For release 23rd April 2002
MELTDOWN 2002
LINE-UP CONFIRMED SO FAR
DAVID BOWIE'S MELTDOWN 2002
June 2002
Royal Festival Hall, London
With most of the programme now confirmed, the Royal Festival Hall is thrilled to announce the much anticipated line-up for DAVID BOWIE'S MELTDOWN 2002, boasting some of his favourite artists in an irresistible month of music, film and visual arts.
For the tenth annual Meltdown, the festival director himself plays a very special concert, 'THE NEW HEATHENS' NIGHT on 29 June at the Royal Festival Hall, sharing the bill with one of the most exhilarating live rock bands, THE DANDY WARHOLS, followed by a DJ set from JONATHAN ROSS in the Ballroom.
Other concert highlights include GORILLAZ' SPACE MONKEYZ DUB SESSION, a special one-off Meltdown event which sees the rambunctious virtual band collaborating with the ex-Specials/Fun BoyThree vocalist TERRY HALL at the RFH on 21 June. The irascible GONZALES supports and prior to the show there's free entertainment in the Ballroom from Canada's LANGLEY SCHOOLS MUSIC PROJECT (REVISITED) and TERRY EDWARDS AND THE SCAPEGOATS, playing Bowie-dub, ska and rock-steady. Accepting Bowie's invitation the following night, pop giants COLDPLAY, with support from PETE YORN, bestow material from their forthcoming album, as do the darkly sensual SUEDE on 23 June, playing their first London show for three years. SUPERGRASS, proving that Britpop yielded a group of lasting appeal, also air new work at the RFH on 28 June, with support from the uniquely charming BOBBY CONN.
While the astonishing beauty of MERCURY REV is raising temperatures in the RFH on 27 June, next door BADLY DRAWN BOY will be giving a second consecutive, rare intimate show at the QEH. A couple of other bands also offer two bites each at the same venue a week earlier; new wave visionaries TELEVISION, certain to exhibit why many consider them the archetypal indie rock band on 19 and 20 June; and ASIAN DUB FOUNDATION, providing a live score to Mathieu Kassovitz' startling film-portrait of Parisian Youth, La Haine, on 21 and 22 June.
Debuting a new band, Neil Hannon's lush and elegant DIVINE COMEDY play 17 June, prior to which Finnish accordionist KIMMO POHJONEN plays the songs of David Bowie in the RFH Ballroom, as part of the BBC RADIO 3 FREE MELTDOWN STAGE (details of more events to be announced soon). The next night in the QEH, KIMMO POHJONEN'S KLUSTER creates extraordinary multidimensional sounds, sharing the bill with THE LONESOME ORGANIST (aka Jeremy Jacobson), the extraordinary one-man band whose consummate skill with his thrift-store assemblage of so many instruments, never ceases to astound audiences.
Another of Bowie's inspired double bills is the truly original US cult singer-songwriter DANIEL JOHNSTON, paired with THE LEGENDARY STARDUST COWBOY, from whom David Bowie borrowed the Stardust moniker for his own Ziggy creation, on 15 June in the QEH. The lyrically lush WATERBOYS go acoustic in the QEH on 16 June and master of satire HARRY HILL, honoured as the only non-musician in Bowie's live line-up, brings his hilarious observations to the South Bank on 17 June.
Throughout all of June, the National Film Theatre presents David Bowie's choice of the best of contemporary digital film-making. From Abbas Kiarastami's ABC Africa (2001) to Agnes Varda's The Gleaners and I (2000) by way of Michael Winterbottom's 24 Hour Party People (2002) this is a programme which shows some of the dizzying potential offered by new digital technology.
Other highlights of the 14-film-survey include a special preview of Japanese animation Avalon (2000 dir. Oshii Mamoru), an astonishing live-action sci-fi fable; Tape (2001 dir. Richard Linklater), a searing account of the reunion of a drug-dealing fireman and a film-maker; and a quadruple-screen remix of Mike Figgis' Timecode (2000) in which four separate but interlinked stories unwind in parallel, one of the most exhilarating filmic experiments of recent times.
