This is WAY after the fact, but what the hell. I haven't yet worked through my own feelings towards this event. I'm a relatively recent Nine Inch Nails fan: I first discovered them last year, so the fact that they are going to no longer be touring isn't as loaded an issue for me as it has been for others, but there was something like desperation in the brutal, every-man-for-himself vibe I was getting from the crowd as we all jostled for position. Maybe it was partly my fault for showing up without anyone I knew. Normally sallying forth solo into the unknown is how I like it, but this place was going to get very intense very fast. My pre-show jitters were more intense then they normally are.
On the plus side, someone at the Palladium must have known I collect buttons. The commemorative NiN button they were handing out now decorates the new black trilby I got at Outside Lands to replace my much-loved, faithful red DREAMER hat that got lost in my move.
The opening act was called Queen Kwong, a five piece I had never heard of before; an eclectic line up of bass player rock-god-type who was dressed all in black and slinging his bass from his knees, a woman with lots of curly hair and a silver violin, a cellist and drummer I could not see from where I was standing, and a slim, dark-haired front-woman who wielded the only guitar. Her small orange instrument provided the group's crunch, while the strings wove a haunted, paranoid tapestry, creating a very interesting kind of multi-layered effect. The front-woman also has an effortless way with a crowd, engaging in some banter with front-row people who were inaudible but apparently complementing her on her bass player, since her response was an enthusiastic "I KNOW, that's why I have him in the band!" Her bubbly attitude was kind of at odds with her malevolent vocal style: she snarls, yelps, growls, drips disdain and reminds me strongly of Prince of Darkness Trent Reznor's breathy, emotional range.
Now, I know a lot of very smart people who swear by MEW, the electronic-goth-mind-bendy group from Denmark. They even had their own cheering section in the front to wave little Danish flags when they took the stage. All the same, I just didn't like them. They had a big multi-media display behind them that kept showing surreal animation clips that they looped over and over, which was atmospheric but distracting (to an animation nerd like me anyway) and their music, at least to my over-anxious, uneducated ears, washed around my head like an otherworldy tide without giving me anything to really hang on to. And the bass was turned up so high that the overhanging speaker cabinet rattled my bones like an LRAD. It's not the greatest first impression I've ever gotten from a band.
Then came Nine Inch Nails. All hail, the moment of reckoning.
What is it with the bands I see and the front-men falling sick? Incubus's guy was sick. Poor Eddie Vedder was sick. Now Trent was sick, and while it didn't stop him from grabbing the mic with both hands and striking that runner's pose we all know, screaming his lungs out, diving into the audience during "Piggy," or much else of anything, really. He apologized around 2/3 through the show for his "shitty" voice, but since "shitty" in his case meant "hoarser on the low-ranges then it usually is" no one minded that much. And the rest of the band, of course, was phenomenal. Robin Fink is less of a guitarist and more of a guitar-plucking space-alien with liquid joints and the voice of a demon. Justin Mendal-Johnson looks like a normal guy who's bass transforms him into Your Worst Nightmare: stomping around and screaming his backing vocals. Drummer Ilan Rubin is a tornado with arms and hair. This line up rocks.
Oh, there was a guy Trent introduced to the crowd as "having a huge influence on what Nine Inch Nails turned into." His name was Gary Numan, he was a pickled little goth guy with huge black hair who walked up to the microphone and took over the band effortlessly. Trent, probably grateful for the break, retreated to his keyboards and for the next three songs, it was this Numan guy's reedy croon that ruled the day. This Numan is impressive, whoever he is.
They played "The Downward Spiral" beginning to end, too. Forgot to mention that part.
It was hot as hell in the pit. I was still badly sunburned from Outside Lands, and didn't last longer then about three songs. And then I found out they weren't letting people off the floor, so there was no way to get to the water-bottles. I got so thirsty I grabbed an abandoned, half-full bottle off the floor and drank THAT. The fact that it doesn't seem to have made me sick amazes me.
Amazing show, and eventful enough to clear Shoreline's "NiN/JA" disappointment from my mind. Not that NiN was bad, but JA was so much BETTER....
It's sad that NiN is going away for a while, but as Yahtzee has said (in a completely different context) if the original creator really wants to put his pet project down humanely, it's usually in everyone's best interests to let him.
Until we meet again, then. Now that Year Zero TV show.... THAT is something to get excited about.
Thursday, September 17, 2009
Monday, August 31, 2009
Outside Lands Music and Arts Festival: August 28-30 2009
This is gonna be abreviated because I'm heading to NiN in an hour or so, so I'm gonna do this review in Bullet Point form!
Friday
Friday
- Wish I'd gotten there earlier. Zap Momma was cooking up some bluesy, jazzy magic at the Twin Peaks stage the instant I arrived. I didn't get to hear them for long since I wanted to see Built to Spill but it was quite a way to start the festival.
- I missed Built to Spill. That's what I get for "short-cutting" through the Beatles: Rock Band tent. I guess I forgot that I'm extremely distractable.
- Silversun Pickups are one of those buzz bands that's got a hit single and a lot of good press these days, but unlike most of those flavor-of-the-weeks, they actually deserve the hype. Their lead singer/guitarist looks like Caleb Followill and sounds like Billy Corgan, all while stalking the stage like a starving tiger. The bass-player was atypical as well, a pale girl with a purple sundress, gently rolled hair, and a shy-but-confident demeanor. She's one of those bass soloists and her style with the instrument is brisk and effortless. The drummer was a whirl of long black hair, speed and power, popping his drumsticks into the air and turning his shirt dark with sweat. The keyboard guy had a selection of instruments and a hat like the one John McCrea used to wear. This group was playing to a bigger crowd then they were used to and were plainly exhilarated by it: Singer guy said he'd had NO IDEA they were going to get to share a stage with Built to Spill ("One of the best bands in the fucking world!") Then he turned up the volume and rocked the house. This group was the first big surprise of the festival.
