Archive for the “concert” Category

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I’ll admit straight up that I’m not a huge Leonard Cohen fan. This isn’t to say I don’t like him, just that I’m not the one who picked out this show to see and all things considered I’m pretty sure I wouldn’t have bought a ticket to see this by myself. My girlfriend however is a pretty big fan, and I’m never one to say no to someone who’s supposed to be one of the best songwriters on the planet ever, so why not right? I know that Leonard Cohen has influenced pretty much half of the people that I listen to already, so I’m pretty stupid for not having given too much attention to his music. Most of my favorite artists (along with 2.2 million other people) have covered Hallelujah or one of his other songs, Tori Amos is fond of Famous Blue Raincoat and I’d heard a few songs here and there in soundtracks so I’m not TOTALLY unfamiliar… but at the same time I’m not gonna lie about things here so there you go, full disclosure.

All that said, I actually really liked the show. I’d been sternly warned before the show not to fall asleep, but really despite most of the songs being of a folk-singer-songwriter sort of vibe (which is not my primary interest but something I can definitely get into) it was amazingly entertaining. Everyone on stage played multiple instruments and the arrangements were very nice. It was a better stage show than most bands I see who mail it in, Leonard Cohen is really giving you your money’s worth in a show. I assume this will be the only time I’ll see him play, the last time he was in CA was 14 years ago, so I think this is his last tour and one for the money since tickets were not cheap at ALL. With that sort of expectation though, he really put value in the show. Some bands for otherwise expensive tickets will make a really big effort to get off the stage in an hour and a half, fill the show with opening acts that add value and it’s a tossup on whether it’s great or not. Leonard Cohen said screw opening acts (yay) started prompt at 8PM (yay) and played for a full 3 hours. An hour-ish for a first set, an hour-ish for a second set and a full hour of 4 encores. (or you could just say a third set around an hour with him skipping off stage for a few seconds and coming back on or whatever). Wow.

1. Dance Me to the End of Love
2. The Future
3. catvAin’t No Cure for Love
4. Bird On A Wire
5. Everybody Knows
6. In My Secret Life
7. Who By Fire
8. Chelsea Hotel #2
9. Waiting For The Miracle
10. Anthem
11. Tower of Song
12. Suzanne
13. The Gypsy’s Wife
14. The Partisan
15. Boogie Street
16. Hallelujah
17. I’m Your Man
18. A Thousand Kisses Deep [recitation]
19. Take This Waltz
20. So Long Marianne
21. First We Take Manhattan
22. Famous Blue Raincoat
23. If It Be Your Will
24. Democracy
25. Lullaby
26. Closing Time
27. I Tried to Leave You
28. Whither Thou Goest

download the whole show as a .zip file
download the show in lossless FLAC via Dimeadozen (registration required)

Links:

• Official Site
• The Leonard Cohen Files

I know, I super slacked the last few months, so here’s the first show of 2009. I’m not seeing a ton of shows lately, but this is something worth getting out of the house to see, for sure.

Jonathan Coulton speaks to the soul of every nerd, geek, and anyone that comes in contact with anyone who considers themselves to be part of either sort of person. That’s not to say the music can only be enjoyed by nerds and geeks, but there’s a little something extra special inside for those who are. Not many people can get away with writing a song about having a mundane programming job, zombies, monkeys, evil mad scientists, and then still make some really nice and/or depressing songs about relationships in general and also fucking. It’s truly representative of humanity as a whole I think, and there’s definitely something there for everyone.

As for this show, I mean it’s tough to say anything but “he played all the songs I like pretty much” except that it’s difficult to even say there are many of his songs that I don’t like anyway… so yeah great show. I hadn’t been keeping up with the website, so I didn’t have a clue about the couple of songs for the contest thing so there were even a few treats as well as some covers. Can’t go wrong with a TMBG song at a nerdy rock show right?

I had tickets to the Saturday show as well, but unfortunately I flaked and didn’t go. (lots of reasons, none of them good). I kinda wish I had, because this show was great from start to finish and that’s something I haven’t been able to say about a lot of shows. Anyway, this one was great. Enjoy.

1. Intro
2. Big Bad World One
3. Shop Vac
4. Skullcrusher Mountain
5. Still Alive
6. Millionaire Girlfriend
7. Drinking With You
8. Famous Blue Raincoat
9. Tom Cruise Crazy
10. Code Monkey
11. My Monkey
12. Chiron Beta Prime
13. Always The Moon
14. Birdhouse In Your Soul
15. Creepy Doll
16. Mr. Fancy Pants
17. Someone Is Crazy
18. The Presidents
19. The Future Soon
20. Space Doggity
21. Re: Your Brains
22. First Of May
23. Sweet Caroline

download the whole show as a .zip file
download the show in lossless FLAC via Dimeadozen (registration required)

Links:

• Official Site
• Jonathan Coulton: Listening primer

I’m not real sure I can review this, even as badly as I review things in general, and do this sort of show any justice.

