Live Music

Thurston Moore Group. He presented some tunes of his previous albums along with some new ones that will be part of his upcoming album (if it hasn't been released already) - such as "Cease Fire". I quite liked it, especially the moments where he manipulated the noise as if he was trying to make a sort of cosmic sound (it helps that the concert was at night, in front of an audience lying down, sitting and standing on the grass).

Nicolas Jaar is gonna be playing in Philadelphia soon but I don't have anyone to go with. Should I just go alone?

Lindsey Stirling. I only knew this was happening because of an ad that was playing on the top 40 station that they keep on at my work - it struck me as kind of an odd place to promote the show, but 1) it's not like there's a "hip hop violin" radio station out there, and 2) I can see her having some crossover fandom with EDM/pop fans, particularly because some of her youtube videos are pop covers. Anyway, this was a really fun show and I came away feeling inspired. As someone who gained popularity through youtube videos, it would make sense that there was a strong visual component to the show (costume changes, dancers, video backdrops and other effects), and it always complemented the themes/feel of the music.

Live Band Emo/Pop Punk Karaoke. The "live band" aspect puts it into the "live music" category for me. This kind of stuff was at its peak popularity right when I started being "too cool" for liking overly earnest music, but some of it was in my wheelhouse at the time (Weezer, Jimmy Eat World, The Get Up Kids, etc), and some of the stuff I hated at the time I now kind of like for reasons of earworminess and that very teenage feel. The live band karaoke thing makes a lot of sense for both genres because they're all about big singalong hooks (in fact, people were singing along to the house music too), and I understand how lots of people would have nostalgia for it because if you came of age at a certain time these could have been the first songs where you had a serious, deep connection with the lyrics. I got on stage for Piebald's "American Heart", which was partially strategic on my part - they had a pre-established set-list and had people sign up for songs, and I figured picking the most obscure song I actually knew would give me better odds of getting to sing it. Quasi-political moment: When the band started playing Fall Out Boy, someone in the audience held up a sign reading "Stump & Wentz, Not Trump & Pence".

Garbage and Blondie with Deap Vally. This was a pretty good show. I'm going to have to check out Deap Vally on spotify later, maybe pay for a download - my quick description on facebook was "two ladies in sequined outfits playing noisy garage rock". I like the couple albums I've heard well enough, but Garbage really impressed me live - in particular Shirley Manson is a really great frontwoman. Finally, Blondie were pretty entertaining and tight musically, but it seems like Debbie Harry occasionally can't quite hit the same notes she used to on some of the older songs and sometimes resorts to speaking some of the lyrics instead; on the other hand, they played a bunch of stuff off a new album and she sounded better on that material.

T-shirt section: Lots of Blondie, a few Garbage, and no Deap Vally. Other recurring themes: Other female-fronted bands of the 80s and 90s (e.g. Hole, Joan Jett and the Blackhearts), slogans supporting feminist or LGBTQ issues.

I've seen a few bands/singers live: Weird Al, Old 55, Alice Cooper, Mental As Anything (Many, many times), The Sweet, Jimmy Barnes...and when I was a kid, The Wiggles!

Annnd, now I am about to ramble.

Of the lot, the most fun have been Mental As Anything (because they do a good show and Greedy likes to chat to people in the foyer afterwards, which is nice.), Alice Cooper (Because my goodness does he make those live shows a spectacle worth watching), and The Sweet (because the venue was only half-full and, rather than making it feel empty and sad, just made the place feel more relaxed. You could spread out a bit and enjoy. Also the frontman was immensely charming in an old rocker kind of way, and interacted with the audience near-constantly.)

The most impactful was Jimmy Barnes, because it was sort of autobiographical but with the songs mixed in. And the autobiographical part was depressing as all hell, but he told it well and he blended the songs in wonderfully. And because, as powerful as his voice sounds in the songs or on TV, it is nothing like what it is in person. It's like being sung at by a freaking jet engine. And also because a whole room singing along a song I've known since I was a kid, and we all knew every word and you could hear all of us singing along, is just a wonderful memory of that night.

edited 2nd Aug '17 7:05:36 AM by Murataku

Gonna see Dead Cross in a few weeks: It'll be my second time seeing a band with Mike Patton in it live ^note I saw Fantomas once around 2004 or so) - the openers are going to be Secret Chiefs 3, who I've seen twice before. What's sort of interesting about this tour lineup is that Secret Chiefs 3 are primarily the project of Trey Spruance, who was in Mr. Bungle and briefly also Faith No More. Not expecting any surprise Bungle or FNM "covers", but Patton did make a guest appearance on a Secret Chiefs 3 single once (a Cover Version of Jacques Brel's "Jackie"), so that would be a cool but still unlikely encore.

Went to a concert in an RSL club last night that was great fun...except for this one woman who would not leave the frontman alone. She tugged at his leg. She grabbed his hands. She pulled at his mike stand. She scrawled notes on coasters and put them on his keyboard.

He started off ignoring her, then he gently scolded her "no, no, Come talk to me later, I have to talk to all these people while I play right now.", then by the time she started up the notes he was just pushing them off his keyboard and gesturing frantically for the bouncer.

I don't go to many venues like that, is that normal or was the woman just extremely rude?

