Paying out £40,000 to cover 95% of her body in tattoos, Julia Gnuse holds the 2011 Guinness World Record for the most tattooed woman in the world. From Disney characters to Cleopatra, there isn’t much space left on Julia’s 5ft 2 body to put any more ink amongst the 400 existing pieces of art.
The only places left unmarked are her ears and feet.
In her mid 30’s Julia developed Porphyria, a skin condition where sunlight can blister the skin. In an attempt to stop scratching and to stop her from scarring she went ahead with the permanent art work. It worked miracles, hence why Julia is covered head-to-toe in tattoos. She has no scars and does not feel the urge to itch anymore.
Julia, now 55 gets a lot of attention and has been nicknamed the Illustrated Lady. Currently living in Foothill Ranch, California, Julia is used to taking the good with the bad and seeming as she is happy with her body, that is all that matters.
Imagine a beautiful open-air courtyard, a balmy breeze, a chilled out atmosphere and the stunning hint of a sunset looming over London. The only way this could get any better for me was for Corinne Bailey Rae to step out onto the stage and belt out the breathtaking songs from her latest album, The Sea, which I’d listened to over and over again on my laptop for months.
I had never been to a live music performance before and experiencing it alone for the first time was everything I had imagined and more. The feeling of being lost in a crowd with people I might never see again in my life was surprisingly uplifting as I stood waiting for the artist to hit the stage. In the stunningly beautiful courtyard of Somerset House, London, audience members stood in small groups sipping drinks and chatting, some had settled on the ground in an alfresco picnic style, others who’d braved the concert alone like me stood staring at the stage with folded arms and darting eyes and yes, I’ll admit it, I stood twiddling my thumbs and simply taking in my surroundings. I’d bought the ticket on an impulse just before the start of my exams as a treat and incentive to work hard and there I was finally; it was sort of surreal.
I made sure I had a direct and unobstructed view of the stage so that come 9pm, Corinne was directly within my eye line. My first thought was ‘Whoa, she’s got great hair.’ But then she started singing and I had another reason to be completely bowled over. She sings amazingly well live; her vocals were clear, soulful and even flawless. Her talented backing band which consisted of guitarists, a keyboardist and a drummer brought the whole event to life.
She engaged well with the audience; her personality shone through in her colloquial song descriptions and shy, amused response: ‘that’s very charming’ to a smitten audience member who yelled ‘will you marry me?’
She began by playing songs from her latest and more haunting album ‘The Sea’ and I could tell that the crowd was not as familiar with the songs as they were with her breakthrough hits ‘Put Your Records On’ and ‘Like A Star’ – it was when she sang these that the audience really came alive by singing along, waving their arms in the air and cheering loudly. Her new single ‘Closer’ is surprisingly sensual indeed and stood out from the other more intense songs in the set list.
The stand-out performance of the night for me was when she performed my favourite song off the album ‘I would Like to Call it Beauty’. The lyrics are beautifully and intricately crafted and of course, her striking voice, filled with emotion and delicate sensitivity, was mesmerizing. The song captured her growth as a song-writer and performer since her last debut album.
Just when the audience thought the concert was all over, she returned with a surprise final performance of her take on ‘Que Sera Sera’ which gave me goosebumps! Powerful vocals, a mean guitar solo and melodic backing vocals turned the usually sleepy song into a potential future hit.
Be sure to catch Corinne on tour this autumn if you can, I strongly believe that everyone should experience one of her concerts at least once!
After last night getting back to tent in the much more peaceful and smaller press/volunteer area was a much welcome relief,only to wake up to a rather overshadowed Dour. That aside we made our way to the press area to get started on the days previews and missed breakfast – today would prove to be just as breathtaking as the first night. Dour Festival is, quite simply, a festival you have to come to!
The Antlers – The Magic Tent
The New York trio have come quite a way to play here, and it’s to a relatively small crowd considering the size of the tent. Being a huge fan of their work, I was intrigued to see how different it would be live to recorded. To begin with, I got the feeling that some people were purely there by chance, as I couldn’t see that many people singing along or recognising the tracks. numbers from their incredible concept album Hospice come across nicely, with their use of keys and long delayed guitars.
The keyboardist has got his work cut out too, as he’s triggering the bass notes with a controller by his feet (barefooted), whilst playing, and also doing a bit of singing too. Their set was very atmospheric, and although I’m a huge fan, I felt his voice was a little lost in a big tent like that; It’s much more suited to a more intimate setting.
Interview with the guys will be up soon.
