5 posts tagged “brand new”
Well, it's over. I meant to post a recap of who I saw on Saturday yesterday morning, but I got sidetracked; and I've been in bed feeling like rubbish all day today. Not sure whether Lollapalooza's to blame or some other source of lurgee, but I can at least see straight now.
So, Saturday. We got to Grant Park in time to see a snippet of Foals. I had no opinion on them either way, which is odd considering they're one of the many "saviours of rock n' roll" that get trotted out by the NME every year. I also caught a little snippet of The Gutter Twins, featuring the inimitable Mark Lanegan. I wasn't paying too much attention, but they sounded alright.
The first band proper for me was MGMT, whose weird Bowie meets dance sound was perfectly suited to the festival vibe. I really enjoyed them, and their guitarist's shredding all over 'Kids' was fantastic.
Josie went off to see DeVotchKa, who are like a Hispanic gypsy folk take on The Smiths, while Jess and I hung out waiting for Brand New to come on. We saw them live already, but in a terrible venue full of teenyboppers, so we were hoping they'd be better at a festival. Not so much. The highlight of their set was the dudes brawling a few metres away from me. It's a shame, because on CD, they're great.
At least frontman Jesse Lacey was as disappointed as us, at one point telling the crowd "You should all be watching Explosions In The Sky."
Somehow, there was a big gap for us, until we ended up watching Okkervil River while waiting for Broken Social Scene to come on. They weren't what I expected (the name conjured up rootsy blues, but they were more folky and upbeat). I liked them.
Then Broken Social Scene... Broken Social Scene were my second favourite band after Radiohead. For a band with such an inconsistent line-up, they manage to be consistently awesome, and played some of my favourites including '7/4 (Shoreline)' and 'Farewell To The Pressure Kids'... and they had Amy from Stars with them, awesome.
We caught the tail end of Toadies' set (apparently they were big in America, never heard of them... and gladly so), then sat patiently waiting for Rage Against The Machine. I had chosen them over Wilco as I don't know that I would get to see them again.
I was... kinda non-plussed. While musically, they were tight, it sounded exactly the same as the CDs. To me, part of the appeal of seeing a band live is seeing how they mess with their arrangements. Add to that the fact they *kept* stopping so Zach could lecture the moshpit, and it wasn't all that entertaining. A massive shame. I wish I had seen Wilco now.
Sunday was the least action packed of the three days, reflected by the fact we were able to head down so late (not helped by The Weakerthans pulling out).
As we arrived, we could hear Iron & Wine and decided against them as they would be a bit of a Debbie Downer. So, our first act of the day was the brilliant Saul Williams. The girls weren't fans, but he did put on an energetic performance.
We caught snippets of Blues Traveller and Love & Rockets, but the next band proper was The National. Having seen them in the colossal United Center supporting REM, I wanted to see if their sound fared better in a relatively smaller environment... and I am pleased to say it did. I love them.
After they left the stage, the girls went over to catch the start of Kanye West's set while I watched Nine Inch Nails. I'd seen them before and really enjoyed them, but for some reason, the magic just wasn't there this time around... I think mostly because they decided to kill the mood a short way into their set by playing some of the instrumental pieces from Ghosts I-IV... which, while great to listen to when you're chilling out, is not really much fun when you're stood in a field.
They did play an awful lot of material from The Downward Spiral, though, which sort of made up for it. Especially 'Closer'.
Overall, it really was a good weekend, marred only - really - by feeling horribly ill today.
It's hard to believe that it's already August, and odd that I'm attending my second Lollapalooza since moving here. Crazy!
Yesterday, after an oddly productive morning at work, I left the office to meet Jess for lunch then headed to meet our friend Josie. She's in town to join in with the shenanigans.
When we dropped her stuff off and endured the slow buses down to the festival grounds, we had missed the first few songs by Gogol Bordello, the band she wanted to see. Their music wasn't really my thing, but their gypsy punk was at least entertaining to watch.
We started to watch Mates Of State, but live they're very difficult to endure - the already ear-damaging vocals do more damage when they're out of key - so we went to wait for Jess by the merchandise stand, hearing little snippets of what I think was Grizzly Bear, judging by the schedule.