- INCUBUS! If you've listened to rock radio anytime at all since '99, you've heard at least one Incubus song, and they played them all that evening. The lead singer was the slim, beautiful boyish type and was stretching out while his band-mates picked up their instruments, so I knew we were in for some acrobatics. They weren't as intense as hoped, but they had roared through "Pardon me" and another song before stopping for break. The singer had a cold that day (he said) and was nervous about performing, so one of his bandmates suggested getting drunk. The crowd cheered, so he said "From your reaction I'm guessing you agree!" He raised his glass of wine and said "Isn't it great, the way we all look out for each-other?" He finished his glass and had stripped his jacket and shirt off before the end of his set as well for his rubber-jointed flailing, but his illness had made his voice weak and reedy and the rest of the band, though musically more-then-capable, were not engrossing enough for me not to loose the fight against my bladder, give up my spot and head for the bathrooms.
- Pearl Jam! The main event, and poor Eddie Vedder lost his voice! The golden baritone that has become one of the most famous (and oft-imitated) voices in music was more like the raspy tenor today as he sang around an octave above where he normally would. He apologized for this, saying it was the very end of a long tour and "it's pissing me off that my voice isn't what it usually is, so I'll take whatever help you're willing to give me." Fortunately the show itself seemed built around encouraging this: the setlist never strayed too far from a greatest-hits list, along with "Betterman," "Daughter" (which morphed into "Another Brick in the Wall") and other well-known tracks like "I Am Mine." "The Fixer,"and "Got Some," their newest singles, even got their slots. There were none of the tortured political anthems from their last few albums, no bellyaching, just Pearl Jam enjoying being Pearl Jam, with Eddie Vedder taking flying leaps off of monitors, Mike McCreedy playing the guitar behind his back, Stone Gossard doing scissor-kicks and throwing picks across the stage, Jeff Ament prowling in a circle, and Matt Cameron being the cool cat I totally didn't recognize that night at the Crocodile. Eddie said that a number of people from the Bridge School were there, off stage right, (they were the recipients of most of the flying picks), including Ben Young, Neil Young's boy which might explain part of why the band were so effin' excited. Eddie told the crowd a story about a night "kind of like tonight" about when the band were on their first big national tour and were all revved up and raring to play the same San Francisco polo field where they were playing tonight, when "I came down with the worst case of food poisoning I've ever had in my life." In short, Eddie was out of commission, disaster loomed, and Neil Young swooped in to save the day. Ever since then there's kind of been nothing Pearl Jam wouldn't do for Neil Young. They've been regulars at his annual Bridge School Benefit Concerts for over ten years and have obviously built up some relationships of their own with the students there, judging from the adoring vibes the band kept sending to the alcove just offstage. They rocked their hearts out. There was crowd-surfing. There was jumping. The last encore of the night was a barn-burning rendition of "Rockin' the Free World." All this while their singer's voice was completely shot. Pearl Jam are the real shit.
- Street Sweeper Social Club: I won't lie. I love this band. Tom Morello can do no wrong in my eyes, and while I'm not entirely sold on Boots as a singer (his vocals still tend to get swallowed up in Tom's riffs) this show kicked ass. Converted the two rail-sitters I was sitting next to to instant fans within five minutes too, because it was that kind of show, and they are that kind of band. These guys are the real deal.
- Portugal: The Man: An indy rock outfit from Wasilla, Alaska that got an unwitting popularity boost when someone else from Wasilla, Alaska became a political superstar over-night and the band took to their blogs to try and warn the country about what they were getting into. I really want to like their band, if just for that reason. Their brand of rock is quirky and dreamy, and the lead singer sounds like a girl. I couldn't figure out if I liked it or not.
- Mastodon. Alright, ladies, grab your pom-poms! Now gimme an M. Gimme an E! Gimme a T! Gimme an A! Gimme an L! What does that spell?! METAL! Now throw your fucking devil horns in the air and ROCK OUT!
- TV on the Radio, and I'd thought Boots Riley had some happy feet. I didn't know nothin'. This band of odd-balls make funky psychedelic soundscapes that are creepy and vaguely apocalyptic. They kept tossing the lead vocals around and switching instruments. Pretty cool.
- The Mars Volta, sharing the headlining time-slot with Dave Mathews, couldn't have been LESS like Dave Mathews if they were from another planet altogether. Think a cross between Pink Floyd and Metallica, with some Latin seasoning and a lead-singer with 80s hair who will get into a fight with his own band's name-placard and loose, right before putting his foot right through it. And at least a dozen crowd-surfers. It was demented, and I was hooked 30 seconds in. Wow.
- I can't tell you how Dave Mathews was because by the time I got to the crowd, I realized I had dropped my camera and spent the set running around shining my flash-light at people's feet, but my friend David is a huge Dave Mathews fan, and was watching on the Webcast so when he says it was a great show, I'd believe him. I still haven't contacted my two rail-sitting friends, who were looking forward to seeing them on Facebook, because I can't believe I've lost ANOTHER camera. That makes a total of four. I am NOT getting another one until I figure out who put this Camera-Jinx on me and how to fix it.
- Bettye Lavette said, during her mini-bio "when I was sixteen this was the first song I cut. And when I was sixteen, not only did I know I was a singer...I also thought I was a star." Well, she might not have been famous when she was sixteen, but she was always a star. She was born a star. In an alternate universe, she was as big as Aretha Franklin. She even moved away from the mic to bellow out her song from the Main Stage and everyone HEARD her. What a powerful voice on that woman. Her guitarist, a long-haired man who had to be around half her age, introduced some truly searing guitar work to the soul anthems, joining her center-stage for a little dance number at one point. So even though she might have looked more at home in a glittering dress in a smokey nightclub then in jeans and a leather jacket on an outdoor stage at 1am on a foggy day, but she guided her set with the unshakable hand of a born star. In another world, she would have been as big as Aretha Franklin. She has the goods.
