concert-o-rama, pt 2

oasis

hi fi buys, last night

liam blew the lyrics to "acquiesce." had i paid my own way to the show, i might have demanded recompense in the form of "talk tonight." (see tomorrow's post)

rocked out, "wonderwall" becomes a whole nother, incredible composition.

JM:(referring to openers JET) they sound very much like cinderella.
ME: joseph, don't make me throw this water at you.
make fun of britny fox till the cows come home, but leave eric, jeff, tom and fred out of it!
(heidi continues to insist jet suck...)

"don't look back in anger" never sounded so good. incidentally, i say this each time i see the brothers gallagher live.

liam is unnecessary. noel is a superior vocalist/musician/jackass. at least his arrogance is somewhat subtle...

i still insist that jet's ballad "look what you've done" sounded better the first time when it was called "sexy sadie."

incidentally, oasis' "cigarettes and alcohol" is almost as good as when t-rex called it "bang a gong."

again, what was in actuality an 80-ish minute set felt like an EP version. three albums were left untouched. while noel says those were all shite, i have to attest to the fact that "gas panic" is a fucking awesome song that i would love to see done live.

the stage set up includes a zillion or so thin, horizontal LCD screens. i feel these would be better used to display subtitles of the band's interspersed banter, like in operas...

just before the lights came up to signal us to get out, noel walked back on stage alone to applaud his audience... corny, but a warm gesture that made me smile...

not unlike the badgering he did of guys in the audience trying to work football jerseys of clubs they'd never heard of...
"man u, huh? what part of manchester you from? ah, you're not... (insert unintelligible scouse-like nonsense here)"

the more people who show up at a show, the more opportunity i have to mock. helps when you feel like one of the oldest fogeys there.

all in all, a lovely evening.

concert-o-rama week, pt 1

bloc party

last night

an embracing and (98%) courteous crowd
(save the two girls in front of new to their sexual orientation and unaware that no one in the city is gonna be shocked and awed by it... save it for douglas county, ladies)

a 60+ minute set that felt like 20... good things never seem to last.

regret at having missed the opening band.

relief that i was not, in fact, the oldest fogey in the room at a ripe 28.

times when i caught myself not caring that i had to strain on my tiptoes to see a full view of the stage... moments when i was so taken by the environment, i hadn't realized how long my eyes had been closed.

music so good i forgot about my life outside the venue doors.

energy without need of theatrics (not that theatrics are a bad thing - see: bauhaus post)

i love to watch drummers who love what they are doing back behind those cymbals... mr. tong loves his job. (and may i just say - YUM)

crowded enough to make the floor vibrate, but not so much that i couldn't dance when kele said dance.

reasonably-priced merch. i bet coldplay tshirts ain't know 20 bucks...

a burning desire to book a ticket to edinburgh for right now, so i can see them again in a few days.

puh-lease

warning: a small heidi-rant to follow

though i can't put my finger on it, something brought this episode to mind today.

months ago, when the latest gorillaz album was just released, some of the guys did an instore at atlanta's finest indie record store. along with the rest of the masses, i got to the shop about a half hour before the scheduled signings, bought my copy and took my place in line with the tweeny skater boys and the veteran britpoppers. an eclectic crowd, it warmed my heart.

but standing in line, i heard this chick (because i am sorry but it's the only word to dignify her with) going on loud enough to make herself heard, declaring, "i don't really know any of this gorillaz or whatever it is stuff. i am just here because i am blur fan from way back in the day." (almost verbatim... but the content is accurate)

a) she was younger than me so "way back in the day" would have made her 12 or 13 tops. now maybe she's an anomaly like myself who managed to avoid the new kids on the block/vanilla ice virus... and call me an elitist or a cynic or what you will, but i don't think so, sister. after all, my vaccination came in the form of hair metal... which could be potentially as embarrassing. i didn't see many generation nexters jumping on board until well after the "wonderwall" extravaganza.

b) and most importantly - if she were half the grand blur fan she wanted to us to know she was, she would know gorillaz stuff. because it involves damon, thus involving blur. she would care about what he's doing, because she's one of his biggest fans from way back. she would be supporting his recent endeavors, or at the very least be aware of and acknowledge them. as it stood, she'd discounted herself when she discounted gorillaz. and every true old school blur fan in that line (with their kids) was quietly and tactfully mocking her on the inside.

i was a very late blur bloomer. i sadly admit to that. but in spite of it, as i am a current blur fan, anything any one of them involves themselves in, is at least of interest to me. i don't gotta like it, but it's at least worthy of my attention.

the real reason it got under my skin though, was because in making her announcement, she was in a sense or perhaps purposefully belittling those surrounding her who may be yet-to-bloom blur fans or who were really there just to meet jamie or danger mouse... (or who were intrigued by three incredibly beautiful men at one table all of whom contributed to one of what i consider the awesomest albums to come out all year). screw her and all the phonies like her.

what i am failing to get at here, i suppose, is this: being a fan doesn't mean you have to pove yourself. and you shouldn't feel threatened when a lot of people appreciate your band. be proud of them. them the band and them the people who see the light and thus perpetuate the band's means to continue on doing great stuff.

i don't mean you can't scoff at the twits in front of you at the show who talk through the songs they don't know and make weird "wtf?" faces at each other until the big ballad radio hit surfaces in the playlist. fucking mock those bitches for all their worth.

but don't show up at a gorillaz signin and get all bristled up and thinking you're better than the 14-year-olds in front of you just because you heard "song 2" first.

