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Author Topic: Concert Impressions  (Read 9413 times)

Garcin

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Concert Impressions
« on: 05 Sep 2005, 13:28 »

Thought it might be nice to have a live thread for people to leave impressions re: concerts they recently attended -- not only the performance, but also the crowd, the venue, etc.

Just saw Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at Horshoe Tavern in Toronto.  Great performance, lots of energy & enthusiasm, which is unexpected because the band seems relaxed to an extreme point.  I like Alec Ounsworth's voice although for the life of me, I can't articulate why.  Seems to follow two rules: don't enunciate too much, and sound vaguely British.  Anyway, it works for me, and it worked for the crowd too, since everyone was pretty into it despite the fact that the crowd seemed to be made up largely of soused scenesters.  

In short, great concert, although the venue is a schizoid combination of tiny floor with tables (and table service!) behind it on the right side -- so most of the crowd gets funnelled to the left.  One of those venues where it makes sense to take a spot near the stage after the last opener & stay there, since it must really suck to be at the back.

Also, my brother says he saw no less than three BSS members there, which I can neither confirm or deny since I have no idea what they look like.  Kind of makes sense though -- I mean what else is there to do in Toronto on a Saturday night.
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Gryff

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Concert Impressions
« Reply #1 on: 05 Sep 2005, 14:03 »

Just saw David Kilgour on the weekend in a dive bar in Christchurch called the Media Club. This venue is like a rundown working men's club complete with poker machines and sports on a tiny-ass television. the guy who owns it obviously has no clue about any of the music that gets played there... It's pretty cool.

Kilgour was touring his new album Frozen Orange which I heartily recommend to all you Clean and Yo La Tengo fans if you haven't heard it already.

The crowd was pretty small but the music was amazing. Chilled out, country freckled pop songs in that anasuming Kilgour way. A good time, basically.

TheSmirkster

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Concert Impressions
« Reply #2 on: 05 Sep 2005, 17:18 »

It's been a while, but I saw Reel Big Fish and Catch22 a while back at the Fillmore in Frisco.  It was a pretty awesome show, Catch22 was rocking like no other, and Reel Big Fish seemed to play forever, which I had no problems with, especially since they played mostly older stuff.  And who can beat the stink of sweaty ska kids?

This last weekend I went to a really shitty show, and left halfway through the first band.  They were this Metallica cover band.  And the lead singer, was basically talking, talking Metallica, it was so fucking lame.  I left the parking lot backwards in udder disgust.
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Borondir

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Concert Impressions
« Reply #3 on: 05 Sep 2005, 22:32 »

I went to a show in the Student Union last night, the headliner was Allister, but one of the opening bands was a fun 80's style hard rock band. I stayed for most of their set before I left. They had a lot of energy and were really fun to watch, but the crowd was quite tame. There was probably only 40 people there for their set, and most stood with arms folded, though they did cheer at the end of each song. the venue was simply a stage set up in the end of the great hall, which was sort of an indifferent place for a show, not too bad, not too great. I left because I hate pop punk and had better things to do like hang out with the person I went with.
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La Creme

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Concert Impressions
« Reply #4 on: 05 Sep 2005, 23:33 »

Last Sunday, I went to Reggaenight at the Hollywood Bowl. While 2 of the acts (Culture, Israel Vibrations) were pretty generic roots reggae (that means still pretty  awesome), and one act was total shit* (Maxi Priest), The second band up was one of my favorite ska bands, Hepcat. I expected a good show out of them. What I got was a FUCKING AMAZING SHOW. They have a ton of energy, three amazing singers, a great horns section, solid rhythm, great songs, and a great live vibe. They played just over an hour of some of the best ska and rock-steady I have ever heard ever.

If you get a chance to see Hepcat, do not pass it up. Even if you're not big into ska. It's an amazing show.


* But his guitar player (also sometimes plays with Fishbone) was totally fucking roof-off-blowing incredible. RAWK!
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Merkava

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Re: Concert Impressions
« Reply #5 on: 06 Sep 2005, 15:17 »

Quote from: Moiche
Thought it might be nice to have a live thread for people to leave impressions re: concerts they recently attended -- not only the performance, but also the crowd, the venue, etc.

