Following on from user-friendly sets by The Pretenders and Squeeze earlier in the evening, headliners Pet Shop Boys brought up the rear in Friday night’s poptastic triptych.
I can’t pretend to know why Hot Snakes split up a year or so back, but listening to Night Marchers and, now, Obits, it doesn’t seem likely to have been much in the way of musical differences. Obits, for those of you not quite up to speed with the complexities of US punk rock’n’roll, are the new band formed by Hot Snakes/Drive Like Jehu frontman Rick Froberg after his old bandmates, lead by John Reis, headed off to become The Night Marchers.
You might assume that Encounters At The End Of The World could be an agreeably apposite subtitle for many of Werner Herzog’s best known films. You could think, for instance, of Brian Sweeney Fitzgerald taking Verdi’s music to the Peruvian jungles in Fitzcarraldo; the Conquistadors lost in the Andes in Aguirre: The Wrath Of God; Grizzly Man’s activist Timothy Treadwell and his bears in the wilds of Alaska.
First thing today: the arrival of our new issue means I can finally mention the Uncut Music Award business we’ve been plotting for the past few months. Please have a look at our new dedicated blog, and let us know what you like the look of on the longlist.