Hypnotic Brass Ensemble – Dance Hall
Chicago based Hip hop influenced brass band, with some truly groovy beats and a totally new one for me on my band radar. All bopping along as they play, these guys were clearly really enjoying themselves. Lots of one armed trumpet playing with hand waving. Simple catchy melodies just repeated worked so well throughtout all their songs.
The 9 guys, all blood brothers we where told towards the end of their show, had a talent for brass playing that I have never heard. The first part of their set was more traditional and their mix of high upbeat tracks mixed with their one arm playing was something special. Midway through the guys changed and started fusing their brass playing with hip-hop, changing their tops and getting more feedback from the audience – who where loving every minute of their show!
One of the highlights was when they asked everyone to get down, low (even the cool guys) and then all come up slowly. The visual of this was beautiful and everyone did as was told. The band had a real appreciation of the crowd and whether this was their first time at Dour or not they seemed genuinely excited to be here and at the end of their set came to the side of the tent and sold CDs they had brought.
Chromeo – The Magic Tent
Canadian Electro duo Chromeo took to the stage of a packed out Magic Tent. Their 80′s influenced electro house was so groovy it was pretty hard to not dance along. Doing the majority of the parts live is something I’ve always appreciated, and one of the guys even had a guitar. The tent was pretty packed and the crowd started to get a little restless as the guys where taking their time, ten minutes after they where meant to come on they appeared…and the noise was deafening!
The real star of the show was the vocoder, which worked perfectly with the style and had people smiling as he ‘sang’ things like ‘are you having a good time?’ in a stupidly high pitched synth voice.
They even cracked out a few bars of ‘Money For Nothing’ by the legends Dire Straits, but it didn’t amount to anything sadly, as I personally would have loved to hear an electro version of that…
Highlights included tracks like Bonafied Lovin which is so 80′s Electro it hurts. Catchy synth lines, cheesy guitar solos and great 2-Step rhythms. Fancy Footwork was also pretty great, and I’d highly recommend anyone to check these guys out live.
Some joker had posted a link on Australian-born Parkway Drive’s video for ‘Sleepwalker,’ the first single from the five piece’s latest work Deep Blue. The link was to a video of prepubescent pansy Justin Bieber’s teenage whinge ‘One Time.’ The comment with the link read something like “If you like this song, check this out…” I did.
Quite possibly the most perfectly executed forty-five minutes of noise… ever.
Needless to say my first experience of the aforementioned will be my last and listening to that abortion of a song brought discomfort that I would associate with being punched repeatedly in the face. Deep Blue, on the contrary, is like watching Bieber being punched repeatedly in the face. It’s that good. And it is very, very punchy.
It’s three years on since Parkway’s sophomore Horizons, now viewed within the metalcore scene as an outstanding example of the fusion genre. The new release is a self-professed concept album about ‘a man who travels to the bottom of the sea to sort out his mind.’ As expected, it’s loud and fast and this time deals with lies, isolation and an ocean monster themed metaphor.
At a combined length of less than two and a half minutes, opening tracks ‘Samsara’ and ‘Unrest’ are far from fillers and collide perfectly to lead into the album’s single-worthy highlight. Boasting aggression through repetitive screams of “Just bodies through the teeth of the combine,” a riff that drills itself into the conscience and a video like the apocalyptic love child of Constantine and Cloverfield, ‘Sleepwalker’ is the album’s centrepiece.
It doesn’t stop there. What follows is a barrage of riff laden pace in every track. To anyone new to this style of music it would sound dense and repetitive but fans of this industry would note the quality in this bunch. They are tight and refined and do what they do well.
‘Deadweight’ shows off numerous tempo changes, ‘Alone’ is the first – albeit brief – moment of soft melody amidst more changes in pace and ‘Pressures’ solo scream of “Their voices search for me through the darkness, yet I feel desire’s cold grip upon my heart no more” is another angst driven slice of unpredictability. The scope of Front man Winston McCall’s vocal talent is accentuated in ‘Leviathan I.’ Leviathan is a biblical sea monster, relating perfectly to the concept idea, and the track itself is probably one of the most exciting moments on the album. The album ends as it begins with a minute and a half of brute in ‘Set to Destroy’ and the realisation that the last three quarters of an hour have been relentlessly heavy.
The most exciting thing about this band is the originality. The lack of apparent structure, any form of clean vocals and an eclectic mix of ideas and tempos gives it an entirely fresh feel. It’s not what you’d expect from a bunch of East coast Aussies. It’s far from sunny pop. It is essentially just noise to the average person. But it’s so perfectly executed it sounds like nothing else and is definitely an unlikely soundtrack to summer 2010.