It was loud, but I’m sure anyone even slightly familiar with MBV will already realize that it was going to be loud. If you’ve only ever heard their recorded music, you might not necessarily get the impression that they’re the loudest band on the planet (no lie, this has been measured!). Yes there are vocals, no you really can’t hear them. Yes everything sounds noisy and distorted, yes that’s on purpose and that’s why we like it. Yes they do the lights like that on purpose where you don’t really see the band as much as they’re putting lights just out on the crowd and the venue. It’s supposed to signify some sort of greater meaning that it’s not about the band, it’s about the music so just enjoy the experience and don’t worry about trying to see the band.

Oh and yes for the last 20 minutes they’re doing to assault you with a sheath of pure noise and distortion. Phil Spector may have made his Wall of Sound famous for layering all sorts of goodness, MBV created the Wall of Noise. It’s not that it’s not sound, but really the impression you get is that it’s glorifying all that is considered to not be Sound and that which is totally undesirable in music. It’s turning the entire idea of music on its ass and saying “this is beautiful too, embrace it” as a sort of grand statement on how we view music. (is this idea too pretentious?). When you experience it (and I don’t think a recording truly does it justice), you’re being bombarded by light, sound and even feeling because the rush of air from the speakers is even as intense as the music itself. It literally (and I’m not making exaggerations here I don’t think) feels like you’re standing a few feet away from a jet plane engine that’s in the midst of takeoff, except for a slight problem: Superman is holding the front of the plane and it can’t move. It’s stuck in a perpetual acceleration, and you are hanging out in the exhaust. It’s louder than anything you’ve ever experienced, the strobe lights and other things are going nuts, and the wind and vibration are just something that I personally have never felt at a show before. Sometimes you get the occasional really bassy moment and you feel it in every part of your body… go ahead and imagine this happening for 20 solid minutes.

And yes, they hand out earplugs at the door. I feel deeply sorry for anyone who didn’t use them or bring their own.

The sound at the venue wasn’t the best to start with, it’s really a terrible place for concerts and I don’t know why they’ve started a big trend of having them there on a regular basis, but the recording sounds good otherwise.

setlist:

1. I Only Said
2. When You Sleep
3. You Never Should
4. (When You Wake) You’re Still In A Dream
5. Cigarette In Your Bed
6. Come In Alone
7. Only Shallow
8. Thorn
9. Nothing Much To Lose
10. To Here Knows When
11. Slow
12. Soon
13. Feed Me With Your Kiss
14. You Made Me Realise

• download the whole show as a .zip file
• download the show in 24-bit lossless FLAC via Dimeadozen (registration required)

Links:

• my bloody valentine: to here knows web

It’d been a while since I’d seen an mc chris show, I guess because he’s been on other people’s tours and warped (and I have nooooo desire to go to festivals) or just playing in non SF venues or whatever, so it was nice to finally see an mc chris show again. I was there at the start of his touring career in Nashville a few years ago and it’s really good to see at least some refinement in his performances. At the time I think he was trying for some sort of half rap, half comedy blend of things to fill the time. This time around, more of a show. Still a backing track and no band or anything like that, but an entertaining show nontheless. He’s trying for a lot of interaction with the fans I guess to make up for any lack of a show, but that’s okay. I don’t see a lot of other rap shows in general so I have no idea how they do it either. Anyway, I liked the set and I hear it’s what he did most of the Warped tour which is a good thing. Most of the songs in it are what I really liked when I first heard of mc chris in general so this is a great starting point to get into the whole nerd rap thing in general. Maybe it’ll work for you, maybe not I don’t know. Any time you try to mix candy, star wars, and other stupid shit into rap songs, it sure doesn’t necessarily work for everyone right? Whatever, enjoy.

setlist:

1. OMC
2. banter
3. DQ Blizzard
4. Tractor Beam
5. On* (intro)
6. On*
7. banter
8. White Kids Love Hip-Hop
9. Reese
10. Nerd Grrl
11. The Tussin
12. Wiid
13. Fett’s Vett

Download the show in mp3 as a zip file

Download the show in FLAC via Dimeadozen.org (registration required)

Links:

• mc chris.com
• MySpace: mc chris

5 Years ago (almost exactly) I had basically no idea what I was getting into when I saw Mogwai for the first time. I went expecting something vaguely Sigur Ros like, with some occasional bits of loudness but not “noise as an instrument” sort of loud. I left the show with some semi-permanent hearing damage in one ear (I was kinda halfway pointed towards a stack fairly close to the stage) and it was the loudest thing I’d ever heard, ever. I never knew who My Bloody Valentine was and I’d never looked them up, but I got to reading some more about Mogwai and found out they were one of their big influences. MBV is well known for essentially using feedback and noise as a focus in their music, and for having the loudest possible shows at around 130dB (which is freaking amazing) and if I’d known… I’d have brought along some plugs. Now I know.

