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In 2008 one of the most influential groups of the past 20 years took control of Southbank Centre’s Meltdown festival – the first time a band had done so in the festival’s 15-year history.

Massive Attack’s era-defining music has provided the soundtrack for a generation. Their instinctive embrace of technology, groundbreaking use of live visuals and distinctly dystopian vision has had a pervasive influence on contemporary culture.

It was Massive Attack’s 1991 album Blue Lines, with its smash hit single ‘Unfinished Sympathy’, that initially brought international fame, but they have steadfastly refused to conform to any obviously recognisable perameters of how a pop band is defined, working not only with a variety musicians but also with different vocalists, including Neneh Cherry, Shara Nelson, Everything But The Girl’s Tracey Thorn and Dot Allison.

Resisting the temptation to chase top 40 success, Massive Attack has continued to reinvent and innovate, with Robert ‘3D’ Del Naja and Grant ‘Daddy G’ Marshall collaborating on numerous projects with musicians including Craig Armstrong, Snoop Dogg and Damon Albarn

The Meltdown programme for 2008 gave us a fascinating insight into the aesthetic, stylistic, thematic, political and musical influences that drives the band.

Highlights included a very rare live appearance by mythic, proto-trance collective Gong; the first UK performance since 1980 by revered Japanese ‘technopop’ pioneers Yellow Magic Orchestra; the Reggae Acoustic Songbook, featuring unplugged performances by Johnny Clarke, Earl 16, Prince Malachai and Massive Attack collaborator Horace Andy; live music from Mercury Music Award-winning band Elbow; peerless international diva Grace Jones; funk godfather George Clinton and Parliament; and a unique performance by Heritage Orchestra of Vangelis’ majestic, glacial soundtrack to dystopian classic Blade Runner.

www.massiveattack.com
www.myspace.com/massiveattack