An exhibition is also staged as an integral part of DAVID BOWIE'S MELTDOWN 2002. The group of artists presented in Sound and Vision (Royal Festival Hall Level 2 Foyer, 10 - 29 June) have been selected from Bowieart, Bowie's website that allows direct access to the talents of young artists, giving them the exposure they deserve at an important time in their careers. Current or recent graduates from top British colleges, all the artists raise questions of articulation without relying exclusively on the purely visual. Selected works are concerned with the intensities of musical or popular pleasures, employing contemporary culture as their language or sound as their source. Artists include Gaia Alessi and Richard Bradbury, kr buxey, Tsai-Wei Chen, Anthony Gross, Daniel Howard-Birt, Graham Hudson, Luke Oxley, Seb Patane, Giles Round and Mathew Sawyer.
Works in SOUND AND VISION range from reconfigured footage of hysterical female fans at Tom Jones concerts, a light piece that mischievously and critically re-works a Grandmaster Flash lyric, an orchestral war between two competing mixing decks and a living flowerbed that suspends an isolated declaration within its flora.
Booking for David Bowie's Meltdown: Concerts
Concert Tickets on sale by telephone and over the counter from 9am, Tuesday 23 April.
Royal Festival Hall, South Bank SE1. Box office 0207 960 4242.
Online from 10am Thursday 25 April
Maximum of 4 tickets per person per show except David Bowie / The Dandy Warhols which is 2 tickets per person.
ONE PURCHASE PER HOUSEHOLD PER SHOW
www.rfh.org.uk/meltdown
David Bowie's Meltdown: Digital Cinema
General bookings from Friday 24 May 2002
National Film Theatre Box Office
020 7928 3232
www.bfi.org.uk/nft
Media Partners for DAVID BOWIE'S MELTDOWN 2002 are TIME OUT MAGAZINE and BBC RADIO 3
David Bowie's Meltdown: SOUND AND VISION EXHIBITION
Free Admission
Royal Festival Hall, Level 2 Foyer
DAVID BOWIE'S MELTDOWN 2002 LISTINGS INFORMATION
CONCERT PROGRAMME
15th June 8.00pm Queen Elizabeth Hall £15 / £12.50
Daniel Johnston / The Legendary Stardust Cowboy
16th June 7.30pm Queen Elizabeth Hall £16 / £14
The Waterboys Acoustic
17th June 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall £18.50 / £15
The Divine Comedy
Ballroom: Kimmo Pohjonen
17th June 7.45pm Queen Elizabeth Hall £17.50
Harry Hill
18th June 7.45pm Queen Elizabeth Hall £15 / £12.50
Kimmo Pohjonen 's Kluster / The Lonesome Organist
19th June 8pm and 20th June 8pm Queen Elizabeth Hall £20 / £17.50
Television
21st June 8pm Royal Festival Hall £20 / £17.50 / £15
Gorillaz' Space Monkeyz Dub Session with Terry Hall
Special Guest: Gonzales
Ballroom 5.30pm: The Langley Schools Music Project and Terry Edwards and The Scapegoats
21st June 7.30pm and 22nd June 7.30pm Queen Elizabeth Hall £17.50 / £15
Asian Dub Foundation live score to La Haine
22nd June 8pm Royal Festival Hall £18.50 / £15
Coldplay
Special Guest: Pete Yorn
23rd June 8pm Royal Festival Hall £18.50 / £15
Suede
26th June 7.30pm and 27th June 7.30pm Queen Elizabeth Hall £22.50 / £20/ £17.50
Badly Drawn Boy
Special Guest: Stew
27th June 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall £18 / £15
Mercury Rev
28th June 8pm Royal Festival Hall £18.50 / £15
Supergrass
Special Guest: Bobby Conn
29th June 7.30pm Royal Festival Hall £25 / £22.50
THE NEW HEATHEN'S NIGHT
David Bowie
The Dandy Warhols
Ballroom Floor: DJ Jonathan Ross
DAVID BOWIE'S MELTDOWN: DIGITAL CINEMA LISTINGS
Sat 1 June 4.00pm NFT2; Sun 2 June 6.15pm NFT2; Mon 3 June 8.40pm NFT2
ABC Africa
Iran-France 2001/Dir Abbas Kiarostami. 85 mins.
Kiarostami's stunning tribute to women and children living with death, war and poverty in Uganda.
+ The Shop (La Boutique)
Africa: a man needs to buy condoms, but...
