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Timings:
Doors - 6:30pm
The Vaccines - 8pm
Kasabian - 9:30pm
KASABIAN TO PERFORM IN SINGAPORE, ONLY SHOW IN SOUTHEAST ASIA!
LAMC Productions is proud to announce, the gargantuan best band in Britain KASABIAN take their even bigger ‘Velociraptor!’ tour to Singapore on February 8, 2012 at Fort Canning Park!
The infectious London-based indie rock outfit,The Vaccines are confirmed to open for Kasabian.
One of the year’s most eagerly awaited releases, ‘Velociraptor!’, includes stompers ‘Switchblade Smiles’ and ‘Days Are Forgotten’. The band have been racking up those YouTube hits for the ‘Switchblade Smiles’ video and ‘Days Are Forgotten’ has already been chosen as the soundbed for the new Sky Sports football season TV ad.
The ‘last one’ was, of course, ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’. A psychedelic masterpiece which has sold almost a million copies worldwide (and a cool 730,000 in the UK), the band’s third album (and second UK number one) confirmed Kasabian’s place at British rock’s highest table.
As well as providing the new decade with its first de facto festival anthem with top three single ‘Fire’, it also brought some impressive mantelpiece clutter. Voted Best Album by Q and nominated for the Mercury Prize, the band also won Best British Group at The Brits, Best Album at the NME Awards and a host of other nominations. “The fact that we got kind of big off that record is amazing,” says Serge. “West Ryder was our Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake. Everything about it was perfect. But we’ve done that now and it’s time to move on. We’ve upped the stakes.”
KASABIAN are guitarist Sergio Pizzorno, singer Tom Meighan, bassist Chris Edwards and drummer Ian Matthews.
Kasabian Biography
First things first: Kasabian have created a monster. One which will inspire awe in believers, strike fear into the hearts of enemies and seems set to bestride the world like a colossus. Only fitting, then, that it’s named after one of the most fearsome creatures to ever walk the earth.
“The velociraptor was the only dinosaur which could defeat the T- Rex,” explains the band’s songwriter/guitarist Serge Pizzorno. “They could do it because they hunted in packs and they always stuck together.
When I first met Tom he said if he ever had a band he’d call it The Velociraptors, and it felt right to use it now because we’re still the same band of brothers we were when we started out. And after the last one we wanted a title that was direct and in your face.”
The ‘last one’ was, of course, ‘West Ryder Pauper Lunatic Asylum’. A psychedelic masterpiece which has sold almost a million copies worldwide (and a cool 730,000 in the UK), the band’s third album (and second UK number one) confirmed Kasabian’s place at British rock’s highest table.
As well as providing the new decade with its first de facto festival anthem with top three single ‘Fire’, it also brought some impressive mantelpiece clutter. Voted Best Album by Q and nominated for the Mercury Prize, the band also won Best British Group at The Brits, Best Album at the NME Awards and a host of other nominations. “The fact that we got kind of big off that record is amazing,” says Serge. “West Ryder was our Ogden’s Nut Gone Flake. Everything about it was perfect. But we’ve done that now and it’s time to move on. We’ve upped the stakes.”
If WRPLA saw Kasabian emerging from a cosmic swamp of influences with their own identity, Velociraptor! is the same beast fully grown. It’s the sound of a band who have absorbed the lessons of eighteen months playing stadiums and festival main stages and put them into practice. “The success of West Ryder proved that people don’t want to be fed the same line all the time,” says Serge.
“We haven’t changed as people, we’re still the same bunch of piss –takers whether we’re in a palace in Monaco or down the local boozer, but success means that musically we can go wherever we want now. I used to love that about The Beastie Boys, you never knew what they were going to do next.”
Inspiration for the new album arrived late one night at Serge’s new home, deep in the Leicestershire countryside. “I’ve got this old jukebox and one night I was up until six am and it kept spitting out these great tunes, anything from Elvis to the Chemical Brothers,” he explains. “I was like, wow, imagine if you had an album like that, which you could put on at any time of the day or night and it would just throw out one great tune after another. I knew it was massively ambitious, but if we could do it the results could be incredible.”
