Back in the early 90's I used to buy every dance single that entered the UK Top 40. It was the era of the "dance boom" as I was calling it, mainly headlined by house music, but other genres would soon appear. Now, I won't say that when I bought "Unfinished Sympathy" I witnessed the birth of trip hop (the 7 inch single that I bought contained two mixes of the song, one on each side, one was the original and the other was a more "house-y" remix), but it was one of my favourite songs of that year even though their name had been shortened to "Massive" because of the Gulf War. (The policy of the UK government at that time was that no song on the radio should remind listeners of the war that was taking place at that time. With that same policy they had even banned John Lennon's "Imagine", which didn't mention war but peace. But when the listeners heard the word "peace" they would remember the war. Geddit?). Thankfully I had heard of the band before and knew what their original name was. They went on to become one of the pioneers of trip hop and their later album "Mezzanine" is considered their best, but to my mind, "Unfinished Sympathy" will always be their best song.
Now, it was finally time to see them live. So the day following the Smashing Pumpkins gig at an indoor venue, I switched to an outdoor one for one more date of the Release Athens Festival. The band playing on stage when I arrived was Mount Kimbie.
Mount Kimbie were followed by Beak.
And finally Beak were followed by Massive Attack themselves. They presented an impressive stage show with projections translated in Greek. The big surprise for me though was the presence of Elizabeth Frazer from The Cocteau Twins. Not only was she there, but she also performed "Song To The Siren"! That was more or less at the end of the first half of the set. Because all my favourite songs, from "Angel" onwards seemed to have been reserved for the second half, including "Safe From Harm", "Karmacoma" and of course, "Unfinished Sympathy".
A very enjoyable night, by all means, but the fact was that I would have to return to the same venue, the following day for Duran Duran...
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SETLISTS:
BEAK
01. The Brazilian
02. Brean Down
03. Yatton
04. Allé Sauvage
05. Wulfstan II
MASSIVE ATTACK
01. Risingson
02. Girl I Love You
03. Future Proof
04. Black Milk
05. Gone
06. Minipoppa
07. Voodoo In My Blood
08. Song To The Siren
09. Inertia Creeps
10. Rockwrok
11. Angel
12. Safe From Harm
13. Unfinished Sympathy
14. Karmacoma
15. Teardrop
16. Levels
17. Group Four
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