Massive Attack live on Clifton Downs Bristol

I first saw Massive Attack Live at Phoenix Festival 20 July 1996 (one of my favourite festivals ever), from that day I have been to see them as often as I can. I had seen the Massive Attack sound system the year previously when they were asked to curate the first ever Dance Tent at Glastonbury Festival, but this was not a live show.

This year in Bristol Massive Attack put on an event the would be as sustainable as possible, called ACT 1.5 Climate Action Acceleration. They did this by:

• Selling tickets to locals first
• Encouraging everyone to travel by public transport
  • They even put on extra local trains
  • They provided electric buses to transport people to and from the festival from the train station and city centre
• Powering the whole festival by batteries which were all charged by renewable energy
• Only selling plant based food at all the food vendors, all of which were local suppliers
• Using an existing festival set up so they didn't use 2 lots of staging and event organisation

It appears to have been a massive success, except for the number of food vendors.

The support acts were all great and throughout the day the had a bunch of political talks. We attended The Greenest Government Ever? event, which featured Carla Denyer (Green Party co-leader), Dale Vince (owner of Ecotricity) and Dominque Palmer (Climate Activist). They all said that Labour would be the Greenest Government ever, as the bar had been set so low but the previous government. It was a very interesting discussion.

Massive Attack came on at 20:25 and played until 22:15 the set was incredible and featured:

• Liz Fraser
  • Black Milk
  • Song to the Siren
  • Teardrop
  • Group Four
• Horace Andy
  • Girl I Love You
  • Angel
• Deborah Miller
  • Safe From Harm
  • Unfinished Sympathy
• Young Fathers
  • Gone
  • Minipoppa
  • Voodoo in My Blood

Even though they didn't play my favourite track, Hymn of the Big Wheel this gig was just incredible and the absolute standout track was Group Four (featuring Liz Fraser).

It was so good we even looked into going to see them in Portugal later this week. If you ever get the chance to see Massive Attack live, just do it.

Update (28/08/2024) The concert was so great that while writing this post I had totally forgotten that it rained solidly for a good hour of the concert. I was also so enthralled that I took zero photos.

Set List