- Modest Mouse were trying hard, they really were, switching instruments and bellowing through different microphones, and they inspired lots of smiles and head-bobbing, but they distinctly failed to electrify the crowd. Maybe they were having an off-day (their old guitar-player has left), but they didn't help their case by not playing any songs anyone knew. Really, I go see Modest Mouse perform, and they don't play "Float On?" Really? But I've heard from other sources that live performance is just not a strength for Modest Mouse, which is a shame because they have some genuinely interesting stuff in their catalog.
- M.I.A, on the other hand, WAS electricity. This woman brings the idiosyncratic fashion without the class-baiting, richer-then-thou flavor of Lady Gaga, and with her two female backup singers, two blue-suited male backup dancers, and beat-meisters all decked out in Micheal Jackson T-shirts, she ruled the stage. She threw horns into the audience. She made it look so easy. AND she played "Paper Planes" to close, so whatever aversion Modest Mouse has to their own hits, she didn't share. She's amazing. Sunday was a good day for the ladies at Outside Lands.
- Tenacious D (aka "Jack Black's Band") filled in for the Beastie Boys and were (as a friend of mine had predicted) hilarious and fantastic, just not headliner-caliber fantastic. Lots of people were grumbling at the D getting the headlining slot when there were plenty of other acts on the bill that could easily have been bumped up to headliners (M.I.A could have done it easily), and it turned out to be pretty justified. That's not to say their act isn't funny: but if you've seen "Pick of Destiny" you've seen pretty much all of Tenacious D's material. I hope Adam gets better soon. The Beastie Boys were missed that night.
Friday, August 28, 2009
CAKE at the Fox Theater: Pomona 8/27/2009
Since I'm heading to Outside Lands tomorrow, this one will be a quick one.
Something was up with CAKE. I mean, I love CAKE. Their brand of architectual pop rock blues with a trumpet and John McCrea's chilly, detached speak-singing make them a band unlike any other you'll ever hear.
But something was up with them tonight.
The monitors were irregular, there were problems with guitars requiring roadie assistance, and tense conversation between band-mates. The show took a while to take off, probably because of the general strained attitudes of the performers.
And curiously enough, there was a "break." A period of fifteen minutes or so when they brought the curtain down and let everyone go to the bar or the bathroom. Now, the only other time I have been at a live show that had a break, I went to see a Jam band that'd been playing for hours already.
If I had to bet, I'd say the break was due to a technical problem that required more re-setting-up then the roadies could do otherwise. When they took the stage again, to a roaring cover of "War Pigs" the mood seemed more relaxed. By the time the show finally wrapped up, things had finally started to take off, thanks to a funny interlude about a tree that people were doing push-ups for, since the normal question of "what kind of tree is it" was a bit redundant considering the lemon growing on the tree.
And CAKE are a cool band. They all wear checkered shirts and look like your neighbor, especially the relentlessly normal multi-instrumentalist who has a different thing in his hand every time you look at him, and when he doesn't have a thing, he dances. The drummer hunched over his kit like he was worried someone would see him. Bassist played like he'd been born with a bass in his hand, and the guitarist tapped his heal, rocked his hollowbody, and swaggered like a guy who knows he is good at his job. And John McCrea was a real ringmaster in terms of orchestrating the audience sing-alongs, and he was in fine voice.
So I still love CAKE. But I can't help but wonder what the deal was that cast such a spell over the evening. I doubt I'll ever find out.
Something was up with CAKE. I mean, I love CAKE. Their brand of architectual pop rock blues with a trumpet and John McCrea's chilly, detached speak-singing make them a band unlike any other you'll ever hear.
But something was up with them tonight.
The monitors were irregular, there were problems with guitars requiring roadie assistance, and tense conversation between band-mates. The show took a while to take off, probably because of the general strained attitudes of the performers.
And curiously enough, there was a "break." A period of fifteen minutes or so when they brought the curtain down and let everyone go to the bar or the bathroom. Now, the only other time I have been at a live show that had a break, I went to see a Jam band that'd been playing for hours already.
If I had to bet, I'd say the break was due to a technical problem that required more re-setting-up then the roadies could do otherwise. When they took the stage again, to a roaring cover of "War Pigs" the mood seemed more relaxed. By the time the show finally wrapped up, things had finally started to take off, thanks to a funny interlude about a tree that people were doing push-ups for, since the normal question of "what kind of tree is it" was a bit redundant considering the lemon growing on the tree.
And CAKE are a cool band. They all wear checkered shirts and look like your neighbor, especially the relentlessly normal multi-instrumentalist who has a different thing in his hand every time you look at him, and when he doesn't have a thing, he dances. The drummer hunched over his kit like he was worried someone would see him. Bassist played like he'd been born with a bass in his hand, and the guitarist tapped his heal, rocked his hollowbody, and swaggered like a guy who knows he is good at his job. And John McCrea was a real ringmaster in terms of orchestrating the audience sing-alongs, and he was in fine voice.
So I still love CAKE. But I can't help but wonder what the deal was that cast such a spell over the evening. I doubt I'll ever find out.
Sunday, August 23, 2009
Kings Of Leon at the Forum: Inglewood CA, 8/22/2009
It's difficult to know where to start with this one, so I'm going to start at the beginning.
I took my sister to this show. We bought the expensive beers. We ate our respective salty carbs. We ended up sitting in a place very similar to where Mom and I saw Bruce Springsteen, so we were close, but would be looking at lots of shoulders, as opposed to faces, which gives the show a different feel but (as my sister pointed out) provides a perfect, rare chance to watch the drummer. Try patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time if you want a glimpse of how hard drumming really is. It's amazing to watch.
