A GREAT weekend. Saturday saw the Arcade Fire at The Greek. They were amazing; I think better than the first time I saw them at GAMH, which is saying a lot. It was a great big lovefest and was over way too quickly.
Then on Sunday, went with a crew out the Tourist Club. I was a bit apprehensive as its now up on Yelp. I guess the bad weather in the city was good for us as we were able to get a table and while away the Sunday in the sun and suds. Good times...
Did my first outdoor climb with the Yd and Lex. The weather was amazing and it was really fun to do some real live bouldering problems. Real rocks are a bit more sharp than the gym, that's for sure, but it's very satisfying once you are up there.
Also, I think Pista is part mountain goat.
Survived another year of Coachella. This time it was three days long. Yikes. Pretty f'in hot too. There were more art installations, which while cool, really impeded the flow of people. As result (or maybe in combination with the fact that they sold more tickets), it felt a lot more crowded than in years past.
This was also the first year my girlfriend came along. I learned acouple things over the weekend:
- my girlfriend melts rather easily and doesn't like festivals.
- I should probably come by myself in future years because I tend to be an obsessive freak about concerts/festivals.
I also think it was too crowded and that the main stage was too loud. It overpowered the other stages to the point of annoyance/distraction.
Here are my faves from the weekend:
Bjork -- she always brings a fresh perspective to her music. This time, in addition to a full ladies choir/horn section, she had these crazy visual building block synths. They are nuts. Check 'em out here and here.
The Jesus and Mary Chain -- Last saw them many years ago (where I inhaled way too much smoke machine smoke than a person ought) and they were really strong here. "Just Like Honey" (with backing vocals by Scarlett Johansson, though I didn't know it at the time) was a particularly nice moment.
LCD Soundsystem -- Short set, but "Yeah" was amazing.
Hot Chip -- Fantastic. They had the crowd rocking.
MSTRKRFT -- caught the middle of their set and it didn't disappoint, though I hear they lamed out with some cheesy stuff toward the end. Hoppin' while I was viewing them though.
Cornelius -- wish I caught their whole set. Great synch of music and video. Very dynamic and mesmorizing. Definitely check their live show if you get the chance.
CocoRosie -- They had some audio problems, but managed to play a very strong set anyway, including an amazing beatbox performance by a brother of the band. I want to check out more of them.
Willie Nelson -- Finally saw the legend in the flesh.
Richie Hawtin -- Insane knob twiddling action.
Soul Wax Nite Versions -- Probably the surprise of the festival for me. They laid down some amazingly sick grooves. Need more.
Teddybears -- Another highlight. These guys are great. Eclectic mix of rock, electro, dub with a tasty campy, cuddly teddybear coating.
Saw a bunch more, but these were the highlights. Rage was a vacuum that sucked the breath out of all of others surrounding it. I couldn't begin to count or estimate how many friggin' Rage backpacks/hats/t-shirts I saw over the course of the weekend. I don't know if it's fair to hate on a band for being popular, but with a name like "Rage Against the Machine," you are kind of asking for it. Anyway, heard a few songs from a distance. Not surprisingly, they all sounded pretty much the same. I'm kind of too old to really appreciate the un-channeled rage that seems to still afflict Zack et al, so the whole thing was pretty lost on me.
You can check out my fotos here.
I read about 'em a little while ago and today had my first sighting. And so goes the last vestige of respect for Mr. Lucas...
During the holiday visit to sis and niece, I made a trek up to NYC and happened to arrive the same day James Brown's body was on display at the Apollo. So I hopped on the A train from Penn Station, trekked up to Harlem and stood "on line" for longer than I care to admit. The crowd was pretty fun though, which made the wait in the cold less painful. The godfather looked very peaceful and funky, decked out in a blue suit with rhinestone trim. No pics were allowed inside, unfortunately.
I was recently reminded of a dorky thing my friend and I used to do after school. Before the days of multi-channel surround sound (in our home, anyway), our local friendly Media General Cable offered audio over an FM signal, which allowed you to tune in a station over the hi-fi. It didn't take us too long to figure out that by tuning to MTV (which played music then) on the radio and cartoons on the TV, you could get some neat custom music videos. I remember one particularly awesome session in which the G.I. Joe crew performed a very stirring rendition of Judas Priest's "Parental Guidance" - sweet!
Thanks in no small part to the MTV-style editing that currently dominates the airways, last night I found it pretty enjoyable to kick back and surf the cable waves with some tunes flowing through the earbuds. I'm sure the delirium tremens didn't hurt either.
But I live it to the full
How would you know anyway
You're just mister dull
Why don't you get into the things we do today
You could lose twenty years right away
So we say
We don't need no
No no no
Parental guidance here
We don't need no
No no no
Parental guidance here