With Jess now a part of the gang, we went on down to see Bloc Party. Last year, we bought tickets to see them but didn't think we knew them well enough to justify going. They're really great live, so naturally I regret that decision. They didn't play their best song, 'Little Thoughts', but they busted out 'Helicopter' and 'Like Eating Glass', so I was happy.
After hemming and hawing about whether to stay in place for Radiohead (who were over an hour away), we decided instead to go get food. This had the added bonus of putting us in line with the stage CSS were playing on. I feel bad that I didn't give them my full intention, they sounded tight live, and were obviously far more entertaining than the annoying-sounding Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks they were competing against.
- 15 Step
- Airbag
- There There
- All I Need
- Nude
- Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
- The Gloaming
- The National Anthem
- Faust Arp
- No Surprises
- Jigsaw Falling Into Place
- Reckoner
- Lucky
- The Bends
- Everything In Its Right Place
- Fake Plastic Trees
- Bodysnatchers
- Videotape
- Paranoid Android
- Dollar And Cents
- House of Cards
- Optimistic
- 2+2=5
- Idioteque
Highs:
- 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi'!
- The awesome radio sampling on 'The National Anthem'
- 'Idioteque' (even though we heard it from outside of the venue as we didn't want to be crushed by the rumoured 75,000 people as they left)
Lows:
- 'The Bends' was played way too slow. There are awesome guitar lines on the verse with the line "The planet is a gunboat on a sea of fear", but the build-up to them didn't work.
- We were too far to see Thom's crazy dancing, boo.
- NOTHING from Pablo Honey? Boo!
I think 'Weird Fishes/Arpeggi' is a strong contender for my favourite song of all time.
This year's Lollapalooza line-up was announced this week. Jess and I already had tickets on the strength of the rumour of Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails, meaning we paid $175/£88 instead of $205/£103. Boy, am I glad we decided to go... the line-up is pretty intense. Bolded acts are acts I love, asterisked acts are acts I would be interested in seeing.
Radiohead
Rage Against the Machine
Nine Inch Nails
Kanye West
Wilco
The Raconteurs*
Louis XIV*
Love and Rockets
Gnarls Barkley*
Bloc Party*
The Black Keys* (they played last year and I enjoyed them)
Broken Social Scene
Lupe Fiasco
Flogging Molly
Mark Ronson
Cat Power*
The National
G. Love & Special Sauce
Sharon Jones & the Dap-Kings
Explosions in the Sky*
Brand New
Gogol Bordello*
Stephen Malkmus & The Jicks*
Dierks Bentley
Okkervil River
Amadou & Mariam
Blues Traveler
John Butler Trio
Girl Talk
Your Vegas
CSS
Eli "Paperboy" Reed & the True Loves
Battles*
Steel Train
Jamie Lidell
Bang Camaro
Butch Walker
The Blakes
Mates of State
Tally Hall
Spank Rock
White Lies
Brazilian Girls
Magic Wands
Chromeo
Electric Touch
Duffy
Innerpartysystem
The Kills
The Postelles
Rogue Wave
The Parlor Mob
The Go! Team
Bald Eagle
Mason Jennings
Krista
The Gutter Twins*
Ha Ha Tonka
Yeasayer
Witchcraft
Grizzly Bear
We Go To 11
MGMT*
Sofia Talvik
The Weakerthans*
Booka Shade
Santogold
Black Kids*
Black Lips
Dr. Dog
Nicole Atkins & the Sea
The Ting Tings
Kid Sister
Office
The Cool Kids
What Made Milwaukee Famous*
Does It Offend You, Yeah?*
The Whigs
Manchester Orchestra
Foals*
Uffie
The Octopus Project
Cadence Weapon
Ferras
De Novo Dahl
Noah and the Whale
Margot & the Nuclear So and So's
K'NAAN
Serena Ryder
Newton Faulkner
I only went to V and Glastonbury in the UK, but for the past three years, Lollapalooza has far outclassed both of those... and being hosted by Chicago's gorgeous park land, it's a short bus ride from home, with decent places to eat, drink and stay nearby.
On Saturday, Jess, Josie, Josh and I went to see Brand New at the Congress Theatre. It was an... interesting night.