Just saw Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at Horshoe Tavern in Toronto.  Great performance, lots of energy & enthusiasm, which is unexpected because the band seems relaxed to an extreme point.  I like Alec Ounsworth's voice although for the life of me, I can't articulate why.  Seems to follow two rules: don't enunciate too much, and sound vaguely British.  Anyway, it works for me, and it worked for the crowd too, since everyone was pretty into it despite the fact that the crowd seemed to be made up largely of soused scenesters.  



I bet their performances are awesome. I just got into them recently, and I've gotta say, they're awesome. Their lead singer sounds a lot like Kid A-era Thom Yorke in a few of their songs. :P
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Garcin

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Concert Impressions
« Reply #6 on: 06 Sep 2005, 16:05 »

Definitely.  I said they were relaxed, but I'm talking about the gangly, garage-y guitar lines, and the hoarse melodic vocal style.  At the same time, they're incredibly intense -- I mean Ounseworth was sweating all over the freakin' stage.  And the crowd was totally sucked in, like in a trance at some parts (aside from hoarse shouts of "house numbers!" from one guy).  It was one of those performances where you don't notice time pass or transitions from song to song so much -- basically I remember sort of dancing in place and next thing I knew, we were clapping for the encore.

So awesome post-rock + completely genuine unpretentious stage presence = the win.  Also their metacritic scores are completely ridiculous -- not that should mean anything to anyone.  ;)  A lot of people right now seem to think that they have a good chance of being the next big thing .
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blooflame

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Please add to your posts..
« Reply #7 on: 06 Sep 2005, 17:44 »

Please add the URL for the band's website; any other pointers to upcoming shows. This will help us find the band(s) and the band(s) to find us as fans.
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Kid Amnesiac

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Concert Impressions
« Reply #8 on: 25 Sep 2005, 05:33 »

09/23/05
M83/Mates of State/The Double


I got to the venue a bit before the doors opened, and there was already a long line to get in. I was towards the middle of the line and all of a sudden a second door opens and a guy takes my ticket and lets me in. First in the venue. Word up.

The Double. God damn these guys blew some smelly ass. Here's my summary of how The Double came to be:

Guy 1: Hey guys, check this shit out. If you combine these two pedals at the same time I don't even have to play the guitar to get weird noises out of it!
Guy 2: That's fucking nice, man. Check this out, you know how I can't sing worth shit, right?
Guy 1: Yeah, bro.
Guy 2: Well check this shit out. *turns on echo mic* Now I sound like Paul Banks at the bottom of a well.
Guy 1: Whoa! That rules. Hey man we need a drummer. My cousin's a bit "special" in the head, but he can hit shit pretty hard. He'll do the job.
Guy 2: Word. All we need now is a keyboardist. The guy at the guitar shop is always fucking around with these keyboards that are so fucking loud that they make you wanna cry. He'll do well.
Guy 1: Sounds like we have a fucking band.
Guy 2: I love sucking dick.

So yeah. The Double blows.

If there was one thing that was prevalent throughout the Mates of States' set, it was this; they're adorable. Kori Gardner's organ playing could bring upon peace on Earth. Jason Hammel's banter in between songs was funny and kept the mood light and fun. Together they blasted through old and new songs alike. According to them their new album should be out by the Spring. For only having two people on stage they brought some serious noise and energy. I'm suprised they played such a great set of music even after they had played a set earlier that day at the festival. Fans sang along and danced to pretty much every song. It was a sweaty mess of joy and jubilation.

Last came M83. I was curious to see how they were going to play their music using live instruments. Gonzales and co stepped on stage to intro of "Moonchild", and then they broke into "*". The live instruments only added more volume and power to the already lush sounds of the songs. Gonzales kept switching back and forth from his keyboard to his guitar for different songs. The setlist covered all of their releases. With highlights like, "Run Into Flowers", "America", "Gone", "Teen Angst", "Car Chase Terror" and an incredible rendition of "Don't Save Us from the Flames". They played for nearly an hour took an exit and came back to do a nearly ten minute version of "Lower Your Eyelids to Die With the Sun". Gonzales thanked the crowd for coming out and they made their way out. I stuck around for a bit and had a couple of my CD covers signed by Gonzales and talked to him for a while. All in all, it was a great night.

