I Got Game

BEDFORD ROAD: One of the stranger parts of our trip to Brittany was the 3+ hour journey we made from Kerity to Morlaix to go to a music festival. Public Enemy were headlining.

It was a beautiful drive there, weaving through these tiny little Breton towns, past fields of cows, as the twilight slowly slinked off into darkness. And Morlaix itself seemed quite pretty with an awesome Roman (I think) viaduct though by the time we'd arrived we were a little pissed and impatient to get to the festival.

First band on when we got there were Asian Dub Foundation who were OK though very, very angry. I wasn't too interested though. I was all about the PE and drinking as many cheap beers as possible. PE were cool. The last time I saw them was at a Livid and I have literally never been so pissed in my life. I don't remember anything of the show or the two bands that preceded them. And the time before that I was about thirteen and Charlie's dad chaperoned us. So I didn't exactly know what to expect.

They were good. They've reconciled with Professor Griff so there were S1W's dancing around the stage. Terminator X is gone but they have some (alleged) DMC winner in his place. They've got two guitarists and a drummer. And they've got Flavor Flav and Chuck D. They played the crowed perfectly, getting people to throw their hands in the air, leading chants of "Fuck George Bush, Fuck Tony Blair, Fuck Condaleeza", a scat style call and response bit. And they did all their hits. They played Black Steel, Cold Lampin', Shut 'Em Down, He Got Game, By the Time I Get to Arizona, My '98, Burn Hollywood Burn and Fight the Power. The two guitarists even rocked out a little medley of Back in Black, Whole Lotta Love and Purple Haze. But the two lead rappers are pushing 50 and the political realities that they rapped so angrily about at the end of the '80s and beginning of the '90s really haven't change. So it was a little cheesy and a little sad.

With a massive drive ahead of us, we had to leave about an hour after PE so we really didn't see any other bands which was a shame but it was a good night. And we met so many friendly people who couldn't get their heads around why there were Australians at a music festival in Brittany.