Sharpie marker on index cards, drawn at a TV On The Radio concert tonight at Stubb’s.
If you don’t know TV On The Radio, you’re missing out. Buy their new album.
I find myself getting really fidgety at concerts lately, which is why I bring something to draw with. I don’t understand, in this modern age, why there’s so much downtime in between sets. What the hell is a sound check for, if you can’t have instruments tuned up and ready to go? Can’t we get some stupid stand-up comic out on stage to tell some jokes? Can’t we get a video screen with some 30 Rock or something? Dang.
What ticks you off about rock concerts? What do you love about rock concerts? What was the last great rock concert you saw?
tell me the set list! do you know?
Man, I’m totally blanking on the set list. Sorry.
Few pics here.
The last great rock show I saw was put on by ‘Band of Horses’ in Melbourne. I’ve seen ’em twice, once from the front of the crowd and once from the back, and both times they felt close enough to touch.
Great sketch of Tunde Adebimpe! You got his style down with about 12 Sharpie strokes!
So, one of the things I do is Song Fight (songfight.org), and every now and then a bunch of us get together and have a concert where a bunch of our piddly little bands have short sets. Our set-change time is usually about 5 minutes. On rare occasion, these shows will involve “real bands,” and they usually end up taking 20-30 minutes for their set changes. Often they insist on completely redoing all the sound setup, changing out drum sets, etc.
Somehow they think that taking forever to do a set change makes them seem more “professional” and more like a real band, when really the audience is much more impressed by the fact that the little non-bands are willing to just use each others’ drums and instruments and just keep the show moving.
So, I definitely prefer when the Song Fight shows don’t involve non-Song Fight bands.
This issue also sometimes makes it hard for Song Fight shows to book a venue. They’ll be like, “What?! You want 10 bands playing tonight? How the hell could you do that in 4 hours?!” Spud (who runs Song Fight) just tells them, “Don’t think of it as 10 bands, think of it as one big band which undergoes 10 member rotations and changes its name each time.” Somehow that makes them feel a lot better about it. And it really is a joy for the audience – it’s like a Whitman’s Sampler of music.
Django: i dig Band of Horses. and thanks for the thumbs up on Tunde — he’s very distinct onstage
Fluffy: sounds cool! in my experience, musicians can be incredibly stupid and insecure…hence the need to look “pro”
Wilco 2005 (Mardi Gras):
Very loud and noisy
in an artsy way.
Crazy videos
of bees and such.
Of course
wild drunks in beads
roaring out
“Freebird”