MUSIC PREMIERES
Eight Heaton Parks and 10 Wembley Stadiums – those are the shows rumoured for Oasis’ mega reunion tour next year. The combined capacity is more than the population of some countries, and yet it still doesn’t seem enough to meet the demand. Catfish And The Bottlemen, meanwhile – who co-headline Reading 2024 tonight ahead of the Liam Gallagher show said to break the news we thought we’d never hear – have more modest yet still wildly ambitious shows on their horizon.
When the Welsh indie stars recently announced plans for their first stadium gigs at Cardiff Principality and the Spurs ground, many took online to express doubt that they had the following and momentum to pull it off and fill ’em up. The last time Catfish topped the bill here was on a run of 2021 shows many believed to be their last. Twitter and tabloids spoke of their demise as the Welsh rock machine seemed to power down before a few years of silence. With no new music and no rise in profile, is a stadium run really the wisest move?
Well, as Jim Morrison said in Wayne’s World 2, “If you book it, they will come”. Do you believe in manifesting the big stuff? Catfish sure bloody do. Their opening song carries that spirit: “One of our longshots paid off”.
The band didn’t split the other year, but now frontman Van McCann and bassist Benji Blakeway are the only remaining full-time members after others fell away due to “entirely dysfunctional” relationships. What we’re left with here is a lean, mean, rock machine. Indie disco staple ‘Kathleen’ feels like it might lift the rammed front sections of Reading off the ground before sound issues force a halt. Even then, McCann, in his element, tries to gee up the crowd in full house party mode before a brief interlude. He bursts back on straight into the line “You’re simpaticooooo”, as if nothing had happened. Nothing is gonna get in their way tonight.
Inflatable crocodiles are dispersed for ‘Soundcheck’ as McCann flails and wails like Cobain, before ‘Pacifier’ gets the masses up on one another’s shoulders for the first of many times this evening. Here, as on ‘Taste’, there’s a snarling indie sensibility met with chest-beating arena bravado – as if The Cribs shed their punk edge, beefed up on riffs and adopted the The Killers‘s knack to rattle the eyeballs of the fans at the back. It’s indie sleaze turned up to 11.
They see where they’re headed. There’s a cheeky, brief nod to their stadium-dwelling countrymen Stereophonics with a snippet of ‘The Bartender And The Thief’, while the spotlight and theatrics of ‘2all’ show they’ve got the moves for the big spaces. The widescreen psych wig-out and breakdown of ‘Outside’ even has a smack of Pink Floyd to it. They’re playing with a damn sight more compulsion than last time, and they certainly know what an enormodome band should look, sound and feel like. The crowd before us lap it up. Will they multiply to fill those spaces? Maybe the long shot will pay off.
‘Longshot’
‘Kathleen’
‘Soundcheck’
‘Pacifier’
‘Twice’
‘Fallout’ (with snippet of Stereophonics’ ‘Bartender and the Thief’)
‘2all’
‘Homesick’
‘Rango’
‘Outside’
‘Fluctuate’
‘7’
‘Cocoon’
Follow all of the action as it happens on the NME Reading & Leeds liveblog here.
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MUSIC PREMIERES
SEVENTEEN slink into a gloomy, post-apocalyptic world filled with old school technology in the video for their Pharrell Williams-produced single “Bad Influence.” The 13-member K-pop boy band dropped the visual from their new HAPPY BURSTDAY album on Wednesday (June 11) and fans will surely be picking through the arresting clip directed by Beomjin for days looking for Easter eggs.
The video for the English-language single opens with the singers locked in reflective glass pentagons as they sing about wanting to have a good time while seeming like they’re not having one at all. After escaping from the enclosure, they get chased around a brutalist structure by robot dogs singing, “And I had time to think about it/ But life would be so much better without it/ I don’t want it at all/ But, hey, I wanna have a good time” over Pharrell’s insistent, fuzzed-out beat.
And while the song is about having a good time, the action makes it seem like that is a stretch. Dressed in Blade Runner-like leather jackets designed by Japanese fashion house sacai, they stand around while an unseen member plugs an analog cord into a headphone jack that reads “Good” as an old school dot matrix printer spits out the lyrics and a few of the guys ghost ride their old school muscle cars.
The sci-fi action takes a bizarre turn halfway through when they enter a red zone filled with white mannequin heads wearing blindfolds as one of the singer’s puts a checkmark next to “bad” on a checklist that includes “lost,” “sad,” “raw,” “happy,” “innocent” and other emotions. There is also an M.C. Escher-like stairway to nowhere, a bath in a swamp of vintage audio tape, contemplative posing on a pile of tires and moody standing around in dimly lit rooms in the dream sequence-like series of shots that leave more questions than answers
HAPPY BURSTDAY debuted at No. 2 on the Billboard 200 album chart, landing the group their seventh top 10-charting album.
Watch the “Bad Influence” video below.