----------------------------------------------

09/24/05
Built to Spill/Decemberists/Sons and Daughters


This was my first time seeing a show at this particular venue. It holds about 1200 people and I was expecting some sort of barrier separating the crowd from the stage, but it there was none to be found. Since me and my friend got there a bit early we secured our spots leaning on the stage.

Sons and Daughters were already on stage setting up the last of their instruments. They checked a couple of guitars and their mandolin and they went off stage only to return and make a proper entrance not five minutes later. They played songs from both the Love the Cup EP and The Repulsion Box. "Johnny Cash" was a crowd favorite, along with a lot of their newer songs which had a few people flailing their arms. This was the start of what would be a very familiar trend with every band: everyone loves Lone Star Beer. Sons and Daughters played for about a over half an hour and they made their exits to much applause.

Next up were The Decemberists. If this band does one thing incredibly well, it's their theatrics. With the lights dimmed to a low, dark purple, and the only sound over the PA a long drone of electronic fuzz, each band member approached the stage. Chris Funk lead the group while playing a small gong in hand. The rest of the band took their respective places, with Jenny Conlee on accordion and Nate on upright bass they started their set with "Shanty for the Arethusa". What followed was a mix of mostly older songs with some Picaresque favorites thrown in. After "Shanty.." was done, Colin started his signature banter and asked the crowd to show some collective love and cheer. To jumpstart the lovefest he grabbed his guitar and led the crowd on a miniature Decemberists version of Oasis' "Champagne Supernova". This will undoubtedly be the only time it'll be cool to sing an Oasis song in public. Virtually everyone in the crowd knew ever word, which I'm sure terrified as much as it pleased Colin. Audience participation was the center of almost every song played. For "The Legionnaire's Lament", Chris Funk and Ezra Holbrook fled from the stage and ran straight first into the center of the audience holding over sized drums and wearing long black wizard-like beards. From where I was standing I couldn't see much of what was going on, but I'm pretty sure those drums were getting beat by everyone around them. Towards the end "A Cautionary Song", Meloy and Funk started an entertaining guitar duel which had both members leaning into the crowd and having random people play their guitars so that the other would do the same. The real highlight of the set came for the closer "The Chimbley Sweep". While starting the song regularly enough, Meloy then kept slowing the song down to snail's pace, and then dropped to his knees and pleaded with the audience to do the same. One by one (myself included) each person kneeld or sat down on the floor to the slow strum of guitars and faint violin melodies. Seeing a room of over a thousand people drop to the floor in unison and then have them all jump back up for the climactic close was worth the admission alone. The applause was tremedous, and with that the band took their leave.

After over 20 minutes of setting up their equipment, Built to Spill were ready to jam the hell out of everyone, and by that I mean they permanently damaged my hearing. The first couple of songs were good, but were plagued with bad sound levels. After some much needed tweaking, the band found their rythm and blew through over an hour of old and soon to be favorites. "Distopian Dream Girl", Center of the Universe", "Kicked It In the Sun" were all immediate crowd pleasers. Songs from their new album all sounded great and had a great rock feel to them. Doug didn't say much before or after each song, but what he lacked in speech he certainly made up for in his songs. After over an hour of deafening music, Doug said goodbye and left the stage along with the rest of the band. After a couple of minutes, everyone came back to play one more song. Just a few notes in and everyone knew what song it was, the band played a cover of "While My Guitar Gently Weeps". It's safe to say that pretty much every single person went completely ape shit crazy. After the song was done, the band said their final goodbyes and left the stage. Fin.

I know for a fact that out of every ACL after show, this was the one that everyone was most excited for, and for good reason. Three sets of music, and a seemingly perpetual ringing in my ear later, the night was over, and finding myself one setlist richer, I left the venue with a smile on my face that I still can't get rid of.
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elcapitan

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Concert Impressions
« Reply #9 on: 25 Sep 2005, 06:00 »

I went to see Roots Manuva at the ANU bar last night. He was, in short, awesome.

