Yasiin Bey and the Alchemist are Forensics play to a packed second stage. The lack of material already released by the duo means the crowd need a while to warm up, and the elongated introduction for Yasiin Bey threatens to fall flat the longer it goes on. When he does arrive on stage, however, there’s a celebratory feel in the crowd as Alan Maman’s (aka The Alchemist) soul samples and woozy beats meld perfectly with Bey’s distinguishably lackadaisical raps. There’s a nostalgic hip-hop vibe going on that harks back to Bey’s The Ecstatic and it looks like they’re having as much fun as the crowd. A snippet of “Mathematics” brings some vibrant energy, but overall the audience are appreciative more than anything else.
Air take to the main stage as the only act playing at that time, and you start to wonder where the crowds are. The bar nearest the stage doesn’t have a queue at all which is just plain weird. Okay, it’s tucked away a little to the left and as it’s Friday evening some people might still be on their way from work, but even with such disclaimers there’s a sense that a load of tickets have gone unsold. Back to the music, and Air open strongly with a flurry of songs from Moon Safari, but as they lurch away from their earliest material they lose the audience a little. An elongated version of “Highschool Lover” is sumptuous but not really what’s needed to get a festival crowd going.
The Palestinian Solidarity Campaign take to the stage before the headliners with an impassioned speech that sets the tone for the evening. Actor Khalid Abdalla delivers a thought-provoking speech, referring to the call for an Israeli ceasefire and the need for humanitarian aid as the “civil rights movement of our time”. It must suck to be the hapless woman nearby shouting out “Get on with it!” as the speech continues. It’s awful when a genocide gets in the way of your night out, isn’t it? Thankfully, she’s respectfully asked to keep quiet by people around her who aren’t utter morons.
Massive Attack overwhelm the senses with backdrops featuring films by Adam Curtis depicting the horrors of war, drone imagery of the total devastation in Gaza, as well as facial recognition tech being critiqued and constant sloganeering from the huge video screens behind the band. It’s an immersive experience that’s as dystopian and unsettling as it is quietly euphoric. Its Orwellian messaging and entrenchment in the hypernormalisation of the post-postmodern world is unlike anything you get from any other act on the planet – sensitive, intelligent, but also escapist whilst being overly aware of the human experience.
Videos of a macaque monkey controlling a computer via an implanted chip kick things off, a clear message focused on the general apathy of humanity as we look for instant gratification in our lives whilst being constantly distracted by the machines in our pockets that invariably make us sad. We’re unknowingly genuflecting to the numbness required of the oligarchs, as we gently become subservient to their sociopathic tendency of power for power’s sake. It’s a strong opener, with Robert Del Naja using autotune to sing a few lines from “In My Mind” by Dynoro & Gigi D’Agostino, which only goes to highlight how this band, despite the magnitude of the gig, play entirely by their own rules.
When the mesmeric bass line of “Risingson” begins to swell there’s a palpable sense of release in the crowd and when the full band comes in the sound – for a gig of this size – is simply astonishing. Next comes the first of a few guest vocalists when Horace Andy comes on for “Girl I Love You”, the standout track from 2010’s Heligoland. Appearing spritely, Andy’s vocal inflections and serene vibrato remain undiminished, and his reappearance later in the set for “Angel” is one of the highlights of the set.
Cocteau Twins’ Liz Fraser is here, too, and it’s nice to be in the company of godlike genius. “Black Milk” and set closer “Teardrop” are, as you would expect, entirely astonishing but it’s the cover of “Song to the Siren” that is sumptuous in both its beauty and its fragility. It’s goosebumps time, and not just because the night is getting increasingly colder. Yasiin Bey pops up for “I Against I” but in terms of vocalists it’s Deborah Miller who absolutely steals the show with her soaring performances on “Safe From Harm” and “Unfinished Sympathy”. The crowd have their arms in the air, eyes closed, singing every word – it’s a joyous thing to be surrounded by people sharing the same, yet entirely personally unique, experience.
There are a few mis-steps in the set, truth be told. A cover of Ultravox’s “Rockwrok” feels like a filler, and “Take It There” without Tricky just feels somewhat empty – but maybe that’s just wishful thinking for something that’s never likely to happen. Overall, you’re left with a feeling that Massive Attack need to be treasured while they’re still around – good things don’t last forever, after all. There’s a poignancy to the evening that highlights the beauty of unity and shared experiences, and the need to always speak truth to power.
None of us are free until we all are.
