Posts tagged “glastonbury”

The Babelbox podcast Episode 6 is out now. It’s a Festival Special for Summer 2009, covering Glastonbury, Womad, Latitude, Big Chill, and Africa Express in Paris. Featuring the Vocal Orchestra, Corinne Bailey Rae, Jarvis Cocker, and Tony Allen.

Listen now, or subscribe using iTunes.

Final part of Shlomo’s Glastonbury diary featuring Jarvis Cocker singing Fat Children with Shlomo and the Vocal Orchestra.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Dm7RvxTp88

Part four of Shlomo’s Glastonbury diary featuring BBC Radio 4’s MARCUS BRIGSTOCKE challenging BELLATRIX (World Female Beatbox Champion 2009) to a battle of the beats. Ouch.

Part five is out next week!

Watch it HERE.

Part three of Shlomo’s Glastonbury diary featuring an improvised collaboration between IMOGEN HEAP and SHLOMO AND THE VOCAL ORCHESTRA!

Part four is out next week!

Video by http://www.asdescribed.net/

WATCH IT HERE

Part two of Shlomo’s Glastonbury diary featuring a live battle between DJ YODA and SHLOMO AND THE VOCAL ORCHESTRA!

Part three is out next week!

Video by http://www.asdescribed.net/

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PWnl1VCFAmI

Part one of Shlomo’s Glastonbury diary featuring his beatbox choir THE VOCAL ORCHESTRA, plus JARVIS COCKER, IMOGEN HEAP, DJ YODA and MARCUS BRIGSTOCKE.

Part two is out next week!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GNjL6sXwibE

Video by http://www.asdescribed.net/

This year’s Glasto was one of the best yet. I ended up doing three shows and saw some incredible live music. My favourite bits were getting lost on random all night adventures and watching the sun come up over the site. We have video and podcast coming soon but in the meantime here are some pics from the weekend…. love from SHLO x

For our Saturday show on the Park Stage we had some special guests, completely unrehearsed as usual. We had a quick run-through up in the campsite because it was too noisy by the stage.

Park Stage was rammed... 10,000 people?? I've played there every year since it started three years back, really feels like home

First guest was supremely talented Imogen Heap who joined the Vocal Orchestra in an improvised circle jam

next up DJ Yoda battled the Vocal Orchestra whilst rocking some gangsta wellies

Then radio 4's Marcus Brigstocke did his best to strip Bellatrix of her crown (she recently became World Beatbox Champion). His beatbox donald duck was quite impressive but no match for her crazy "chicken drumming".

Last but not least was the legend that is Jarvis Cocker.. i can't believe i introduced him with 'his name starts with cock'.... someone shoot me

Jarvis was a last minute addition to the show after another guest had to pull out. He agreed to sing 'Fat Children' with us on condition that 3 of the vocal orchestra girls sang backing vocals for his headline set that night. Fair deal!

that night i did another show in the early hours... it was called Africa Express Soundsystem, where African musicians jammed with Europeans... it was amazing...

My highlights were dueting with Bashy, and jamming with an amazing fiddler whose solo was incredible until i accidentally stood on his lead, which pulled it out and it all ended with a painful crunch

Me and Imogen at sunrise

Sunday night was one of the biggest highlights for me... watching the prodigy headline the other stage... INCREDIBLE!

After the prodigy i got a call saying that Foreign Beggars were about to play in the Bassline Circus and did i want to jump up… it was a lot of fun being up with the beggars again as i’ve not played with them for years… then we raved out to some drum and bass in Shangri La until the sun came up and it was time to go home. Ah well only one more year till the next one!

Shlo gets 3D

After 3 performances over the first two days of Glastonbury, Sunday was for partying.

George recording the podcast at the campsite while breakfast is cooking!

Taking a wander

Then we watched the excellent Balkan Beat Box (nothing to do with beatboxing!) on the Jazz World stage.

over to the Other Stage to watch Groove Armada’s headline slot

Flares in the crowd….

Then all night campfire!

Night time view from our campsite

Sun about to rise

Sun coming up over Park area

Whoops it’s officially the morning

It was all over too soon. Glastonbury 2008 was wicked.

It’s 3pm. The show starts at 6. Emily Eavis has given us free reign of the Park Stage for two hours.

I’ve got the Vocal Orchestra and a heap of guest collaborators and I need to rehearse. We find a bar backstage with a decent soundsystem and get to it. Before I know it we are ready to go on, Park Stage is totally rammed!

The sun has come out and the people are smiling. Pavan from Foreign Beggars is helping me host the stage. I hear him saying my name followed by a cheer and next thing I know I am beatboxing to about 10,000 Glastonbury punters.

I kick it off with a short solo set to introduce the crowd to what I do. As I power up my looping setup, there is a loud popping noise followed by silence. I’m told that I have blown the generator for the entire Park Area. Oops. Now I am freaking out – so much work has gone into this show. This can’t be the end of it! The audience aren’t having any of it… they remain enthusiastic, singing and cheering until the power eventually comes back on. Phew!

No time to lose now, I skip straight to my drum n bass looping song to get everyone moving again, and then bring out the Vocal Orchestra. They are on fire today.

The Vocal Orchestra

What follows is a unique mish-mash of guest stars performing spontaneously. The music ranges from folk to jazz to hip hop to tabla to scratch battles to raucous sing-a-longs. If you would like to hear some of the music you will have to wait for the podcast – we did an audio diary of the whole weekend which will be out soon. There are some pics below, mostly taken by RJ Fernandez, more to come.

Martha Wainwright sang a version of ‘In the Middle of the Night’ with me on beats

Martina Topley-Bird sang ‘Police and Thieves’ by Junior Mervin with the Vocal Orchestra as backing band

DJ Yoda survived a scratch battle with Bellatrix!

Get Cape, Wear Cape, Fly performed ‘Ghost Town’ by the Specials with the Vocal Orchestra

Ed Harcourt presented me with a fake diamond encrusted golden microphone onstage… I think he wanted me to look as bling as Jay-Z! Then he sang ‘50 ways to leave your lover’

Me, Ed Harcourt, Pavan and Reverend from the Makers (these pics courtesy of BBC)

The other guests were Portico Quartet, Pete Lockett and Lemn Sissay.

It was a moving experience, I came off stage exhausted but happy – I felt like all the collaborations and musical experiences from the past year as resident at Southbank have armed me with all the tools I needed to rock a two hour improvised show. It was probably the best show I’ve ever done, certainly the most fun show I have been a part of. I can’t wait to do it again. Watch this space!

Was starving after playing Pyramid stage on Friday, so I had a ‘Glastonbury Garlic Guzzler’ (amazing burger). Wandered down to the Park Stage to see Dizzee Rascal. The highlight was Calvin Harris coming on to sing ‘Dance wiv Me’… it’s now at number 1!

Then came on Pete Doherty. He was sort of stable and seemed to be able to remember his chords and lyrics. It is a bit like listening to an old drunk in the pub way after closing time singing songs about the past.

On Saturday morning I woke up early to try out the solar-powered showers (first wash since Wednesday. Nice). Then it was over to Pyramid stage for my appearance with Martha Wainwright. Pyramid felt a bit more normal second time around.

Martha’s music is a blend of folk and country rock and pretty much the last thing the crowd was expecting was a duet with a human beatboxer.

But playing to a crowd of 40,000 people in the afternoon can’t be bad promotion for the gig that evening!

As soon as we came off stage we were ushered into a Land Rover to take us back to the Park Stage to start rehearsing for the show that evening.

TO BE CONTINUED.