Terres rouges Festival - Esch sur Alzette 09.09.12with Therapy and Tricky
We got to the venue around 5 pm, luckily through a friend we had been upgraded to VIP tickets, which gave a nice touch, providing free drinks and food. Shortly after checking out the VIP area, we saw a few friends sitting outside, and next to them was Tricky, so I did not miss the opportunity to say high, and thank the man for his music, which I have liked since Maxinquaye.
The first Band I actually caught most of, was Joshua, which was a lively mix of electronics, reggae, blues and hip hop, so quite worldly music, overall not bad, but for me not focused enough!
Next up were Eiffel a French band, that we caught only from far away, as most of us wanted to fill up on food. Eiffel play a solid rock show, but nothing too fancy either. On my end it was too early for food, and I preferred to heighten my buzz, and added some rhum and coke to my smoking routine.
At 20:45, Tricky took the stage, and although the sound was not all that, overall the performance of the songs did kick ass! The short time that the band spent on stage was a good show, while covering Motorhead’s Ace of Spades, the public was invited to the stage, which looking at how some people behaved (and from the looks of it annoyed Tricky a bit), was not the best idea in a festival setting.. The really good thing as with most Tricky shows, was that the songs are rarely played in their album versions, and as such become much trippier and even better flowing! As with most concerts I did quite a lot of smoking, and used about 6 of the 12 prerolled joints just at the Tricky show, so right along the lines of the music! Very disappointing was the fact that after only 50 minutes they left the stage without an encore, and still 10 minutes available on their slot.. Their was only a small crowd for most of the festival, and yes a 1 hour set is by default to short, but then it would have been essential to at least use the allocated time fully. Other than that still a solid show, but too short, and the sound was not as crisp as I am used to from past Tricky shows!
At 22:15 Therapy? Took the stage, and even though I haven’t listened much to them since the 90’s, I have to say the put forth a good show, and although I have moved on from their music, hearing a few of the older songs did bring back a few fond memories! Andy Cairns did not strike a positive note with the attendees either when he compared Luxembourg to Northern Ireland in the sense that they are both small countries surrounded by bastards, nothing wrong with the comparison, but as usual in Luxembourg a lot of the people probably came from those surrounding countries .. Overall their set was quite short as well, though they used their allocated hour fully.
Considering the price of only 15 € this was certainly worth it, the downside was the sound which was neither ideal for Tricky nor Therapy?.. But we still had fun!