USA-France-UK 1997/Dir Idrissa Ouedraogo. 2 mins.
Sat 1 June 6.15pm NFT2; Wed 5 June 8.20pm NFT2
The Pillow Book
Netherlands-France-UK 1995/Dir Peter Greenaway. With Vivian Wu, Ewan McGregor. 126 mins.
Greenaway's dense and lavish melodrama about passion, perversity and revenge.
Sat 1 June 8.45pm NFT2; Wed 5 June 6.20pm NFT2
The Blair Witch Project
US 1999/Dirs Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez. 81 mins. J-Cert 15
Genuinely scary digital video chiller about things in the woods that go bump in the night.
Sun 2 June 8.40pm NFT1; Mon 3 June 6.20pm NFT1; Tue 4 June 8.40pm NFT1; Thu 6 June 8.50pm NFT1
24 Hour Party People
UK 2002/Dir Michael Winterbottom. With Paddy Considine, Andy Serkis, Ralph Little. 117 mins.
Winterbottom's lively recreation of the legendary lunacy and genius of Manchester's music scene.
Mon 3 June 3.45 NFT1; Sat 8 June 6.15 NFT1; Tue 4 June 3.40 NFT2
The Lady and the Duke (L'Anglaise et le Duc)
France 2001/Dir Eric Rohmer. With Lucy Russell, Jean-Claude Dreyfus. 125 mins.
Rohmer's innovative yet classically magnificent tale of heroism and fanaticism in Revolutionary Paris.
Fri 17 June 6.30pm NFT1; Sat 8 June 8.45 NFT1; Tue 11 June 6.30 NFT1; Wed 13 June 8.45 NFT2
Waking Life
US 2001/Dir Richard Linklater. 100 mins.
Linklater's audacious and visually dazzling animated dreamworld, rotoscoped from 'reality'.
Fri 21 June 8.00pm NFT2; Sat 22 June 5.30 NFT1; Sun 23 June 5.20pm NFT2; Mon 24 June 8.45pm NFT1
Atarnajuat: The Fast Runner
Canada 2001/Dir Zacharias Kunuk. With Natar Ungalaq, Sylvia Ivalu. 167 mins. J-Cert 15
Kunuk's magnificent Inuit epic tells a stirring story of passion, pursuit and revenge.
Sat 22 June 8.45 NFT1; Sun 23 June 8.30 NFT2; Tue 25 June 6.15 NFT1
Sex and Lucia (Lucia y el sexo)
Spain-France 2001/Dir Julio Medem. With Paz Vega, Tristan Ulloa. 128 mins.
Typically weird and wonderful erotic drama from virtuoso Spanish visionary Julio Medem.
Wed 26 June 6.30pm NFT1; Thu 27 June 6.30pm NFT1; Sat 29 June 8.40pm NFT2
The Book of Life
US 1998/Dir Hal Hartley. With Martin Donovan, PJ Harvey, Thomas Jay Ryan. 63 mins.
+ (n) eon
UK 2002/Dir Dave McKean. 28 mins.
Hartley's wry, witty and painterly millennial update of the Second Coming.
Sat 29 June 4.00pm NFT2; Sun 30 June 6.20pm NFT2
The Gleaners and I (Les Glaneurs et la Glaneuse)
France 2000/Dir Agnes Varda. 77 mins.
Varda's deliciously intelligent documentary about the ancient French art of foraging.
DAVID BOWIE'S MELTDOWN: SOUND AND VISION
Free Admission
Royal Festival Hall, Level 2 Foyer Artists/works
Gaia Alessi & Richard Bradbury, D.I.S.C.O.S, 2002, sound installation
kr buxey, Legion, 1999, three screen video installation
Tsai-Wei Chen, Cicada, 2000, video
Anthony Gross, Band of One, 2002 installation with animation, light box and music
Daniel Howard-Birt, Epiphany, 2002, floral carpet bedding
Graham Hudson, The War of Great War Themes, 2002, audio installation
Luke Oxley, White Lines, 2002, light work
Seb Patane, Drone, 2002, video installation
Giles Round, Hallucinating Love, 2002, two screen video installation
Mathew Sawyer, The Ghosts, 2002, audio tracks
------- You Spin Me Right Round Baby (Like a Record), 2002, tape work
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