10th July 2004 - Oxegen Festival, Kildare, Ireland
About 10 minutes before show the speakers started playing a wierd ambient version of Future Proof.It just served to get me even more excited at what I was about to experience.I wonder if this sample and the other samples played bfore last years shows were outtakes from the abandoned 100th facsimile version?I also thought I might have seen Neil Davidige helping set up the stage equipement before the show.I only seen a few pictures of him so I am not certain but it could have been him.I definetly saw Annabelle Dalby taking pictures during the show.We can only hope that these will be uploaded in the indetermible future on ma.com. At a few minutes after eleven they came on.The band took their positions and 3D came out and gave a wave.Horace came out then as D walked offstage giving Horace a kinda of hi-5 as he did.Angel then began with its thick booming bassline that I had been waiting all day to hear.Little blips of green appeared on the screen behind them throughout the song and everything was covered in white light when Horace got to the “love you,love you” line.The song was pretty much idenital to how it was played last year.No worries there.Got the crowd pumped and lose the idea Massive were some sort of easy-listening chill-out band.
Risingson was awesome.D and G were both good on stage and looked comfortable with each other. Black Milk Redux was good also.When I heard that Black Milk was was apart of the 2004 show I felt it was a bit redundant at this stage to play it as it had served its purpose of showing that D relying less on samples and trying to put the whole Manfred Mann thing behind them when they played it on last years tour.But I did’nt mind its inclusion tonight.It helped bacause I thought Dot was on form tonight.When i saw them in Dublin last August.I was’nt that impressed with Dot but she was better tonight.Also Black Milk last night was different from last year’s version in that it was edited down a little bit at the end. Spying Glass was another surpise but good inclusion on this year’s setlist.And its nice to see Protecton get a bit more representation than last year.Horace was in his element with this kind of song and the crowd gave him a big cheer as he walked on stage accompanied by Debbie Miller’s replacement Hazel Fernandez. Karmacoma/Fake the Aroma was great.Any song with D and G on stage is great.What can I say.G also thanked us for coming which got a big cheer. Oh a new song!Nice!Bullet was incredible.The 3rd best song of the night for me.Dot was on stage for this one as she played guitar.The first half of the song is built around 2 sombre piano tones as a thick bassline comes in and is broken up twice by choped up beats.Then layers of electric guitar and wierd Fx effects take over the song completey in its second half.The visual on the screen I remember well as it was of a heart rate monitor.Really impressed with this song hearing it for the first time and made up for the lack of Group Four.I hope someone makes a recording availible soon.
From one song no one had ever heard of to the opposite extreme.There was a big hurrah from the audience as Teardrop started the crowd sang along and from this moment on the crowd started getting into the show.I thought Dot was good on this.Of course,Liz Fraser will always own this song.Nice visualistions on the screen something Teardrop did’nt have last year. Mezzanine probably the best of the D/G songs.Probably the best song of the night foe myself.The intensity of it was great.The stuff on the screen seemed to show at one point the symbols on a Playstation control pad.I think D also chose this moment to mention to please not support BNP. Sleepy’s final song of the night came next.They gave a good rendition of Hymn that turned into a great crowd pleaser.Everyone started singing along and claping when horace urged them to. Safe From Harm was also one of the moments of the show.I thought that Deborah replacement was acceptable on this one.But Angelo totally owned this song when his time in the last 2/3 mins came.Dot was also in the backgroud playing guitar,something I don’t remember doing during SFM last year.Really got the crowd on their feet. The band then took a barely 2 minute break.In this time the crowd started chanting “one more tune”.What they got was 3 more starting with Inertia Creeps.This was played to perfection.3D was great and so was Angelo espeially when he joined 3D’s side halfway during the song.2nd best of the night. Next up was was Unfinished Sympathy.Like Teardrop everyone had heard this one and the crowd got behind this 100%.This was the song though when I started to miss Deborah.This new singer can’t do the high notes as well.But still marks to her for taking on one of the greatest songs ever.
Lastly was Future Proof Redux.I would find it hard to imagine Futureproof without the beeps but this is what this was were the gentle guitar playing of the original is made the main focus and is slowed down.After about 5 minute of not much movement in the song then the guitars come in as they do after 2 mins in the original.The big distorted guitarfest at the end was similar to Group Four but personally I would have perfered G4 .The screen was at its best here though and even did that red Matrix code effect similar to Futureproof from last year.Dot was also doing backing guitar on the stage too during this. At the end,everyone came on the stage and gave a final wave to the audience.The real cool bit was when after waving to the audience D gave me a little wave while smiling.I was front centre with one of my Massive t-shirts on dancing around like a drunken pratt(which I was.Quite a few imported high alcohol beers I had that day which I had managed to smuggle inside the festival)and singing along to every lyric as I knew them all so D must have noticed me during the gig.Then they left.I was’nt too sad to see them go as I know I’ll see them again.
Review by Richard from the Official Massive Atatck Forum dated 11th July 2004
A new song that debuted during the 2004 tour was Speed Of Dark, which featured vocals from Dot Allison for the early part of the tour, but then the vocals would be dropped turning the song into just an instrumental. Speed Of Dark would end up being played for the entirety of the 2004 tour. So far, this song has not been released on record and neither has it been played live since the 2004 tour.
The official site for the Oxegen Festival is located here.
These photos were taken from the site http://oxegen.ie/ and Åurélien. Click on the thumbnails below to view a larger image.
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