Last Saturday I finally watched Low playing live for the first time, at
Benicassim Festival (their first gig in Spain).
They played at the third stage, at the same time Belle and Sebastian were
playing at the main one. There was not too much people waiting for Low
(although, apparently, one of them was Thom Yorke, from Radiohead, who played
some hours later at the main stage) but it was a really friendly crowd. People
were quite silent, and respectful to the band, and the only interruptions were
the clappings after some singing or Alan solos. Actually, the band had to do an
encore, something extremely infrequent in this kind of festivals (you know,
bands usually only have like 45 minutes to play and then just go away).
Songlist:
Lordy
Canada
John Prine
Words
Laser Beam
Two step
Starfire
Soon
Dinosaur Act
Will the night
Encore: Lust
It was a really wonderful gig. I am not very objective, thatīs true, but
someone who followed me to the first line told me it was one of his favourites
of the festival (and there were concerts from Radiohead, Primal Scream, Cure,
Suede, etc.). They have a really amazing sound live, but surely you already
know this. Alan excused the band for not playing last year (they were invited)
with a "Sorry about last year. We've heard you were a really mean people... but
now we know...better", and then started to say "abierto - cerrado" in Spanish
("open - close") for some seconds. Before the encore Zak took a photo of the
crowd with a little camera (maybe a LOMO one). After the gig, people were
requiring the songlists, the drumsticks, all the stuff... Alan and Zak jumped
off the stage to talk to the people of the first lines, singing records... I
think they were a little bit surprised with the reaction of the people. It was
one of the nicest crowds I can remember.
There is a daily magazine, which goes out all the days of the festival. In one
issue there was an interview with the band, nothing very special, but there was
some message from our loved trio ("To the beautiful people of Spain... You are
all the way too drunk... I cannot remember what goes later, but they said they
want to come back soon and there was some invitation to go to Minnesota). By
the way, according to some journalist, it seems Thom Yorke himself expressed
his admiration for the band, by approaching to Alan, Mimi and Zak at the hotel
pool...
it was my first Low gig. I got the songlist and a photo with
Zak, and, well, it was the best moment of the weekend, that's for true.
Manuel Silva
silva.m@cpcom.bbdo.es
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