About two weeks about, Open Bar and I went to see Arcade Fire in concert at Madison Square Garden. Were I not on blog vacation (industry jargon, YP, MP) I may have blogged about it in a more timely fashion.
The preamble is that only the two of us went, but we also invited Side Bar who had mentioned that he was developing an interest in Arcade Fire in previous goings on. But he didn't want to go. If he had gone and we could have bought the tickets on his AmEx card, then we would have had floor seats. Instead we were in the nosebleeds, but actually they were pretty good seats. Long and uninteresting to tell that whole story, but that's the bulk of it.
Anyhow, the concert was super fantastic awesome. It started with Owen Pallett, the dude who arranges the strings for Arcade Fire. He does this thing where he loops violin parts and plays more violin on top of it and the resulting sound is really pretty. I have his two albums and they are good. His one album, "Has a Good Home" is actually in constant rotation on my iPod. Except one dude playing one violin in a half empty arena doesn't exactly translate to a rockin' performance. I thought it was interesting, however. During that time, Open Bar went to watch the Mets game.
After that dude came Spoon. Open Bar said he recognized one of their songs from the radio, but I didn't recognize it. Their set started with a bunch of people on stage, most notably a horn section and the first couple songs rocked. Then the horn section left and I didn't enjoy the middle part as much. Then the horns came back and I enjoyed it again. They were actually pretty good overall, but I liked the horns.
Spoon didn't go off stage until like 9:45 and I lamented to Open Bar that Arcade Fire wouldn't go on until 10:15 and wouldn't finish until like 1:00 and I wouldn't get home until like 2:00 or 2:30. He seemed to think they would finish before 12:30, but I wasn't feeling that.
So, as predicted Arcade Fire comes on at 10:15. They fucking rocked it out. The second best part about watching an Arcade Fire concert is that they rock the shit out of a song and they all jump around and put tons of energy into it and you can't help but reciprocate that energy. The single best part, however, is that as soon as each song is finished, all of them (and there are like 12 of them) put down their instruments and run around and pick up new instruments to play the next song. Regine, also known as the little tiny girl in the shiny dress, ran from one side of the stage to the other in between every song. She played at least 6 instruments during the concert and also sang. They played a bunch of songs everyone knows and some songs from their new album, which had come out just the day before. (Awesome Music Week review coming on that one once I wrap my head around it a little more.)
And my pre-concert request as stated to Open Bar, "I hope they play all the 'Car' songs," came to fruition. The second song they played was "Keep the Car Running" and then during the encore they played "No Cars Go". They also rocked "Power Out", another of my favorites. And the highlight of the show was, of course, the finale. Their last song was "Wake Up", during which the chanted chorus was, well, chanted by everyone in the audience. Fucking rocked.
Finish time, 12:30, as Open Bar predicted. Plus I got a t-shirt. And even though it's a medium and not large, it isn't embarrasingly small, only "hipster tight" as I'm going to call it. I would fit in well in Williamsburg wearing that shirt.
This concert jumps near the top of the list of concerts I have ever attended. The first Dave Matthews concert I ever went to in 1996 I think is still at the top, just because it represented way more than just a concert to me, and also because me and Side Bar were in the 10th row. But aside from that one, I think this one is next. It was just so damn good. As my Facebook status the next day said: "Arcade Fire at MSG last night. Awesome. Sofa King Awesome."
Showing posts with label concert series. Show all posts
Showing posts with label concert series. Show all posts
Tuesday, August 17, 2010
Thursday, October 15, 2009
Where's Luke Concert Series: Regina Spektor
Tangentially related, two of our four blogmates went to the Springsteen concert last week, but nary a word of it has hit the interweb. Seems like something that would make a good blog post, especially since both of them told me the concert was awesome.
Anyhow, the week before the aforementioned concert Side Bar says to me, he says, "I'm going to see Springsteen and he's going to play the entire Born in the USA album. I'm pretty phyched." And then I said, "You may be going to see Springsteen or whoever, if that's how you pronounce it, but I'm going to see Regina Spektor at Radio City Music Hall." And then he goes, "Who's that?" For serious, that's what he said.
