I’d much rather have a caravan in the hills…
By Brian | May 3, 2008
…than a mansion in the slums. So sang Neil Finn & Co., as the reconstituted Crowded House swept in to perform a sold out show at the 9:30 Club. Having seen them in Philadelphia in August of last year, I expected a lively if not exceptional show. The Crowdies didn’t exceed my expectations; they utterly destroyed them with a nearly 2.5 hour set that can only be described as epic.
Reprising the classic quartet lineup of their later years,the band featured Finn on vocals and lead guitar; original member Nick Seymour on bass; multi-instrumentalist and longtime member Mark Hart; and new drummer Matt Sherrod replacing the late Paul Hester.
Always known for their colorful and earthy sets, the audience was greeted by a backdrop featuring depictions of the band, including a ghostly figure that could only be representative of Hester, in various types of family and candid photos. Arriving too late to hear the opener, my concert buddy Jen and I wound our way near the front of the crowd (and in close proximity to the bar) just prior to the band taking the stage.
Kicking off the set with fan favorites Everything is Good for You and World Where You Live, the band set the tone for a night focused more on classic CH tunes and new compositions than on last year’s Time on Earth. Preparing to record their sixth album, Neil announced that the band would be trying out some new songs on the audience. With a few exceptions, including the lovely but elegiac English Trees as a tribute to Hester, Crowded House steered clear of the tracks from Time on Earth, which was recorded largely with studio musicians.
Also woven into the set were classic numbers like the dreamy Distant Sun, a breathy rendition of Whispers & Moans, a soaring version of Anyone Can Tell, and an extended crowd singalong of Weather With You to close out the first set. The first encore was a study in contrasts, with Something So Strong from their eponymous debut bookended by Private Universe and Locked Out from Together Alone. The second, extended encore featured an improvised song about Washington, DC, and its monuments, and the classic Temple of Low Men tune Mansion in the Slums, which Neil admitted he probably hadn’t sung in 20 years. It was a pleasure to see the band dust off tracks from their second album. Temple, which was initially regarded as a letdown from their debut has, over time, come to be appreciated as the vastly underrated pop gem it was.
This retooled Crowded House may be better than their initial incarnation. It’s great to see Mark Hart back in the fold. He provides the band with a depth and musicality they otherwise didn’t have as a trio. And I simply cannot describe the impact new drummer Matt Sherrod has had in revitalizing the band. I know I’m treading into dangerous territory, as Hester is sorely missed by the legions of Frenz worldwide (including me). All I can do is simply state the truth - Paul is gone, God rest his soul. The band couldn’t have picked a better musician to carry on in his stead. Sherrod brings both a muscularity and a subtlety that meshes well with Seymour’s funky bass lines.
Without saying, this was simply an astonishing show.
Topics: These Go to 11 | 2 Comments »
I love the whole world!
By Brian | April 29, 2008
Topics: Go Out Front and Applaud Yourself | 1 Comment »
We Love You, Synthesizer Girl!, and The Blood of Virgin Children
By Brian | April 19, 2008
Monday saw the return of my favorite Canadian collective (sorry, Broken Social Scene) to the 9:30 Club. The lineup for the first of their two sold out shows was only 75% as pr0nographic as normal, with Neko Case sidelined with a mysterious “illness” and Dan Bejar touring elsewhere with his band Destroyer. The unexpected lineup change forced a rejiggering of the setlist, with the result being a set that focused more on older Pornographers tunes and less on the songs on which Neko sings lead. The band delivered a solid, if unexceptional, set, showcasing the other voices in the band due to Neko’s absence. Kathryn Calder, as always, did a splendid job on keyboards and filling in vocally, leading to an unintentionally hilarious moment when an overly excited audience member called out the first part of this post’s title. C’mon dude, if you’re going to scream “I love you” to a rock star, at least know her name.
Last night I attended the Music Inspires Health event held at GW’s Lisner Auditorium. I really had no idea what I was attending, given that I was there solely to see Ingrid Michaelson (currently #3 on UnQ’s list of Female Rawk Singers for Whom I’d Be An Unapologetic Groupie). Music Inspires Health is a non-profit started by a med student at Emory to promote health initiatives through music. The tour is sponsored by Kaiser Permanente, a company not known for being exactly a good corporate or social citizen. In addition, the squirm-inducing Afterschool Special-style movies on health topics between the performers made for what was at times an odd and slightly off-kilter evening.
The first opening act was April Smith, a firecracker of a singer from Brooklyn. Equal parts Texas two-step, jug band, and April’s booming voice, she was a lively surprise to me. Ms. Smith took the underlying reason for the show strongly to heart, espousing her advocacy on the importance of not smoking in a heavy-handed, Bono-like fashion.
Next up was Ari Hest, who for some inexplicable reason reminds me of Oded Fehr. He was well known to the audience, causing Ari to remark that if he stayed on stage long enough the audience would request every song in his catalog. Hest was an even bigger surprise than Ms. Smith, combining the folkie sensibility and soaring falsetto of Jeff Buckley with the burnished baritone of Richard Thompson. Hest, who left his record label last year, has decided to eschew the traditional record-industry paragidm and is releasing a new song through his web site every week for a year.
Finally, Ingrid Michaelson took the stage, leading the audience in a singalong to the theme song of Fresh Price of Bel Air while the techs worked out an issue with one of the band’s guitars. More fluid and funkier than her record would indicate, Ingrid did not disappoint. Her stage presence, surprisingly verbose and consisting of stream of consciousness utterings, was unassuming and often unintentionally funny. A case of the giggles almost threated to derail the whole set, but Ingrid soldiered on through a couple of false starts and through singing the wrong lyrics on The Way I Am (despite her assertion that she’s sung the song 573 times by now). Her set closing cover of Can’t Help Falling in Love was a breath of fresh air for a song that has been gratuitously covered.