When we arrived, the queue of people waiting to get in snaked down the alley at the side of the venue and back out, all the way down the street. Conservative estimates put the crowd at 99% frequent patrons of Hot Topic, 1% people who through no fault of their own find catchy guitar music appealing.
I was (or at least felt like) the oldest person at the venue who was not...
a) A member of staff
b) A member of one of the bands
The Congress Theatre itself, in direct contrast to the Chicago Theatre the night before, is an absolute shithole. It was clearly once a great theatre, but now it was barely cleaner than a squat with everything in complete disrepair. The toilets had no soap, no toilet paper... heck, they barely had doors. Call me a girl, but I have basic standards of hygiene.
As for the main auditorium itself, though, it was a marked improvement over the Chicago Theatre in that you could sit on the balcony without the rapid onset of vertigo; and as old man-like as sitting at a gig is, I did not want to be stood amongst all the annoying little brats.
The first band on stage were mewithoutYou. I had seen them before, supporting Coheed & Cambria, and despite their ridiculous stage behaviour enjoyed them. On record, they are fucking great:
Sadly, they got more ridiculous since I last saw them - frontman Aaron Weiss is an unkempt, dirty meth smoking version of Michael Stipe, with all the comedy "dancing" that entails. It was unwatchable, and the muddy sound of the venue meant I could barely enjoy the musical side of it either.
The second band on stage were Thrice, another band I had seen supporting Coheed & Cambria. Their claim to fame is that they are one of the loudest bands around, and this is true... but Jess and Josie both surmised that the volume is to mask how fucking bland their music is. I don't know how you'd describe their sound without using the E word... well, other than "OH BROOOOOOTHER!".
The title of this post is actually inspired by Thrice. You see, they have a forthcoming album that is split between two sides. Fire is their usual fare - loud guitars with emo vocals, but Water (in predictable "guitar band experiments with their sound" shocker), features keyboards, drum machines and vocoders. And to really drive this point home, when playing songs from Fire, the lights were all reds and oranges; and when playing from Water, the lights were all bue and white. How clever!
For some reason, they were on stage for around an hour or so. About 59 minutes and 59 seconds too long.
Finally, a few beers worse for wear and utterly bored by Thrice, Brand New came on stage. Unlike the three Js, I am not a massive fan of Brand New, owning only one album. I actually enjoyed them a lot, especially when they played the two songs I like most by them - 'Millstone' and 'Sic Transit Gloria... Glory Fades' (named after a quote from Rushmore, one of my favourite movies):
Naturally, being the headliner, they felt they had to out-ridiculous the first two bands, and they managed this with aplomb.
First, there was the setup. There were two drumkits on stage (the second played on a handful of songs by a roadie), as well as a giant bass drum that their lead guitarist hit about five times on one song. Then on a couple of songs they had two people playing bass at once. On further songs, there were multiple guitarists. I believe on one song, they had two drummers, four guitarists and a bassist... or three guitarists and two bassists. It sounded great and all, but for the most part, their core four members could have coped just fine on their own.
Then there was the liberal use of a device Jess and I saw on stage only the night before - the sampler. Their idea of an encore was for the lead guitarist to come out and record a few phrases into the sampler, the singer/guitarist to add a couple more, then for them all to play over the top of it before shuffling off stage again. I mean, it sounded cool, but they dragged it out longer than necessary, and the three Js were still waiting for them to play material from their first album.
Overall, it wasn't a terrible night, but it certainly didn't compare to the genius of Andrew Bird the night before.
After seeing Rilo Kiley last Saturday, Jess and I have a busy few weeks ahead for gigs. We are (* hopefully) seeing...
* 24 September: Fionn Regan @ Lakeshore Theatre
27 September: Beastie Boys @ Riviera Theatre
16 October: Jonah Matranga @ Schuba's
19 October: Bright Eyes @ Chicago Theatre
20 October: Brand New @ Congress Theatre
2 November: Stars @ Vic Theatre
- The End Of History by Fionn Regan
- Ill Communication by Beastie Boys
- Sketchy EP #1 by Onelinedrawing (one of Jonah's pseudonyms)
- I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning by Bright Eyes
- The Devil And Got Are Raging Inside Me by Brand New
- Set Yourself On Fire by Stars
