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Monday 29 August 2011

People They Don't Understand


Watching the Reading festival on the tv on Saturday night I realised that the headliners line-up was exactly the same as several years ago. Back in the early/mid 00s Mrs Swiss and I got into the Saturday night of the Leeds leg of the festival at around tea time. Some old friends of Mrs Swiss ran a baked potato stall and we got in as baked potato sellers, not that we stuck around to sell many spuds. We saw the last part of Janes' Addiction, then Pulp and then The Strokes. Janes were noisy, playing a set of new stuff. Pulp were excellent. The Strokes were hampered by Julian Casablancas having his leg in plaster and by the rain. Most of the crowd seemed to be there to see them though and they were pretty good, if strangely uncharismatic. Since then they've lost their way- duff follow up albums, interband strife, people and scenes moving on- but they single handedly popularised skinny jeans for men (cheers Strokes) and got guitar bands going again (not entirely a good thing, but we can't hold them personally responsible for some of the chaff that came in their wake). Despite it all, this song, from their 2001 debut Is This It, remains a cracking tune.

1 comment:

drew said...

makes me want to listen to Tom Petty and The Heartbreakers for some unfathomable reason. For all that it is a great track and had me and L jumping about at our nephew's 21st earlier in the year much to the bemusement of most of the others present.