The opening act, the Whigs, were an impressive power-trio hailing from Athens, Georgia and boasting of some serious athletics. These guys are powerful musicians, in every sense of the word. They are amp-hoping, two-stepping southern rockers who make a much louder noise then you'd think three people could, more like the noise of Lynyrd Skynyrd then the alt-rock, grunge retro headliners. Later on in the show, Caleb Followill would call these three his friends and declare "Someday they'll be headlining here!" and I would hope he's right: it won't be for lack of talent if these guys don't make it.
Kings of Leon have clearly made it. Their fascinating amalgamated brand of rock comes on like a hurricane and never lets up, and I swear, spirits were running so high that in comparison, they might as well have been asleep the last time I saw them.
Iggy Pop once said of the Stooges sibling rhythm section "You can't get a bond like that without blood." And although a lot of fantastic bands haven't needed blood, the Followill brothers + cousin have been playing together since they were children and it shows. I got the feeling an earthquake couldn't derail this crew.
And Caleb Followill, who had barely a sentence to spare for the audience last time I saw them, was positively glowing. "I was so nervous I was throwing up all day, but now that I'm here, and you're a great crowd, I'm having a great time!" Then he downed his red plastic cup and yelled "I'm getting drunk!" Everyone cheered. The reason for the nerves was made apparent when he said that he had lots of family and friends in the crowd, here to see them to finally play the big venues "we get to play everywhere else" and how "rarely enough these days" every last person in the band was having a blast.
They seemed to be. Guitar picks were flicked. Nathan's drumsticks went flying across the stage more then once. No one but Caleb said anything, but the band's high-spirits were evident in that sort of intangible quality the best live music has, the kind that just sets the place on fire. There was just pure exhilaration in the air.
"You guys, you guys are great but some of you, some of you I know are sitting down. This is for you, stand up, let's have a party!" And he rocked into the fuzzy, dirty bass-line of "Crawl." I didn't see anyone sitting. Although some of Caleb's attempts to get the crowd to take over vocal duties were more successful then others (Everyone was singing along to "Use Somebody"), the crowd was loud and enthusiastic and quick to clap and cheer and scream. It was a crowd anyone would be proud to have their mom see them play to.
There was even a sign-waver: "Caleb can I hav ur hankie?" Unfortunately he didn't manage to throw it that far. There's a reason why he's a musician and not a pitcher.
Caleb's sign-off was heartfelt, about how "We're up here, we're playing music, we get to play music with family... and that's the most important thing in the world." He thanked everyone again (he'd been thanking us all night), and declared, "standing up here, looking out at all you...you make this boy from Tennessee very happy." He meant it too.
The Rock n' Roll dream lives.
I took my sister to this show. We bought the expensive beers. We ate our respective salty carbs. We ended up sitting in a place very similar to where Mom and I saw Bruce Springsteen, so we were close, but would be looking at lots of shoulders, as opposed to faces, which gives the show a different feel but (as my sister pointed out) provides a perfect, rare chance to watch the drummer. Try patting your head and rubbing your belly at the same time if you want a glimpse of how hard drumming really is. It's amazing to watch.
The opening act, the Whigs, were an impressive power-trio hailing from Athens, Georgia and boasting of some serious athletics. These guys are powerful musicians, in every sense of the word. They are amp-hoping, two-stepping southern rockers who make a much louder noise then you'd think three people could, more like the noise of Lynyrd Skynyrd then the alt-rock, grunge retro headliners. Later on in the show, Caleb Followill would call these three his friends and declare "Someday they'll be headlining here!" and I would hope he's right: it won't be for lack of talent if these guys don't make it.
Kings of Leon have clearly made it. Their fascinating amalgamated brand of rock comes on like a hurricane and never lets up, and I swear, spirits were running so high that in comparison, they might as well have been asleep the last time I saw them.
Iggy Pop once said of the Stooges sibling rhythm section "You can't get a bond like that without blood." And although a lot of fantastic bands haven't needed blood, the Followill brothers + cousin have been playing together since they were children and it shows. I got the feeling an earthquake couldn't derail this crew.
And Caleb Followill, who had barely a sentence to spare for the audience last time I saw them, was positively glowing. "I was so nervous I was throwing up all day, but now that I'm here, and you're a great crowd, I'm having a great time!" Then he downed his red plastic cup and yelled "I'm getting drunk!" Everyone cheered. The reason for the nerves was made apparent when he said that he had lots of family and friends in the crowd, here to see them to finally play the big venues "we get to play everywhere else" and how "rarely enough these days" every last person in the band was having a blast.
They seemed to be. Guitar picks were flicked. Nathan's drumsticks went flying across the stage more then once. No one but Caleb said anything, but the band's high-spirits were evident in that sort of intangible quality the best live music has, the kind that just sets the place on fire. There was just pure exhilaration in the air.
"You guys, you guys are great but some of you, some of you I know are sitting down. This is for you, stand up, let's have a party!" And he rocked into the fuzzy, dirty bass-line of "Crawl." I didn't see anyone sitting. Although some of Caleb's attempts to get the crowd to take over vocal duties were more successful then others (Everyone was singing along to "Use Somebody"), the crowd was loud and enthusiastic and quick to clap and cheer and scream. It was a crowd anyone would be proud to have their mom see them play to.
There was even a sign-waver: "Caleb can I hav ur hankie?" Unfortunately he didn't manage to throw it that far. There's a reason why he's a musician and not a pitcher.
Caleb's sign-off was heartfelt, about how "We're up here, we're playing music, we get to play music with family... and that's the most important thing in the world." He thanked everyone again (he'd been thanking us all night), and declared, "standing up here, looking out at all you...you make this boy from Tennessee very happy." He meant it too.
