Live music is a powerful experience. Most gigs and festivals around the country were cancelled in 2020, but the absence of the live experience confirmed one thing: there are a lot of great gigs to be found online. With a click of a button you can be transported anywhere from Live Aid in 1985 to Kylie Minogue playing the Olympic Closing Ceremony in 2000, or Beyoncé’s 2018 Coachella set.
Fresh from another Hottest 100 gong (coming in at number 50 with Nothing to Love About Love, their collab with The Wombats), electronic duo Peking Duk know a few things about the live music experience both on and off the stage. In partnership with Sony’s Bravia range of immersive 4K smart TVs, Adam Hyde and Reuben Styles run us through a few of the live music experiences they’ve loved lately.
Metallica in India, 2011
“Lately I’ve been finding myself in Youtube holes watching so many old gigs,” says Hyde. “I’ve started watching the old Prodigy concerts of them in Russia playing to like 100,000 people, which is always a good time. Also revisiting the old gigs of Metallica when they played in Russia as well. I find myself lusting for watching live music and going on Youtube.”
For Hyde and Styles, these vast shows have a magic that borders on comical. “I think the sheer size of it alone is a spectacle within itself. It’s just hilarious the size of those shows,” says Hyde.
“I loved that gig that Metallica did in India,” says Styles. (Approximately 22,000 people attended the 2011 Bangalore show, Metallica’s first in the country.) “They made the gig something like 50 cents or something to attend, and oh my God, it’s just the most epic sea of people I’ve ever seen in my life. It’s just crazy to watch. And their showmanship – it’s something unmatched in any acts you see these days.”
For Styles, the experience of watching and listening to live music doesn’t always mean simply sitting down in front of the TV either. “It was in the background at a mate’s on the TV while we nestled into a bottle of something lovely,” he says. “It’s mad having gigs on in the background when you’ve got some friends over.”
DMX at Woodstock, 1999
Hyde continues the colossal-crowd theme with a high-energy, shirtless DMX bounding across the stage at one of the most famous music festivals in the world, Woodstock.
“This is insane. Woodstock ’99, he’s wearing the red overalls and red Timberlands and he played Ruff Ryders’ Anthem to what looked like 10 billion people, and they all scream the words in unison and it’s a moment.”
Guns N’ Roses’ Use Your Illusion tour, 1991–1993
Taking in a completely insane 194 shows in 27 countries, Guns N’ Roses set the bar for world tours pretty high with their two-and-a-half year Use Your Illusion tour.
“I remember [the tour DVD] was hilarious, because Axl Rose is just a funny guy,” says Hyde. “He’s running up and down the huge production of their stage in underwear. And he does that dance with the microphone stand that’s kind of like a shimmy. It’s very sensual and hilarious and he's just sweating and screaming at the top of his lungs while Slash is just off his tits in the corner. It’s poetry.”
Led Zeppelin at Madison Square Garden, 1973
“My go-to that I have to watch I reckon at least once every few months is Led Zeppelin’s Since I’ve Been Loving You live at MSG 1973,” says Styles, referencing Zeppelin’s immortal concert film The Song Remains the Same. “Jimmy Page just takes your bloody heart, it’s beautiful.”
“And John Bonham on that Led Zeppelin live DVD, I remember that,” says Hyde. “Crazy moment, like a 10-minute drum solo.”
The key to enjoying these concerts at home? Your entertainment system. The Sony Bravia is a simple and intuitive way to recreate a gig-like experience in your living room. But which decade of music should you focus on streaming? For Hyde and Styles, trying to pin down a favourite era is a tough choice. “Any time can be a good time for live music,” says Hyde. “I think for metal like Megadeth, Motley Crue and that kind of stuff you’d probably say late ’80s, early ’90s. But for hip-hop like Ruff Ryders’ Anthem – ’99, early 2000s.”
Check out Peking Duk’s latest collab with Tommy Trash, Lil Bit.
This article is produced by Broadsheet in partnership with Sony BRAVIA (“Best Resolution Audio Visual Integrated Architecture”).