My mate and I got there in time to catch the tail end of DJ Danielsan and Hermitude's warm-up set. It got the crowd in the mood rather nicely - Danielsan impressed me a lot supporting Mixmaster Mike, and this was another high-calibre effort by the sounds of it. A few of us adjourned outside for a quick meeting of the Joint Committee, then came back inside to grab beers and get settled. After a fairly long setup time, Mr. Smith came onstage with his band, dressed up and looking content to be there. After a quick spiel about a spaceship(?), he launched into Join The Dots, which I'd not expected to hear. The lower end of the sound felt a bit unbalanced, a problem which persisted through the rest of the evening, but apart from that the ambience was golden.

Over the span of the show I worked my way down towards the front, just in time to get stuck into the big-beat jump-around classic Witness (1 Hope), which the crowd got right into. After a lovely rendition of Dreamy Days (with the crowd providing out-of-tune vocal support), Rodney made some poor excuse about ending on a good note and exited stage right with the band. Fade to black, punctuated with the crowd demanding more. So Mr. Manuva came back on stage by himself, and allowed that he might have a few more songs left in him. And a few more songs we got, including a feisty version of Rebel Heart.

Anyway, all in all an excellent show - easily the best live gig I've seen in the last two years, and possibly ever. Highly recommended to anyone who enjoys hip-hop.
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Martin

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Concert Impressions
« Reply #10 on: 25 Sep 2005, 06:27 »

This monday I saw Opeth at a venue in Oslo. I had to sit on a bus for 9 hours to get there, but it was an extreme concert. The crowd was stupid, but the music was awesome. Just too bad they played The Grand Conjuration from Ghost Reveries. It is the most horrible thing yet from the Opethcamp.

One of mye favouritegigs to this day was Funeral Diner live in my hometown in june. They played with Pray! it Works and Catena Collapse which is both local bands, and great bands and people as well. The whole evening was just so positive. A lot of enegry from all bands, beauty, brutality, melancholy and melody.
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ramenXnoodles

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Concert Impressions
« Reply #11 on: 25 Sep 2005, 08:23 »

Yesterday I went to Austin City Limits Festival and saw Built to Spill (so much better on record, what a total fucking letdown), Bloc Party (EXTREMELY energetic and fun, compelled me to buy Silent Alarm which I did and got it signed), Oasis (A totally fucking awesome live band, way better live, played Champagne Supernova which was awesome, Liam Ghallager is a fucking prick), and I heard some of Death Cab for Cutie and Jet. It was fucking hot, everyone was smoking pot (I seriously felt like I was kind of getting high on secondhand smoke) and was really fun. There was a SBC booth thing and I got 30 free dollars to Movielink.
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Switchblade

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Concert Impressions
« Reply #12 on: 25 Sep 2005, 08:29 »

Student Union gig last night: Jesse James supported by "Get Cape. Wear Cape. Fly."

I loved it, and so did about half the crowd (the ones on the dance floor, in front of the stage, having a really great time.) the other half just hung at the back and looked like they had better things to do.

The JJ set was really noisy and active - lots of skanking and the like going on, loads of fun, really noisy and energetic. GCWCF's set was WAY more indie - just a load of people standing at the front of the room, arms folded, looking at the stage, nodding gently in time with the music. He got some massive cheers, though.
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saturnine1979

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Concert Impressions
« Reply #13 on: 25 Sep 2005, 10:48 »

Two weeks ago:
Of Montreal - Charlottesville, VA
Nice, small venue (The Satellite Ballroom), so people were packed in hella tight. Of Montreal was absolutely incredible live. Songs like "Oslo In The Summertime" HAVE to be heard live, because they take the energy in the songs and multiply exponentially. The band did all kinds of funny choreography in the middle of songs, and singer Kevin Barnes danced around stage with the darn cutest giddy happiness.

Needless to say, I did not stop dancing. Of Montreal gives 110% and you feel absolutely compelled to give it right back to em.

Last Friday:
Sufjan Stevens - Nashville, TN
If Of Montreal physically moved me in awesome ways, Sufjan was the opposite of that, moving me completely emotionally. Sufjan and the 'Noise Makers pretty much performed most of Illinois in random order, throwing in cheers in between the songs. The venue was incredible; the sound was absolutely perfect for the show. The band came out for encore and did "All The Trees Of The Field Will Clap Their Hands" from Seven Swans, and then left for good.

The drummer, keyboardist, and one of the guitarists/singers came out afterwards and talked to some fans, but, alas, no Sufjan.
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