So, on that note, if you've not heard of Regina Spektor, then you are missing out. Or if you just saw her for the first time on Saturday Night Live last week, then you gots to get your listen on. The short version of the story is that Regina is a female songwriter and piano player and so she automatically falls in the category with Tori Amos and Sara McLachlan and maybe an Alannis Morissette or Fiona Apple. The thing is that Regina Spektor is as different from those people as it is possible for a female songwriter and piano player to be.
First of all, she's originally from Russia, then from the City but spent her high school years at Yeshiva in Bergen County and also in Fair Lawn High (go Cutters! side note: that Fair Lawn mascot must have taken on a whole new meaning circa 1998), so she's cool. Second her songs are just awesome. She really plays with the rhythms and melodies of each song and the lyrics are really interesting. She plays a lot with strange dissonances that don't sound non-musical, but rather highlight different aspect of the song. I could go on, bottom line, she's awesome and pretty amazing.
Anyhow, last night was the concert and it was enormously cool. First of all, after all these years, I had never actually been to Radio City Music Hall. It's a beautiful theater and it's enormous. Like, enormous. Then the concert was just great. She managed to play all of the songs I like from four different albums. It was a very cool experience. It was similar, but somehow unlike any other concert I'd ever been to. The sound was great, her voice is beautiful, and she's got a really interesting way of pronouncing some words in her songs. I'm gonna post a couple of videos to give you an idea of her stuff.
This is her best known song, I think, "Fidelity". Notice what I mean about the playing around with the sounds. Speaking of people from North Jersey, doesn't Regina look a lot like another Toker who knows how to, but won't, say "cheeseburger" in Russian.
This is my current favorite song of hers, "Us", which, incidentally, opens the movie 500 Days of Summer, which I also really liked.
The last video is "Ode to Divorce". This is a really good example of the strange, seemingly non-fitting lyrics here right at the 2:00 mark. Also it's a beautiful song.
Anyhow, the week before the aforementioned concert Side Bar says to me, he says, "I'm going to see Springsteen and he's going to play the entire Born in the USA album. I'm pretty phyched." And then I said, "You may be going to see Springsteen or whoever, if that's how you pronounce it, but I'm going to see Regina Spektor at Radio City Music Hall." And then he goes, "Who's that?" For serious, that's what he said.
So, on that note, if you've not heard of Regina Spektor, then you are missing out. Or if you just saw her for the first time on Saturday Night Live last week, then you gots to get your listen on. The short version of the story is that Regina is a female songwriter and piano player and so she automatically falls in the category with Tori Amos and Sara McLachlan and maybe an Alannis Morissette or Fiona Apple. The thing is that Regina Spektor is as different from those people as it is possible for a female songwriter and piano player to be.
First of all, she's originally from Russia, then from the City but spent her high school years at Yeshiva in Bergen County and also in Fair Lawn High (go Cutters! side note: that Fair Lawn mascot must have taken on a whole new meaning circa 1998), so she's cool. Second her songs are just awesome. She really plays with the rhythms and melodies of each song and the lyrics are really interesting. She plays a lot with strange dissonances that don't sound non-musical, but rather highlight different aspect of the song. I could go on, bottom line, she's awesome and pretty amazing.
Anyhow, last night was the concert and it was enormously cool. First of all, after all these years, I had never actually been to Radio City Music Hall. It's a beautiful theater and it's enormous. Like, enormous. Then the concert was just great. She managed to play all of the songs I like from four different albums. It was a very cool experience. It was similar, but somehow unlike any other concert I'd ever been to. The sound was great, her voice is beautiful, and she's got a really interesting way of pronouncing some words in her songs. I'm gonna post a couple of videos to give you an idea of her stuff.
This is her best known song, I think, "Fidelity". Notice what I mean about the playing around with the sounds. Speaking of people from North Jersey, doesn't Regina look a lot like another Toker who knows how to, but won't, say "cheeseburger" in Russian.
This is my current favorite song of hers, "Us", which, incidentally, opens the movie 500 Days of Summer, which I also really liked.
The last video is "Ode to Divorce". This is a really good example of the strange, seemingly non-fitting lyrics here right at the 2:00 mark. Also it's a beautiful song.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)