The Rock n' Roll dream lives.
Saturday, July 11, 2009
Elvis Costello at Aguas Caliente Casino: 7/10/2009
I left this show convinced of two facts. One; Elvis Costello kicks ass. Two: I do not know enough about his catalog, his history, and music in general to fully appreciate how much ass he really kicks.
On the drive home, my mom had to explain to me that His rendition of a deeply romantic love song called "Alison" contained snippets of "fuck you" songs from the 60s like "Tears of a Clown." Songs which I, being a child of the 90s and 00s, have never even heard of before: a hole in my education that I was never aware of before now.
Elvis Costello is way smarter then me. That's the third fact I left convinced of. He's also the only rocking frontman I can think off off the top of my head who performs in a suit and tie. I guess in recent years he's toned down his Buddy Holly style: wearing smaller glasses and incorperating touches like a violet tie and patterned turquoise shirt into his wardrobe. He plays his gold-top slung low, or his telecaster suspended in front of him with one hand: punkish moves Buddy Holly never did. And you'll still catch Elvis wiggling his legs like back in the day. More then anything else he has that quality that just dictates that when HE'S onstage, it doesn't really matter who else is there or what they're doing: he's the one you look at. That's a quality you can't teach: you either have it or you don't, and Costello, like Springsteen, and Reznor, has it in spades.
Which isn't to say his band wasn't worth watching. His back-up band for this tour was called The Imposters, and consisted of a stout, goateed drummer, a bass player all bedecked in head-to-toe white, complete with a white cowboy hat, and a keyboardist who's rig of keyboards, sythesizers, and odd gadgets would make him the source of the most interesting wailing, space-agey sounds. He even took a cue from one of Costellos lyrics and played a note with his toe, and him not so young neither!
Too bad the Casino audience sucked. For starters, any audience comprised of mostly middle-aged white people (and some younger white people) seemed unable to manage such tricky feets as "clap in rhythm" or even "Stand up out of their chairs." Costello was clearly gesturing that he wanted the people of orchestra level to gather at the foot of the stage, and since he did so during a roundy rousing number, quite a few people down in front tried to comply, only to either get dispersed by a house bouncer or by their own misguided sense of propriety. Bad audience karma. Blarg.
Speaking of house bouncers, this leads me to the biggest problem of the night.
Short.
This show was too short!
The show did not start until 9pm. It ended, after a highly abreviated encore, promptly at 10:35, the house lights came on less then a millisecond after the band had left the stage. B.B King also had this problem: the man could have played all night, but there was a house curfew to meet.
This is the downside of gigs at Casinos. This theater was large, state-of-the-art and beautiful, but the casino wants the show to end early. Their whole motivation for hosting the show is to funnel people through the casino, and they want to make sure the show ends with plenty of time for the audience members to gamble some more.
I know I'll be trying to see Elvis again, but not until I've done some serious homework. And hopefully, not at a Casino.
On the drive home, my mom had to explain to me that His rendition of a deeply romantic love song called "Alison" contained snippets of "fuck you" songs from the 60s like "Tears of a Clown." Songs which I, being a child of the 90s and 00s, have never even heard of before: a hole in my education that I was never aware of before now.
Elvis Costello is way smarter then me. That's the third fact I left convinced of. He's also the only rocking frontman I can think off off the top of my head who performs in a suit and tie. I guess in recent years he's toned down his Buddy Holly style: wearing smaller glasses and incorperating touches like a violet tie and patterned turquoise shirt into his wardrobe. He plays his gold-top slung low, or his telecaster suspended in front of him with one hand: punkish moves Buddy Holly never did. And you'll still catch Elvis wiggling his legs like back in the day. More then anything else he has that quality that just dictates that when HE'S onstage, it doesn't really matter who else is there or what they're doing: he's the one you look at. That's a quality you can't teach: you either have it or you don't, and Costello, like Springsteen, and Reznor, has it in spades.
Which isn't to say his band wasn't worth watching. His back-up band for this tour was called The Imposters, and consisted of a stout, goateed drummer, a bass player all bedecked in head-to-toe white, complete with a white cowboy hat, and a keyboardist who's rig of keyboards, sythesizers, and odd gadgets would make him the source of the most interesting wailing, space-agey sounds. He even took a cue from one of Costellos lyrics and played a note with his toe, and him not so young neither!
Too bad the Casino audience sucked. For starters, any audience comprised of mostly middle-aged white people (and some younger white people) seemed unable to manage such tricky feets as "clap in rhythm" or even "Stand up out of their chairs." Costello was clearly gesturing that he wanted the people of orchestra level to gather at the foot of the stage, and since he did so during a roundy rousing number, quite a few people down in front tried to comply, only to either get dispersed by a house bouncer or by their own misguided sense of propriety. Bad audience karma. Blarg.
Speaking of house bouncers, this leads me to the biggest problem of the night.
Short.
This show was too short!
The show did not start until 9pm. It ended, after a highly abreviated encore, promptly at 10:35, the house lights came on less then a millisecond after the band had left the stage. B.B King also had this problem: the man could have played all night, but there was a house curfew to meet.
This is the downside of gigs at Casinos. This theater was large, state-of-the-art and beautiful, but the casino wants the show to end early. Their whole motivation for hosting the show is to funnel people through the casino, and they want to make sure the show ends with plenty of time for the audience members to gamble some more.
I know I'll be trying to see Elvis again, but not until I've done some serious homework. And hopefully, not at a Casino.
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Wilco at the Greek Theater, Berkeley: 6/27/2009
This was one varied crowd. Not in terms of ethnicity, it was white on white on white, but in terms of age. Young kids, 20-somethings, 50-somethings, and everyone in between was standing in the long line waiting to get into the Greek Theater, presumably hoping to grab a spot in one of the ornate concrete thrones that lined the edge of the first rings of long, low steps that was the Greek's seating arrangement (more fun then folding chairs). I know that's where I would have sat if I could have had my choice. I know the rail is always fun but c'mon, a concrete THRONE? You get to watch the show like some Greek dictator watching the gladiators. How could you say no to that?
