Source : the age
MUSIC
Massive Attack ★★★★★
Rod Laver Arena, August 11
Since forming in 1998, Massive Attack has made a couple of the greatest albums of all time and nudged the top of the pop charts. They also have a decades-long history of anti-war and human rights advocacy, most recently for Palestine.
They were recently detained in, and then banned from, Singapore after expressing solidary and unfurling a Palestinian flag on stage – contravening a ban on displaying foreign flags. This was just prior to arriving in Australia, home of our own cool and normal discourse.
Now that we’ve addressed the elephant in the room, we can move past the ugly business of politics and talk about how much fun we had at the Massive Attack show.
Just joking! Of course that’s not what happened! Anyone hoping for an uncomplicated night of nostalgia at the paranoia factory would have walked away disappointed. Likely crawled away, with ears, eyes, and brain bleeding
Music takes a back seat on this tour. The players, including core members Robert “3D” Del Naja and Grant “Daddy G” Marshall, perform mostly in the shadows, ceding the floor to a visual experience that’s equally mesmerising and assaultive.
As the first bars land, morbid statistics cascade across the screen: children killed by guns in the US this year, in various wars. It rarely gets more cheerful. AI surveillance, hate speech, influencers (Australian wellness grifters get a shout-out), aspiring fascists, conspiracy theories, tax havens, K-pop dance routines juxtaposed with government massacre. Whenever the audience is threatened with a good time, it’s followed by apparently limitless footage of war crimes committed by some of Australia’s allies.
A nightmarish tour of the internet gives way to a map of Palantir’s chokehold on the planet, then to the Congolese children mining the minerals behind it. Cumulatively an overwhelming panorama of the digital psychosis engulfing the world, soundtracked by Massive Attack.
The band itself? Note perfect. Especially when feature artists emerge from the shadows to lend themselves to tracks. Roots reggae singer Horace Andy laces Hymn of the Big Wheel with gravitas. Deborah Miller sings Shara Nelson’s parts on Safe from Harm with such transcendent beauty and power the crowd roars with every high note. Former Cocteau Twin Elizabeth Fraser’s ethereal, haunting voice is undiminished, both on the Tim Bucky cover Song to The Siren and show closer Teardrop.
A panacea of a song at any time, but when the screens finally go dark and politics leaves the room for three minutes, it tips towards the sublime.
Reviewed by Liam Pieper
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Liam Pieper is the author of Appreciation, a book about art and fame.Connect via X.
