2007/2008
Newsworthy Events From 07' And 08' Arranged From Latest to Earliest Chronologically
The 2008 European tour finished last night at the Kronprinseparrets Kulturpris in Copenhagen, Denmark. During the summer, they played a total of 31 European dates (see the Gigography section for a list of these dates) and visited countries such as Romania for the first time ever. The highlights of the tour however, would have been Massive Attack's unique opportunity to curate and headline the Meltdown festival in London and their appearance at the Glastonbury festival - their first in over 10 years. At the moment there are no more dates anywhere scheduled, even though there might still be a possibility more maybe scheduled for December - but at the moment that is still speculation. It would be reliable to assume that there will be another tour next year in time to promote Massive Attack's new album (in which they have already previewed over half live this year), which they aim to have finished before Christmas time this year for release sometime in Spring/Summer 2009.
The 2008 European tour kicks off today with a concert at the Saku Arena in Estonia. Another show will be held in Russia mid-week before Massive Attack return to the UK to curate the Meltdown festival in London starting this weekend. Expect new songs to be debuted at the shows this year and a new impressive lighting/visual setup as in recent years with Massive Attack. MASSIVEATTACK.IE will be keeping track of the live shows this year in the Gigography section of the site. Check in there regularly over the summer for reviews and pictures of the shows as they come in (and even a live recording or two hopefully!).
The official Massive Attack website released the dates for the European 2008 tour today. So far they are 24 shows confirmed with no indication yet if the tour will be expanded to any other continents. these dates have been added to the Gigography section of MASSIVEATTACK.IE under 2008.
The (almost) complete lineup for Massive Attack's Meltdown festival was revealed today on the internet by fansites, Massive Attack Collective and Red-Lines. The lineup will officially be revealed tomorrow in the Sunday edition of the UK newspaper The Observer, who are also the media partner for the entire festival. There is still one major band to be added to the 21st June date of the festival, along with other smaller artists and events. A full timetable of events will probably not be available until much closer to the festival. Tickets go on general sale on the 25th April (Friday) at 9AM (GMT) and are expected to sell out quickly!
An art exhibition entitled "War Paint", inspired by the recent U.N.K.L.E album War Stories, is to be held from the 25th of this month until the 25th of April in London. The venue specficaly will be the LAZINC art gallery situated on 125 Charing Cross Road. The exhibition on display will feature primarily work from 3D's contributions to the War Stories album which was reported earlier last year when the album was released. Artwork as well from Warren Du Preez and Nick Thornton Jones (both of whom have photographed Massive Attack in the past), Will Bankhead and Ben Drury will also be on display.
After just over five long years of no significant update to the official Massive Attack website, today marked the launch of a new look design and aesthetic for massiveattack.co.uk (also asseccable from massiveattack.com). The site is no longer promoting 100th Window and instead being entirely made out of Flash is using standard HTML/PHP (which should be more easily updateable) with Flash being used just to load up the background images/videos and music loops. Other improvements on the site include and RSS feed of the major news items/blog enteries and search feature which is archiving all the old videos that have been hosted on massiveattack.co.uk for the last 10 years. The first few news entries on the new site, reiterate the big news from yesterday regarding Massive Attack's appointment as curators of the Meltdown Festival this year in London, while also reminding vistors of the exciting news of an upcoming summer tour and the upcoming releases of three new Massive Attack produced soundtrack scores for the motion pictures In Prison My Whole Life, Battle In Seattle and Trouble The Water. The three preceeding links will take you to the official websites for the respective films.
The now old and defunct former Massive Attack site is still (like other old iterations of the official site) asseccable from this address: massiveattack.co.uk/start.html.
Announced today was official word from the organizers of the Meltdown Festival held annually in London that Massive Attack were to follow in the long line of other distinguished artists by being curators of this year's festival. Meltdown is an annual music festival held at the Royal Festival Hall, part of the South Bank Centre in London, UK. Since its inception in 1993, the festival has been curated by a single person each year, usually a notable musician or composer such as, David bowie or Morrissey in the past. Massive Attack appear to be the first band (rather than a individual) to ever curate the event. In the initial press release for the event Massive Attack stated, [Quote] - �It's an honour to host Southbank Centre�s Meltdown Festival and to be in such inspiring company as its previous curators. In addition to the music, we want this year's festival to have a strong political and visual element to it to reflect our influences and obsessions. Our aim is to mix it up a bit by instigating collaborations that make sense and probably some that don't�. The Meltdown festival will take place from 14th to the 22nd June and the full lineup choosen by Massive Attack has been promised to be released shortly.
Today was the first date in a small mini-tour for Massive Attack consisting mainly of Iberian shows with one held in the UK. The first show was at the BEC in Bilbao, Spain with the sixth and last show being at the Pilton Fayre in Glastonbury, UK on the 21st September. Not only this, but a brand new and previously unheard of song in any form, was debuted at these shows called 16 Seeter featuring Horace Andy on vocals.
The new U.N.K.L.E album, War Stories is released on this day. Once again, as with the last U.N.K.L.E album, James Lavelle has managed to rope in his friend 3D for another collaboration named Twilight. This follows on from the recent remix work U.N.K.L.E did on False Flags and the song Invasion that appeared on U.N.K.L.E's Never Never Land in 2003.
Massive Attack launched their official My Space page today, finally following many of their musical peers in doing so. Like the majority of MySpace pages, the Massive Attack page contains a streaming music player, numerous photos and pictures and a community areas for fans to leave comments and communicate. Of particular note is the streaming music player that has a previously unheard of dub remix of Risingson called the the "Setting Sun Dub 2".
The campaign against the UK Governments proposed Trident Nuclear renewal took place the River Thames in London, UK on this day, when The Greenpeace Arctic Sunrise docked in the shadow of Tower Bridge played host to a 50 strong choir. The choir Sense of Sound performed a piece composed by Damon Albarn of Blur. Entitled 5 Minutes to Midnight the performance represented a peaceful demonstration against renewing Trident and against Britain possessing nuclear weapons. Directed by Hannah Eidinow with visuals designed by 3D of Massive Attack, and contributions from Brian Eno, 5 Minutes to Midnight followed the launch of www.no-bomb.com an anti trident website, announced the week before. The picture directly below this article is one of four of 3D's new paintings for this project. "Five actors will join the choir on the Arctic's deck in a cycle of meditations using public statements, quotations, reports and statistics on the British government's part in this debate," said director Hannah Edinow. Opposition is growing to the government's efforts to rush through a decision on Trident renewal. Greenpeace director John Sauven said: "It's not too late to stop Tony Blair wasting billions on new nuclear weapons. Trident is a cold war relic designed to destroy Russian cities and has no place in 21st century Britain".
The first of Massive Attack's three benefit shows on behalf of the HOPING Foundation, took place today at the Birmingham Academy in Birmingham, UK. The other two shows were held in the following two days at the Brixton Academy in London, UK.