To achieve such a Herculean feat even Serge needed some outside assistance. So every night after he went to bed, a mysterious presence would arrive through his studio window and help him out. “I know, it sounds mental,” he laughs. “I’d be at home being a dad looking after (baby son) Ennio, and then I’d go into the studio and press play and hear all this amazing music. I’d be like, ‘Who’s the fuck’s done that?’ I wouldn’t remember any of it. I wasn’t getting much sleep and I had the idea it was this Mexican spirit coming down from somewhere and helping me out.”
The results of these metaphysical face-offs were a collection of extraordinary songs, all with lyrics sharpened to a razor’s edge. Tackling subjects as diverse as the vacuity of celebrity culture (‘La Fee Verte’s’: “Dogs in handbags/Everyone’s a star”) scorching self-justification (‘Days Are Forgotten’) and destructive love affairs (rock’n’roll lullaby ‘Goodbye Kiss’) it’s proof that sleep deprivation can be a hallucinogenic drug in itself. “I spent a month just working on the words, which I’ve never done before,” explains Serge.
“I’m influenced by MCs mostly. I love the way Wu-Tang, Gift Of Gab and Doom throw words out there. People have said the lyrics aren’t what you’d expect from a new father, but that’s just how they come out”(laughs). The results, as with ‘West Ryder’, were then taken to San Francisco to be mixed by Dan ’The Automator’ Nakamura, where, over the course of six weeks, Velociraptor! grew muscles and Tom Meighan delivered the best vocal performances of his life.
“Tom was amazing,” grins Serge. “He would go on these mad eight mile walks around San Francisco, singing the songs as he went across The Golden Gate Bridge. Then he’d come back into the studio and nail it.”
The final piece in the jigsaw came with the addition of strings at British Grove Studios in London. “That was an amazing experience,” says the guitarist. “I’d be giving all these mad directions to this twenty-piece orchestra like ‘I want it scary’ or ‘more horror’. The results were so beautiful, mind-blowing.”
Both suitable descriptions for Velociraptor! itself. Put it under the microscope and you’ll find musical DNA traces of everyone from Nirvana (turbo-disco juggernaut ‘Re-Wired’) to Led Zeppelin (stadium shaker ‘Days Are Forgotten’); from Karen Dalton (‘Goodbye Kiss’) to Boards Of Canada (‘Shelter From The Storm’). The end result, however, is a hundred per cent Kasabian. Except older, wiser, and able to hit the spot every time. As Tom sings in ‘Re-Wired’, “I flip the switch and make you feel electric.”
“The aim was to make a modern classic,” says Serge in conclusion. “One that people can take to their hearts and sing along to. It’s been fifteen or sixteen years since the last truly classic album, but I think we’ve done it.”
The best band in Britain have made their best album yet. One that’s perfect for house parties and headline slots; bed-sits and the Budokan. And 24-hour jukeboxes. And, as even the T-Rex discovered, opposition is futile.
The Vaccines Biography
The Vaccines, which has drawn comparisons to everyone from Surfer Blood and the Drums to the Strokes and the Jesus and Mary Chain, released their debut album, “What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?” on the back of a huge UK buzz.
"What Did You Expect From The Vaccines?", is 37 minutes of “Lo-fi, heart-grabbing rock ‘n’ roll” exclaims Q Magazine. NME raves that the record is a mix of “pop-punk, chillwave and classic good-time pop’n’roll.” The Fly explains that the bands “glimmering, lo-fi punk-pop laced with dreamy summertime hamonise,” will solidify that, “The Vaccines are the band to watch in 2011!”
The Vaccines were recently nominated ‘Best New Act’ at the 2011 Q Awards and ‘Critics’ Choice’ at the 2011 Brit Awards and are the best selling new band of 2011.
The Vaccines are the talents of Justin Young (vocals, guitar), Anri Hjorvar (bass), Freddie Cowan (guitar), and Pete Robertson (drums).
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