undead undead undead

i discovered 120 minutes around 1988. up to that point my childhood/adolescence had been all about the headbanger's ball and metal edge's latest pin-up boys. then my cousin, god bless her, introduced me to the cure while RIP magazine was initiating my love affair with a short-lived mother love bone. i was hitting my musical puberty in a way i suppose.

through the magic of commercial radio, if you can believe it, i was introduced to love and rockets. not that god-awful (sorry, daniel) "so alive" nonsense that was all the rage in 1991 (or so)... but "no new tale to tell" - even at 11 i had an idea of how brilliant those first few lines about going against nature were. it was so weird, but i LOVED it... and when i saw the video weeks on, and then the bizzaro one for their cover of "ball of confusion..." a transition began.

a year or so later, i discovered what is still one of my favorite songs, "cuts you up." it's no matter that this is probably the only peter murphy song a lot of people know, it's still compellingly beautiful.

and never once in all those 3 years or so did i put it together in my young, naive little mind that these guys had anything to do with one another. until one night, late on a sunday, up way past my bedtime (oh to be 13 and defiant again) there appeared something even more strange to me than even the strangest cure video. "she's in parties" - incredible to me not only because of its black-and-white-and-violet creepiness, but who was this guy with black hair who looked like peter murphy and why were love and rockets hanging around in the background?

i had joined too late to see tag at the beginning and thus had no idea what i was witnessing, but i was so very intrigued (if not only by how much i suddenly noticed that daniel ash looks kinda like bono)... and so when the tag appeared at the end... it was such a revelation.

goth and metal travel in a lot of the same circles. occassionally the t-shirt ads in my heavy metal pin-up mags had bauhaus and skinny puppy shirts lined up right alongside the metallica and la guns ones. sometimes there would be a mention of the name in the "news briefs" featured in those same rags. i knew the name, and gathered its importance...

but it was PETER MURPHY AND LOVE & ROCKETS????? HOLY SHIT!!!!!!
(remember folks, i WAS 13 at the time)
the news almost made me cry...

fast forward to 1998. my (now ex) boyfriend is sitting across from me lamenting that he wants to go to this game demonstration, but his boss - the store owner - can't go because he's stuck going to this concert with his wife and he can't get out of it. after all, who's gonna take the ticket on such short notice and who the hell wants to see bauhaus anyway?

um... me.

seriously?

um... are you really having to ask me twice if i wanna see peter murphy?

right. let me call steve.

and hence, joshua got to go to his freakshow and i ... well, i guess i got to go to my own.

there followed the greatest concert experience of my life. i have continued to declare it so for the seven years since, in spite of radiohead at stone mountain and travis in scotland and any decemberists show which is the only show to come second in sheer theatricality... if you've seen or get a chance to see the "gotham" concert video bauhaus released in dec 99, you'll get the idea, but only the idea. the thrill of witnessing this - and as a bauhaus virgin no less - cannot be justified with any written word.

"dare" sung from inside a television... "boys" sung while peter changed his wardrobe onstage behind a purple curtain held by boys in pleather hot pants... what seemed like a 15-minute standstill before peter opened up the 15-foot wingspan on that cape, twirling about for "bela lugosi"... the serenade to the audience.

again, there's nothing i can write that will describe it with any accuracy.

but imagine my elation to learn... that they're reuniting again.

last february i had the surreal pleasure of driving mr. david (j) haskins about while a theatre in whose employ i was at the time produced a short play he'd penned. as i was the one who used to insist on peter murphy's mug as a desktop, it was figured i had earned this privilege/punishment (punishment only b/c i was nervous and starstruck as hell).

driving he and his wife (who i was in almost as much awe of as david himself - damn she's awesome) to the airport on a rainy sunday in d's old school honda with its shotty wipers, i finally got up the hoohas to talk shop with him. (hi heidi. nice to meet you i am david. - yes. yes you are.) he'd told me there was probably not much in the way of reunion touring in the future of love and rockets (and bauhaus by association) as daniel was having some serious surgery done - on his leg if i recall correctly - undo some damage inflicted by a motorcycle mishap.

now imagine my elation again. this time rising from a disappointment i had been settled upon, now lifted.

and the hope that peter will sing suspended from the rafters like at coachella.

in french it's...

sidebar - i heart george, pt. 1

brilliant word from the mouth of my favorite beatle:

"my advice for those who die
declare those pennies on your eyes"

from "taxman."

and while we're on the beatles... elanor rigby

this song set in motion my loss of innocence.

not that way you filthy-minded git...

but rather the first time i truly occurred to me that the world could be a cruel and bitter place. i was eight.

dad took mom and i one sunday afternoon to the movie theatre in sandy springs to see a special presentation of "yellow submarine." i had no idea what i was in for.

and while the experience as a whole was - wow, bizarre seems too weak a word, but hell, we'll use it anyway - i loved it nonetheless. if you've seen the film, this needs no further explanation. if you haven't, imagine being a child on an acid trip and you kinda get the sketch of things...

the critical point, however, was that bit toward the beginning with the elanor rigby montage. this was perhaps the only chance i had ever taken to actually listen to the lyrics as paul sang them, rather than simply hearing them. and they made my poor little body shudder. in combination with the images on the screen, the literally made my heart heart. i didn't quite understand why my eyes were welling up, but there was something about the figures with single tears in their eyes that made me feel utter desperation and even a little fear.

when i watch "yellow submarine," i still get through that scene with a bit of emotional difficulty and since that day now 20 years past, as last-witnessed this afternoon, my heart hurts for all the lonely people whenever i hear that string section begin...