Photograph
Mike Pickering
Castlefield Arena
6th September 2008

Massive Attack with visual (video) artists UVA. Support from Santogold who unfortunately finished her set the minute we got to the arena. This was by far the biggest stage I've seen in Castlefield - huge!

I've seen MA a couple of times and although I think on record they are fantastic (Blue Lines is still one of my very favourite Lps), live they never seem to quite be as good as you want them to be. But then again much of their music is very studio based so...

Anyway we started at the back, and all we could hear was people chatting so we moved forward which to be honest wasn't much better (free gigs = full of liggers who probably aren't that bothered about the band.)

Some lad behind us (probably coked up) was constantly gabbing away at full volume. when i asked him, politely if he could talk quieter he then spent the next 10/15 minutes sarcastically shouting crap like "i'm trying to listen to the lyrics - they're sooo incredible" and "everyone shut up, i'm listening to the band". He was getting on a lot of people's nerves and to be honest he was lucky someone didn't come and lamp him one - and this is all about 5m away from the stage so I'm pretty sure the band would have heard him too. So that pissed me off!

As for MA they were great - you can't hold a good song down - but never really totally took off... well, that's my opinion anyway. Some friends absolutely loved it so maybe it was just me?

The visuals were ok - it started with a big transparent screen infront of the stage which was interesting.

Mike Pickering Dj'd (... and That's Horace Andy in one of the photos)