Time to experience a festival... Italian style. Heineken Jammin Festival is Italy’s biggest rock festival; held in Venice every year. Last year’s line up was internationally huge, with the likes of Cranberries, Aerosmith, Green Day, Pearl Jam and Massive Attack all on one bill! This year, the Italian heavyweights (Vasco and Negramaro) had their turn, except for the first of three days, on which English boys Coldplay took the reins. Here’s my rundown of the musical action (and not a rundown of how unorganised Italians are when it comes to letting people into a festival).
Echo and the Bunnymen were the first of five main stage bands and went straight into things without a hint of faffing about; but that’s the way they’ve always done things. An arvo timeslot did mean a lack of visuals of stage, which, when mixed with the band’s lack of motion, made for a not so eye-catching set. Still, they sounded excellent all the way through, from ‘Lips Like Sugar’ to the self proclaimed “best song every written”: ‘The Killing Moon’. No one ever said the man was modest. The set also ended with first a threat, then a sample of rain – obviously brought all the way from Liverpool (which Echo and the Bunnymen claim is the prettiest city in the world. Venice comes in second). Luckily, the rainy gloom passed us by.
We Are Scientists looked the happier part in front of their bright red banner, opening with ‘Nice Guys’ and immediately proving they were an active trio and indeed nice guys themselves with plenty of friendly small talk. “We’re from Venice... As of yesterday; so this is a nice homecoming for us.” The not-so-hometown show included standouts in old tracks ‘Nobody Move, Nobody Get Hurt’ and ‘It’s a Hit’, in the set closer, ‘After Hours’, and as always in one dirty mo. They’re happy, they’re funny and they sing catchy songs – what’s not to like?
If there was pretentiousness in jest with the first English band of the day, there was such for real with the appearance of Beady Eye third on the bill. “Oasis 2.0” (as they were labelled in the programme) may have seen higher places, but were more than willing to show their usual swagger – and they sounded pretty darn good. Even without the hint of an Oasis classic, Liam Gallagher’s voice is enough to get people excited, and on tracks like ‘The Roller’ that is indeed what happened – clearly this one is getting some air time here. Yet whilst the material (all off their debut) sounded good, the Gallagher grime is just ridiculous. For half the set he picked a fight with someone down the front, with threats he never carried out, and for the entire set he continued to roll a towel around his fist as though getting ready for such a punch up. It’s an image he’s trying to keep, but it’s pretty worn. And of course, bagging out the key sponsor was a choice moment: “Have ya had lots of Heineken? That’s a shit beer man.”
Smarmy could describe Gallagher, but it’s the perfect antonym for Simone Cecchetti, and his band – the only Italian act of the day – Cesare Cremonini. These guys, obviously with a home advantage, had the crowd in the palm of their hands very early and seemed to love every second of it. Cecchetti literally dripped energy all over the stage as he got the crowd singing to tracks that were either ballsy or cheesy, or both. Spending time either running, striking a pose, or hunched over his piano, this was certainly setting a high enough bar for Chris Martin...
...And with an hour of set up, that bar was suitably hopped.
Say what you will about Coldplay (all you “I like their old stuff better than their new stuff” people) – this is a band that knows how to put together a live show – with new and old both surpassing expectations. Visually, this set was bound to be spectacular from the very beginning; the theme for the band’s current tour is certainly “neon”, so this kept everything remarkably bright, with numerous screens, fireworks, confetti jets, giant balloons and (my personal favourite) a wicked laser show!
As far as the set list went, it was almost a three way split between A Rush of Blood to the Head, Viva La Vida and new songs. ‘Yellow’ made its contractual appearance very early, and ‘Fix You’ was played in the encore, but those two were the only deviations from that division. ‘Viva La Vida’ itself was the set’s standout, if for nothing else than the sheer volume of the crowd chanting the “whoa-oa-oa-oa-oa” parts. A reworked and enormous sounding ‘God Put a Smile Upon Your Face’ was also terrific. The new songs were well received by the masses, though Martin’s introduction to ‘Up Against the World’ – “if you don’t like it, f* it” – seemed to show the band were just out for some fun testing them. That one was the ballad in an otherwise very stadium/festival worthy bunch of new tracks.
An encore that included ‘Clocks’ got another huge reaction from the crowd, and interestingly this was equalled when the band finished with their new single, ‘Every Teardrop Is A Waterfall’. You can tell for yourself how that one went down:
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