Mike Doughty and Wheatus. Of course Wheatus did "Teenage Dirtbag" near the end of their set and it was a fun singalong moment, but their other stuff seemed pretty good and I might check their albums out sometime. Doughty was there to play Ruby Vroom in its entirety (plus a couple other Soul Coughing tracks), and Wheatus actually functioned as his backing band - it was mostly a pretty faithful replication of the album, the songs all work really well live, and this is probably the closest thing I'll get to a Soul Coughing reunion given what he says about his time with the band in his autobiography ^note I've seen a couple Book Of Drugs reviews and have so far avoided reading it, thinking it might ruin the music for me). Doughty stuck around and signed stuff after and from my brief interaction he seems pretty nice and gracious to his fans - I got my ticket stub signed and put it in a photo book where I save all my concert tix (this is the only signed one so far).

Surprisingly almost no band t-shirts whatsoever - it was cold and most people were in sweaters, flannel etc. For my part, I had a Cracker sweatshirt on.

Edited by MikeK on Feb 17th 2021 at 12:00:59 PM

Miss Fairchild, Lovesexy, and The Timberfakes. Miss Fairchild were the only band playing original music in a lineup full of tribute acts. However, it worked because they have a very retraux blue-eyed soul/disco sound, and because they make very danceable music. Lovesexy's Prince tribute was primarily why I was there, and they were great. Interestingly, their "Prince" dressed the part but only contributed vocals; they had a dedicated lead guitarist (who also did any Wendy & Lisa or other female backing vocal parts). Most of the hits were represented, as were some fairly deep cuts ("Alphabet Street", "DSMR", "Take Me With You"); Only thing I really missed was "Gett Off", and that was because the sax player/backing vocalist pulled out a flute and I got excited ^note it got used for "Take Me With You", and I'm not sure if the original even had a flute. The Timberfakes are definitely good at what they do (bringing more of a live band approach to Justin Timberlake's music), but I'm just not that big of a Timberlake fan; I opted to stick around long enough to hear a few songs I liked/recognized, and did not resist the urge to shout "Dick In A Box"! during the first available silence. They were tongue in cheek enough that maybe they were actually going to do that one later though?

T-shirt count: Surprisingly no JT, NSYNC or Prince shirts. There was a woman wearing "love symbol" earrings though.

Edited by MikeK on Apr 28th 2019 at 1:43:47 AM

Guided by Voices. No openers, just a straight up 2 and a half hour set. They have a lot of albums and they just put out three albums worth of music this year (one single album and one double album) - the advantage of a long set was that they got to play a lot of that new stuff and still have time for fan favorites and "hits" ^note  "hits" are relative for them I guess - "I Am A Tree" and "Teenage FBI" used to get some radio play on my local alternative rock station and both were in the set. The only disadvantage was that Robert Pollard's voice didn't really hold up for the full two hours, but then again every older song they played quickly became an unprompted audience singalong anyway. No GBV t-shirts other than the ones people just bought at the merch table - a notable trend was untucked plaid shirts, which I was also wearing myself.

Edited by MikeK on May 22nd 2019 at 9:57:34 AM

Saw Alice in Chains in St. Petersburg a couple days ago, awesome show, their first tour of Russia. 2 hours, about 20 songs - they went all-out with the material, songs from everything they've ever recorded, save for Sap. I'm pretty sure I've even heard "What The Hell Have I" in the middle there. Truly great performance, and the band showed absolutely no signs of sloppiness or fatigue throughout the whole thing. The lightning kept changing to match the album the song being played at the moment is from, a cool touch. Also, finally checked off my lifelong dream of jumping to the tune of "Again" in concert. The crowd was absolutely stoked from the very beginning and went absolutely wild at "Man In The Box", naturally. At the end of the show the band were throwing picks and drumsticks into the crowd - except for Mike Inez, who was happily eating a banana in the back.

Edited by Small_Mess on Jun 23rd 2019 at 3:59:59 AM

I attended two virtual The Doubleclicks shows in the past week, notably that's two more times than I've been to actual Doubleclicks shows. Both were set up to be slightly different experiences. One was a zoom meeting, which was cool because they could actually see and interact with audience members, and the audience could in turn see each other. The other was a youtube livestream where the audience could only interact in the chat, but it was more of a combination concert and comedy show with virtual guests, with the Doubleclicks acting as hosts and giving said guests challenges (my favorite challenge was "find a book in your house you've never actually read, then give a book report based on the title and cover"). Because the two members weren't actually in the same place at the same time, they weren't always playing together - I think it was the first show where I particularly noticed a lot of songs where Laser performs solo and Aubrey interpretive dances or vice versa, not that that isn't also fun.

Anyone else who thinks certain songs sound better played live than their studio versions?

I personally prefer this live version of "Tusk" by Fleetwood Mac than the original.

Primus with Black Mountain as an opener. Even as old as Primus is, they can still be a really crazy and wacky live act. But it was also during the time they covered all of A Farewell to Kings. Good on them but also even me and my dad didn’t stick around for it. Their original work (and surprisingly some of their recent work like Conspiranoia) are actually solid live. Black Mountain were also a great opener with their fuzzy appeal. They’re kinda like a psychedelic 70s band that time forgot.