Anyway, I think I know how Wilco acquired such a generation-spanning fanbase. I brought my folks to the show, and they both left Wilco believers.
I first saw Wilco at Outside Lands last year. I'd never heard of them, but 2 out of every 3 conversations I overheard that day was people making plans to catch Wilco, so I figured I could check them out. I did, and I've been waiting to catch them again with some better knowledge of their back catalog. All I knew was they made a delicate, glorious noise.
Wilco is a six-peice band from Chicago. You want a full history, go elsewhere. You want a setlist, go elsewhere. This is what the show was actually like.
It even started out well. Well, not WELL, but with promise. I'll be frank, Okkervil River is not the best band in the world, mostly because a few of their members are downright lifeless: the girl guitarist (plagued by technical problems that demanded she fiddle with her les paul for most of each song), and the two keyboardists had about as much charm as cardboard cut-outs. But the tall, blue-clad bassist had a laid-back attitude that made being up there in front of a sold-out house look easy. Their drummer wailed on his pale-pink kit with a lot of fire, if not a lot of finesse. Still, if there's one reason to see this band it's that frontman, with his strong, clear voice and his effortless, effucient stage pressence. He was so energetic that his shirt was soaked through by the second song. He has real star quality even if his band doesn't.
Alright, we're done with the opening band: time for the guys we all came to see. And it hurts that they opened with Wilco (the song) while I was in the bathroom line, so I didn't get to witness live what I will always associate with Stephen Colbert and a strategically placed HOPE sticker.
There wouldn't be much else painful about the set. Wilco was flawless. Dad pinned "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" as the moment where he stopped enjoying the show and realized he was watching something incredibly special. My mom couldn't get over the drummer. He was a classically trained percussionist, she could tell, and she was riveted watching him. It was the kind of performance that makes you listen to a band a whole different way. It's the kind of stuff fans for life are made from.
And thank Heebus Dreamer's bad audience karma stayed away this time. This audience knew lyrics, sang loudly to fill in gaps, and clapped (more or less) in rhythm.
As a native So Cal gal, I could have handled a little less bad-mouthing of So Cal from Tweedy ("They're saying 'thank you!' after songs instead of clapping. What's that about?") but the Nor Cal audience, of course, ate it up. And there was an adorable moment where Tweedy admonished the Berkeley crowd "Look what you've done to my son, you dirty hippies!" and a fine boy, around ten and almost as tall as his dad already, came sheepishly from the wings wearing garish tie-died pajamas. "He goes for a walk and he comes back like this!" Everyone laughed. The kid shrugged all dramatic-like and scampered off after Jeff's "Go take a bath!" Adorable.
EDIT: The kid, it turns out, is about 14 or 15, and an avid blogger. He writes about the tie-die incident here.
Jeff Tweedy would reference the joke later, dedicating "I'm the Man who Loves You" to his wife, who was apparently somewhere over near the sound board, adding, "Sorry I let our son become a hippie!" He was also heckling some guy in the front row who had passed out, then shrugged it off, then passed out again. His stage persona was warm, affable, even slightly goofy but completely in command. Like any great frontman, he made the impossible look effortless.
Still, my favorite member of Wilco is still Nels Cline. Their new-ish lead guitarist was poached from the improvisational jazz circuit and plays like a more eccentric Eric Clapton. Not kidding. The man's searing solos were almost always the highlight of any given song. Plus, I love anyone who can rock a pair of bright red pants and still look as stern and intimidating as a tall, wispy blond guy in his middle-ages can realistically look. He had a formidable guitar rack next to him and it wasn't just for show. What a wizard.
Speaking of Wizards, Pat Sansone, the multi-instrumentalist, proved he can rock a guitar with as much charisma as anyone when he's allowed out from behind his keyboard. My mom was so sure he was a teenager, he looked so young from so far away. Bass player too got his moment in the spotlight. In fact, everyone got their moments in the spotlight except the dedicated keyboardist. He just sat behind his keys and played. Well, I guess someone's gotta play rhythm.
The biggest moment of the night was the next-to-last song where every single member of the group grabbed a tamborine or a maracca and all built the tension, holding their instruments high while the percussionist, Glen Kotche, stood on his drumstool with his sticks held high in the air, dramatically backlit. I don't know what song they launched into when Glen came crashing down again on his drumkit, but it doesn't matter. The moment was perfect. And so was the show.
Anyway, I think I know how Wilco acquired such a generation-spanning fanbase. I brought my folks to the show, and they both left Wilco believers.
I first saw Wilco at Outside Lands last year. I'd never heard of them, but 2 out of every 3 conversations I overheard that day was people making plans to catch Wilco, so I figured I could check them out. I did, and I've been waiting to catch them again with some better knowledge of their back catalog. All I knew was they made a delicate, glorious noise.
Wilco is a six-peice band from Chicago. You want a full history, go elsewhere. You want a setlist, go elsewhere. This is what the show was actually like.
It even started out well. Well, not WELL, but with promise. I'll be frank, Okkervil River is not the best band in the world, mostly because a few of their members are downright lifeless: the girl guitarist (plagued by technical problems that demanded she fiddle with her les paul for most of each song), and the two keyboardists had about as much charm as cardboard cut-outs. But the tall, blue-clad bassist had a laid-back attitude that made being up there in front of a sold-out house look easy. Their drummer wailed on his pale-pink kit with a lot of fire, if not a lot of finesse. Still, if there's one reason to see this band it's that frontman, with his strong, clear voice and his effortless, effucient stage pressence. He was so energetic that his shirt was soaked through by the second song. He has real star quality even if his band doesn't.
