Space Rocks
Indigo, 02
Brian May, astronaut Tim Peake, Lonely Robot and more take one giant leap in bringing science and music together.
Queen’s Brian May is waiting in the wings, but there’s only one true star in the Space Rocks firmament this late in the afternoon; when host Dallas Campbell asks for questions from the seated audience for astronaut Tim Peake, eager hands shoot up, like, well, like rockets from the launch pad. One young lad, seven if he’s a day, is singled out to ask Peake (he’s just one of the gathered select panel of the great and good from film, music and science, but right now no one else is getting a look in) if he likes being in space. “I love being in space!” he replies, grinning. “You can look out of the window down towards earth,” he says in a manner that can only be described as dreamily, “and it’s different every single time. Even if it’s the same continent or country, the weather’s always changing, things never look the same.” And the words hang there as the entire room imagines themselves orbiting an ever-changing earth, Tim by their side, up among the stars…
Brian May and an astronaut swapping patches (more of which later); a live set from Lonely Robot; a man who makes a living selling meteorites that have fallen thousands of miles to earth…. “What the hell,” you must be thinking, “is Space Rocks?” Well, it’s the fruition of an idea of the European Space Agency’s (ESA) Mark McCaughrean and former Metal Hammer editor Alexander Milas. “I wanted to combine music, space and science somehow,” says McCaughrean, in the backstage bar later that evening.
McCaughrean (full title: Senior Scientific Advisor in the Directorate of Science and Robotic Exploration – imagine his business card) personifies the Space Rocks ethos: culture meets music meets space meets art. One of the most enlivening panels of the day is Science Fiction Meets Science Fact, where filmmaker Gavin Rothery (Moon) explains how actual science informs the art he makes, and McCaughrean muses on how near or far some film and TV shows have come to foreshadowing the breakthroughs that science would eventually make. The gold standard, it seems, is Stanley Kubrick’s 2001 : A Space Odyssey,
which had the kind of keen eye on the future that, perhaps, eluded Gene Roddenberry, creator of the original Star Trek TV series. But while criticising Star Trek in this room might seem heretical, telling an off-colour joke about Star Wars might well get you strung up from the expansive model of the ESA’s Rosetta craft which hangs above the stage.
Upstairs, Geoff Notkin, co-star of Discovery Channel’s Meteorite Men, is holding a burnished red stone in his hand and explaining to an enraptured audience how it fell to earth so many years ago. Notkin makes his living wandering the earth to find rocks that have fallen out of the sky, “actual space rocks”, as he’ll tell you. On the stage below, Matt Taylor (an ESA astrophysicist who as part of the Rosetta mission helped land a craft on a speeding comet hurtling through space, and is probably the most public face of the entire Agency), is prowling about in an outfit that can be best described as off-duty Stormtrooper-meetsMotörhead crew member. His tattoos are a riot of colour, his slick presentation part fan boy, part brilliant mind. He personifies the Space Rocks mantra that anyone can reach for the stars – some even get there. Little wonder he’s a sensation today.
In a quiet corner at the rear of the arena, Lonely Robot frontman John Mitchell is exulting in the company that today is enabling him to keep. “I did bands like It Bites for years,” he says, “And as much as I enjoyed it, I knew I wanted to be doing something like this. I love space and science and film soundtracks, and it was tap into that now or not at all. And just to hang out here among these people, it’s the perfect gig for me, these two worlds.”
He’s not kidding. Music headliners Lonely Robot (whose band logo is Robby The Robot from Forbidden Planet) walk on stage in space suits and play a beguiling mix of pop and prog rock that sounds like it was envisaged with Martian landscapes in mind. And Arcane Roots, who played before them, have had their heads turned by a recent visit to the ESA headquarters in the Netherlands. Consequently, their performance is a sublime rearranged, synth-based set of songs including an understated Off The Floor and the lilting Before Me. Opener Charlotte Hatherley has come dressed in an ESA flight suit and adorned with the alien make-up she sports on her latest album True Love (its artwork designed and shot by Gavin Rothery) album. It’s a thrumming, pulsing, electronic wash of colours and sounds and quite beautiful too, built around the concept of a forlorn alien searching the universe for love (and loosely based on her own heartbreak).
As the day’s wrapping up, Tim Peake and Brian May are together on stage, both sporting ‘Space Rocks’ T-shirts and smiling happily for one final photo session. “I’ve listened to [Queen’s] Don’t Stop Me Now before take off. You need a song like that to take your mind off the thousands of tons of fuel sitting below you,” Peake had said earlier. To May he says: “I’ve got you something,” as he reaches into his pocket for an ESA patch. “I took it into space with me and wanted you to have it.” It says so very much about the power of space and the infinite reaches above our heads that most of us can only dream about, that May’s expression is one of gratitude, elation and stunned surprise. As he goes to the mic to speak, tears fill his eyes; one of the greatest rock stars of any age reaching briefly into the beyond, there are no words. And here we are, all of us looking on, dreaming about floating in a tin can…
‘As Brian May goes to the mic to speak, tears fill his eyes.’
Words: Philip Wilding Photos Kevin Nixon