Both Ingrid and Ari veered in the other direction as April, choosing to go the suggestive or humorous rather than preachy route regarding health issues. Ingrid incorporated the issue as a running gag throughout her set, suggesting that the dark secret of her good health was the blood of children. She opened up a bit about her own life, and how she occasionally made bad choices regarding the people with whom she associated because of her desire to “save” people. She took an earnest, rather than preachy, approach to educating the audience, realizing that her words would likely have little effect on those who would engage in risky behaviors.
Topics: These Go to 11 | No Comments »
Best. News. Story. Ever.
By Brian | April 6, 2008
http://www.sltrib.com/news/ci_8827758
Zombies? Salt Lake City? The story is worth reading for this sentence alone, “Then he got specific and all reason helicoptered into the ether“.
Topics: Red Sea Pedestrian, The Strength of Many | No Comments »
Eternal Sunshine of the Stars…
By Brian | April 5, 2008
Topics: These Go to 11 | No Comments »
The second coming of Jeff Mangum? No, it’s Beirut!
By Brian | March 21, 2008
Topics: These Go to 11 | No Comments »
Won’t You Wear a Sweater?
By Brian | March 20, 2008
Topics: Go Out Front and Applaud Yourself | No Comments »
I can see what’s coming…
By Brian | March 20, 2008
…but I’m not saying it.
Montreal (by way of New York by way of Toronto) rockers Stars draped Baltimore’s Sonar with their lush and melodramatic brand of pop rock on Wednesday evening.
Stars mine the fruitful territory between visceral and grandiloquent. Vocalists Torquil Campbell and Amy Millan draw you into their dark and romanticized little world with a gut-twisting urgency that makes the Postal Service, and their acknowledged debt to the Human League, seem pale by comparison. This band seduces the audience, eliciting the feeling that you are both observer and participant in their tales of relationship woe. Their songs, while gray and occasionally post-apocalyptic, are too gorgeous to be grim or even apologetic. During Your Ex-Lover is Dead, Campbell and Millan sing, “I’m not sorry I met you/I’m not sorry it’s over/I’m not sorry there’s nothing to save” during the song’s coda while the instrumentation conveys the words’ furiously submerged underlying emotions in a way the vocalists cannot.
Rounding out the band are: keyboardist and founding member Chris Seligman, who looks strangely like he could be a regular bloke plucked from the crowd to live his dream of playing with his favorite band; drummer Patrick McGee, he of always interesting coiffure; and bassist Evan Cranley who, along with Amy Millan, was the unintended recipient of stage flowers that McGee kept trying to toss into the audience.
If you’re even a middling fan of the band or one of its song, you should go and see them in concert. And if you’re not a middling fan, but pine wistfully for the artfully arranged sounds of smart 80s pop, this is a band for you. Their recordings simply don’t capture the live feel of the songs, of Torquil Campbell standing on a monitor and furiously blowing on a trumpet, of Amy Millan singing like it just might be the very last night on Earth. This is the sort of music that can induce people to do incredibly crazy or romantic or stupid things, depending upon your perspective.
Photo # 1 courtesy of Autumn De Wilde and NPR. Photo # 2 courtesy of my camera phone.
Topics: These Go to 11 | No Comments »
It goes on forever. My God…it’s full of stars!
By Brian | March 18, 2008
Requiescat in pace, Arthur C. Clarke.
Topics: Inspired By Madness | No Comments »
Putting the homa in Oklahoma?
By Brian | March 16, 2008
By now, I’m sure many of you are aware of the comments made by Oklahoma state representative Sally Kern, who stated that it was a matter of fact that the “homosexual agenda was destroying the nation”, and that homosexuals were more dangerous than terrorism or Islam. I think we could aruge about whether or not homosexuals are more dangerous than war hawk Republicans who continue to fun this unsustainable level of military investment while our economic systems fail, domino-like, because of the laissez fare regulatory oversight of our financial institutions, but that’s a topic for another post. When does it become acceptable to spew hate like this? It’s one thing to say that you don’t agree with the homosexual agenda, but another thing entirely to demonize two disparate demographics - homosexuals and Muslims - in this manner.
If that weren’t bad enough, The Oklahoman published this nonsense about how the evil liberals are suffering from a sense of “selective outrage”. In the editorial, the writer conflates Keith Olbermann’s comments about how Rupert Murdoch hurt America more than al Qaida with the hate speech spewed by Representative Kern. Obviously, the editorialist missed some of those classes on logic and rhetoric. Olbermann was criticizing Murdoch, inarguably a public figure, for foisting his spurious-right-wing-propaganda-machine-masquerading-as-a-news-network on America. In the larger scheme of things, Fox News probably does more harm than al Qaida just by virtue of its reach, filling the soft-headed with hawkish drivel while ignoring larger social issues such as the middle class in America enjoying a lower standard of living than their parents, a symptom of the accelerating consolidation of the nation’s wealth into the hands of a few individuals and corporate and educational institutions. Olbermann didn’t villainize a whole segment of society, of private individuals who only seek the same levels of protection in their relationships as those enjoyed by heterosexuals. Rupert Murdoch likely has a security contingent that could knock over most third-world, banana republic dictators in at least as efficient a manner as the U.S. military. The blood of anyone who’s harmed as a result of troglodytes taking these hateful words to heart and placing a beatdown on a gay (or suspected gay) person will be on Representative Kern’s hands.
Kudos to Science Blogs for publishing this great letter from a high school student and child of a victim of the Oklahoma City bombing.
Topics: Red Sea Pedestrian, The Strength of Many | No Comments »