Alright, we're done with the opening band: time for the guys we all came to see. And it hurts that they opened with Wilco (the song) while I was in the bathroom line, so I didn't get to witness live what I will always associate with Stephen Colbert and a strategically placed HOPE sticker.
There wouldn't be much else painful about the set. Wilco was flawless. Dad pinned "I Am Trying To Break Your Heart" as the moment where he stopped enjoying the show and realized he was watching something incredibly special. My mom couldn't get over the drummer. He was a classically trained percussionist, she could tell, and she was riveted watching him. It was the kind of performance that makes you listen to a band a whole different way. It's the kind of stuff fans for life are made from.
And thank Heebus Dreamer's bad audience karma stayed away this time. This audience knew lyrics, sang loudly to fill in gaps, and clapped (more or less) in rhythm.
As a native So Cal gal, I could have handled a little less bad-mouthing of So Cal from Tweedy ("They're saying 'thank you!' after songs instead of clapping. What's that about?") but the Nor Cal audience, of course, ate it up. And there was an adorable moment where Tweedy admonished the Berkeley crowd "Look what you've done to my son, you dirty hippies!" and a fine boy, around ten and almost as tall as his dad already, came sheepishly from the wings wearing garish tie-died pajamas. "He goes for a walk and he comes back like this!" Everyone laughed. The kid shrugged all dramatic-like and scampered off after Jeff's "Go take a bath!" Adorable.
EDIT: The kid, it turns out, is about 14 or 15, and an avid blogger. He writes about the tie-die incident here.
Jeff Tweedy would reference the joke later, dedicating "I'm the Man who Loves You" to his wife, who was apparently somewhere over near the sound board, adding, "Sorry I let our son become a hippie!" He was also heckling some guy in the front row who had passed out, then shrugged it off, then passed out again. His stage persona was warm, affable, even slightly goofy but completely in command. Like any great frontman, he made the impossible look effortless.
Still, my favorite member of Wilco is still Nels Cline. Their new-ish lead guitarist was poached from the improvisational jazz circuit and plays like a more eccentric Eric Clapton. Not kidding. The man's searing solos were almost always the highlight of any given song. Plus, I love anyone who can rock a pair of bright red pants and still look as stern and intimidating as a tall, wispy blond guy in his middle-ages can realistically look. He had a formidable guitar rack next to him and it wasn't just for show. What a wizard.
Speaking of Wizards, Pat Sansone, the multi-instrumentalist, proved he can rock a guitar with as much charisma as anyone when he's allowed out from behind his keyboard. My mom was so sure he was a teenager, he looked so young from so far away. Bass player too got his moment in the spotlight. In fact, everyone got their moments in the spotlight except the dedicated keyboardist. He just sat behind his keys and played. Well, I guess someone's gotta play rhythm.
The biggest moment of the night was the next-to-last song where every single member of the group grabbed a tamborine or a maracca and all built the tension, holding their instruments high while the percussionist, Glen Kotche, stood on his drumstool with his sticks held high in the air, dramatically backlit. I don't know what song they launched into when Glen came crashing down again on his drumkit, but it doesn't matter. The moment was perfect. And so was the show.
Wednesday, June 10, 2009
IAMX at Slims - 6/9/2009
I guess under other circumstances I wouldn't do shows at this clip, but this is my Last Month Here and I needed a pick-me-up. I'd listened to some of IAMX's stuff on youtube, and his dark, sleezy brand of pop appealed to me. A friend on Twitter unexpectedly helped out with a free ticket! So I had no reason at all to miss this show.
The friend was HardRockChick of live-blogging fame, who is, by the way, exactly as cool as you might imagine she'd be. She's sweet and soft-spoken and comes to life when it's time to talk music. After a few false alarms in which I weirded out a few slim, dark-haired people (though I AM sure I've seen the girl in the black ruffled dress somwhere before: she said she was a musician so maybe... Kimos?) we connected stage left.
The opening band was Hypernova, a six-piece pretty standard line-up remarkable for their curls, their glittery-but-driving hollow-body guitar riffs, their pounding drums, and their bespectacled frontman with the short beard, the booming voice, and the face carved out of wood. I think it would take him days of intense concentration to form a smile, even assuming he has it in him at all. They weren't a bad group, in fact they were actually pretty good, but I didn't enjoy them. And I'm not above accusing the frontman's inapproachable, unresponsive face of being the thing that stopped me from really connecting with the group. I'm not sure what this says about me and my standards. Upon hunting down the link to their myspace I discovered they are actually from Iran, which is interesting and makes me sad I didn't enjoy their show more then I did. If there's one place where rock and roll SHOULD flourish, it's in a country where those who play can be publicly flogged.
Maybe some smaller glasses on the frontman. This isn't nerdcore.
There was a very long interval between sets thanks to all the gear that had to be changed, so Hardrockchick and I filled the time by talking. Our conversation included, in no particular order: NiN/JA (her stories are MUCH more interesting then mine), Tom Morello's badass superpowers, how much Chris Cornell's solo show suffers from a distinct LACK of Tom Morello, how much "Scream" sucked, even live, Trent Reznor's now not-so-secret sense of humor and aggressive tweeting, how funny the concept of "aggressive tweeting" is when you think about it, Boots Riley's sense of fun, Ilan Rubin's raw talent, repeated my interview question and she promised she'd try and get him to answer if she can, Carl Restivo's coolness, how much we love Restivo's bubble-tweets and wish he'd do more of them, both hoping details surface about his twitter party, whatever that turns out to be.
Have I mentioned this Jaimie girl is awesome?
