Just saw three shows three nights in a row, the first two at SMOG, a garage here on campus, the last one in the campus center multi-purpose room.
Saturday:
Xiu Xiu with Thao Nguyen and Symbol:
What a let-down! I've seen Xiu Xiu and Thao live a couple of times in the past and they shows were fantastic. For some reason, something was seriously wrong when I saw them. I think whoever was doing sound must have been stoned or drunk or something since I've never heard worse sound mixing in my life. Thao, a singer/songwriter with a backing band, was a mess. Although the band rocked out and were really high energy, Thao's voice was totally overwhelmed by the instruments and her acoustic guitar was barely audible. Eventually she got frustrated and plugged it into the guitar amp which kinda killed the acoustic quality of it. There was a lot of energy in the performance and the crowd was really into it anyway but the music itself was disapointing. Fucking sound guy.
Xiu Xiu had the exact same problems and then some. The venue is fairly tiny so it got extremely crowded. Like, 'wow I can't move' crowded. The crowd was extremely noisy so during lulls in songs, voices almost drowned out Jamie Stewart's vocals which, again, were barely audible to begin with. The band was trying but the crowd was just not getting into it and everything sounded fairly terrible overall. The keyboard has a list of 12 songs and settings for each song on it, which I would presume was a playlist, but the band only did six songs before ending the set. A serious let down, especially since they've been awesome in the past. Fucking sound guy.
Symbol was a ambient/drone/noise improv band which I rather loved but I think most people couldn't get into it. They sounded a bit like Tarentel which endeared them to more. A rather longish, continuous set. Probably the best part about the show, to be honest.
Sunday:
An Albatross with Apes
Well this show was so fucking bad-ass that it more than made up for Saturday. Apes were absolutely killer, putting on one of the most energetic and enjoyable live sets I've had the pleasure to see. Awesome, vaguely industrialish, super energetic rock with guitar, lots of awesome keyboard and a fucking awesome drummer who played drums probably harder than anyone I've seen. The lead singer was amazing. He had a great, unique voice and tons of energy, coming off the stage and into the audience to dance and sing like a madman. This set was tons of fun and it alone would have made the show more than worthwhile.
An Albatross were brilliant. They blew me away. I think my ears are still ringing from all the rocking the fuck out they did. Seriously intense hardcore electro-y rock god amazingness. The lead singer had perhaps the best stage presence I've seen in a long while, the instrumentals (drums, guitar, bass, keyboards) were fantastic, the entire set was almost non-stop and unrelentingly intense. So much fun. They drove a car into the venue (it's a garage so it works) and even played on and in the car. Overall a killer stage presence and a really amazing sound. Truly awesome.
Monday:
Crystal Castles with Health
I miss Health. I heard they were good.
Crystal Castles was fairly boring. They used a strobe light for the entire show which was kinda annoying. They weren't bad but I think the most I can say is that they were sorta fun and inoffensive. Basically they make kinda average 90s-ish dance/club music. They had a singer, keyboardist and live drummer, the last of which was pretty superfluous. If they wanted a live instrument, they should have had a drum machine play the repetitious drum parts and used a real bassist in lieu of the keyboard bass, which sounded kinda weak. It wasn't a bad show and I guess I had fun but it was pretty clean and mediocre.