Overall, I think Mogwai is one of the most amazing bands to see live. Lots of bands have no range in their live shows, but Mogwai despite being very very loud also has very very quiet parts to a lot of their songs. They’ve also kinda got the “pay attention to the music, the band isn’t going to do anything interesting on stage” thing going on which I think a lot of bands should think about. Most of the time the lights were basically strobing on the crowd and for the most part it all made you want to just close your eyes and hang out. I’m pretty sure that’s what I did for most of the show. Incidentally, I think all the strobe lights and the loud noise and vibration have some sort of hypnotic effect that you have to experience to understand, but I had several revelations during the show. I managed to find a pair of lost sunglasses, and a lost cellphone charger that I’d misplaced (and replaced because I was so frustrated that I couldn’t find either) when something just clicked in my brain and I realized where they were. I don’t really know how to explain that, but don’t go see Mogwai if you have any repressed memories that you don’t want to dredge up perhaps. I found it pretty amazing, I’m not sure this is a positive thing or not but yeah. Loud bass, bright lights, hypnotic drones = I found my sunglasses. Good times.

The set was great otherwise too, with a great mix of some of their newer stuff from the new album and a lot of the best songs from their back catalog. Herod, Satan and Hunted by a Freak were fantastic to hear. It’s really one of the best live shows I’ve ever seen and you’ll be doing yourself a favor if you go see them whenever you can. Just be sure to bring some earplugs.

1. The Precipice
2. Yes! I Am a Long Way From Home
3. Thank You Space Expert
4. Friend of the Night
5. I Love You, I’m Going To Blow Up Your School
6. Cody
7. I’m Jim Morrison, I’m Dead
8. Hunted by a Freak
9. Mogwai Fear Satan
10. Scotland’s Shame
11. Helicon 1
12. 2 Rights Make 1 Wrong
13. Like Herod
14. Batcat

download the whole show as a .zip file
download the show in lossless FLAC (16-bit) from dimeadozen.org (registration required)

Links:

• Official Site
• MySpace:

For me, Beck is a sort of nostalgia I think. Lots of his songs were big with me at pretty good times in my life. When I got the email last week at 3PM saying there was going to be a Beck show at a really tiny venue that went on sale in less than 2 hours, I kinda freaked out. It’s not often you get that sort of opportunity. I was lucky enough to get tickets, judging by the angry people on craigslist, sonicliving and other websites tons of good fans were shut out cause TicketWeb was not prepared to handle the onslaught. (not surprising).

And unfortunately, I have to tell all of you that didn’t get to see the show that you really missed out on something pretty awesome. For me, Beck represents another bit of nostalgia in a sense, in that it was the first time I’d ever been to a show with a taper, my friend Rich, who I’m not even sure knows that I know about his blog. Regardless, his taping of the show kinda prompted me to think that taping things was a good idea so I bought some mics the next year and now I’ve got a ton of shows under my belt I guess you could say. I won’t put it all entirely on the Beck show as I’d been to a handful of other shows that were and weren’t recorded and I really wanted the stuff that hadn’t been recorded… and ultimately that Beck show in 2000 that I saw was what prompted me to say “why wait for someone else to do it?”. I thought it was all sorts of complicated or dangerous or whatever, but I was enlightened after that and it’s all been history since.

The show itself was more than I had imagined it’d be. I was figuring a low key sort of show, maybe mostly acoustic “small venue” songs. Nope! They tore right out of the gate with Devil’s Haircut and I knew at that point it was going to be a great show. And it totally was. The coolest thing to me was probably the “live remix” they did with Hell Yes and Black Tambourine. The band all put their instruments down and picked up drum machines (or something) and Beck had an ipod with a track you could scratch and they re-created the remixes from the Hell Yes EP live. It was a pretty awesome thing to see. They even played a pretty long set for what i was expecting. I’d figured an hour-ish would be plenty but they went the distance for a full 1.5hrs. They touched on all Beck’s albums, and even threw in a Dylan cover. There’s really nothing bad at all I can say about the show. However, the crowd was a bit rowdy (expected) and the drink girl was a little loud and obnoxious, but whatever. You get that at some shows and I’d rather have been in the middle of the room than off in the back somewhere when it’s someone that I know I’ll never see from that close up again.

I fear I’m ruined for Beck shows in the future. It’ll never be this good again.

Setlist:

1. Devil’s Haircut
2. Nausea
3. Profanity Prayers
4. Girl
5. Minus
6. Nicotine & Gravy
7. Mixed Bizness
8. Gamma Ray
9. Leopard Skin Pill-box Hat
10. Soul of a Man
11. Think I’m In Love
12. Replica
13. Modern Guilt
14. Youthless
15. Ghettochip Malfunction (Hell Yes)
16. Shake Shake Tambourine (Black Tambourine)
17. Walls
18. Orphans
19. Volcano
20. Chemtrails
21. encore break
22. Loser
23. Where It’s At
24. E-Pro

download the whole show as a .zip file
download the show in lossless 16-bit FLAC via Dimeadozen (registration required)
download the show in lossless 24-bit FLAC via The Trader’s Den (registration required)
Links:

• Official Site
• MySpace:
• SF Chronicle Review