As for the main event, I can sum it up by saying my feet are bruised and covered in dirt. And glitter. I am never wearing flip-flops to this kind of show ever again. I count myself lucky to still own ten toes, but in happier news, Dreamer's Bad Audience Karma was LIFTED! If just for tonight! During the set a girl with a jangling outfit of feathers started dancing with me out of nowhere, then a girl with a short brown bob grabbed my hand and sling-shotted me to the front of the stage where I jumped, jammed and pumped my fist in my wonderful out-of-rhythm way until my poor unprotected feet couldn't take it anymore and I was forced to retreat, mercifully late in the set, only to get snagged on some kindly gay giant's button.
But this blog ostensibly isn't about me, so how was the performer, IAMX?
He was very...small. I mean, Jaimie had told me he was small, but I wasn't expecting him to be AS small as he was. He wasn't a little person or anything, but he's definitely tiny, so much so that I believe Jaimie when she tells me he has to make his own clothes, since most men's clothing doesn't come in a small enough sizes for him.
Good thing the guy melts some serious face. What a performer. His sweet tenor is full of an almost tender despair. His brand of dark pop filled the whole room, two synthesizers working full blast to keep the electric waves coming, but not detracting from the vitality of the live performers: a keyboardist woman in some truly horrific make-up and a guitarist with an open shirt and a headband. They commanded almost as much attention as the frontman did, singing back-ups and leaping on things, clapping and doing whatever they could to get the audience fired up.
It worked. They were fired up. I'm not familiar enough with his catalog to tell you what his setlist was, but the audience adored him and I heard sing-alongs at more then one point. Wow. Remarkable.
When it was all over, I counted all ten toes (thank goodness), bid a fond farewell to the Hardrockchick, thanked the gentle gay giant for unhooking me from his button, looked in vain for the woman who had dragged me to the front row, told Gentle Gay Giant to thank her for me, bought some buttons, and went home.
Good people make for good times. It's a truth.
The friend was HardRockChick of live-blogging fame, who is, by the way, exactly as cool as you might imagine she'd be. She's sweet and soft-spoken and comes to life when it's time to talk music. After a few false alarms in which I weirded out a few slim, dark-haired people (though I AM sure I've seen the girl in the black ruffled dress somwhere before: she said she was a musician so maybe... Kimos?) we connected stage left.
The opening band was Hypernova, a six-piece pretty standard line-up remarkable for their curls, their glittery-but-driving hollow-body guitar riffs, their pounding drums, and their bespectacled frontman with the short beard, the booming voice, and the face carved out of wood. I think it would take him days of intense concentration to form a smile, even assuming he has it in him at all. They weren't a bad group, in fact they were actually pretty good, but I didn't enjoy them. And I'm not above accusing the frontman's inapproachable, unresponsive face of being the thing that stopped me from really connecting with the group. I'm not sure what this says about me and my standards. Upon hunting down the link to their myspace I discovered they are actually from Iran, which is interesting and makes me sad I didn't enjoy their show more then I did. If there's one place where rock and roll SHOULD flourish, it's in a country where those who play can be publicly flogged.
Maybe some smaller glasses on the frontman. This isn't nerdcore.
There was a very long interval between sets thanks to all the gear that had to be changed, so Hardrockchick and I filled the time by talking. Our conversation included, in no particular order: NiN/JA (her stories are MUCH more interesting then mine), Tom Morello's badass superpowers, how much Chris Cornell's solo show suffers from a distinct LACK of Tom Morello, how much "Scream" sucked, even live, Trent Reznor's now not-so-secret sense of humor and aggressive tweeting, how funny the concept of "aggressive tweeting" is when you think about it, Boots Riley's sense of fun, Ilan Rubin's raw talent, repeated my interview question and she promised she'd try and get him to answer if she can, Carl Restivo's coolness, how much we love Restivo's bubble-tweets and wish he'd do more of them, both hoping details surface about his twitter party, whatever that turns out to be.
Have I mentioned this Jaimie girl is awesome?
As for the main event, I can sum it up by saying my feet are bruised and covered in dirt. And glitter. I am never wearing flip-flops to this kind of show ever again. I count myself lucky to still own ten toes, but in happier news, Dreamer's Bad Audience Karma was LIFTED! If just for tonight! During the set a girl with a jangling outfit of feathers started dancing with me out of nowhere, then a girl with a short brown bob grabbed my hand and sling-shotted me to the front of the stage where I jumped, jammed and pumped my fist in my wonderful out-of-rhythm way until my poor unprotected feet couldn't take it anymore and I was forced to retreat, mercifully late in the set, only to get snagged on some kindly gay giant's button.
But this blog ostensibly isn't about me, so how was the performer, IAMX?
He was very...small. I mean, Jaimie had told me he was small, but I wasn't expecting him to be AS small as he was. He wasn't a little person or anything, but he's definitely tiny, so much so that I believe Jaimie when she tells me he has to make his own clothes, since most men's clothing doesn't come in a small enough sizes for him.
Good thing the guy melts some serious face. What a performer. His sweet tenor is full of an almost tender despair. His brand of dark pop filled the whole room, two synthesizers working full blast to keep the electric waves coming, but not detracting from the vitality of the live performers: a keyboardist woman in some truly horrific make-up and a guitarist with an open shirt and a headband. They commanded almost as much attention as the frontman did, singing back-ups and leaping on things, clapping and doing whatever they could to get the audience fired up.
It worked. They were fired up. I'm not familiar enough with his catalog to tell you what his setlist was, but the audience adored him and I heard sing-alongs at more then one point. Wow. Remarkable.
When it was all over, I counted all ten toes (thank goodness), bid a fond farewell to the Hardrockchick, thanked the gentle gay giant for unhooking me from his button, looked in vain for the woman who had dragged me to the front row, told Gentle Gay Giant to thank her for me, bought some buttons, and went home.
Good people make for good times. It's a truth.
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