Concert Tab

This. Also, standing up to see the performers because the 20 rows or so of people in the floor seating in front of you thought it would be great to stand up to watch the concert for its entire two-hour duration.

__________________
Iro's Top 100 Movies v3.0

I've been forced into too many clubs here. I always feel uncomfortably cramped and awkward, since I don't dance....

I don't mind dancing but I have to be prepared to either 1) do it for laughs or 2) be drunk enough not to care.

And mark, I'm all for connecting with people (even derelicts who join bands) over our shared humanity and all that wimpy stuff, but that's not gonna make it any more fun to sit through the encores, the lamer/dummed-down/simplified/just all around poorer-sounding versions of songs (and here I should point out that I almost never get into a song on the first listen, so there's that factor working against concerts for me too), and the preening, rigid set of mannerisms that they have to mindlessly cling to, kind of an iconography of "cool" that most musicians adopt in order to form a "persona", (which is stupid because if it's all about ego and personal style [which is really what most music is about - image] shouldn't they be trying to do something original? But I guess there's only so many things they can do...) all of which I find so tedious.

I'll take the music separated from the "artist/persona" in most cases.

I get you but you seem to not even give "the artiste" a chance. I knew you were our resident wacko, but I fear for you to ever actually enjoy life since you already know how "everybody's going to act" and it cannot possibly involve you at all because of some political or moral reason. I bet that I believe that I understand life better than you do, and I also bet that I enjoy it less than you do (!?!?), so why don't you toss some of these pre-conceived ideas and writhe your body like a snake on some dance floor somewhere. Maybe somebody will stomp on you and put you out of your misery. I'm joking, at least I hope I am.

__________________
It's what you learn after you know it all that counts. - John Wooden
My IMDb page

Me too .

Can I ask what bands you saw that influenced this opinion?

__________________
http://www.last.fm/user/diezelpower/

That's like every band I've ever seen. You can get some idea of the types of bands I like in the music tab, but I've seen many of my favorite musicians live (including Foetus, The Residents, Tom Waits, Einsturzende Neubauten), some whose music I don't genearlly care for (David Bowie, Gogol Bordello), and plenty I'd never heard before seeing live (including The Yeah Yeah Yeahs back in 2001)...

It's kind of a cruel joke that someone who likes live gigs lives in the middle of nowhere and someone who hates them lives in the live gig mecca...I have to travel up to 6 hours to Italy or Germany if I wanna see someone perform.

I don't really understand seated gigs. I got seated tickets for the Foo Fighters at Wembley Stadium last year but that's because I was pregnant and didn't fancy standing for hours or getting squashed in a crowd. Other than that, I always go standing. Most gigs are standing only anway.

They didn't just take the stage. They came in on London fog, their shadows and their instruments visible through a haze of milky, brilliant color. The first notes of the Mandarin rose over the crowd, settling everyone into the next few hours of beauty in sound, and merry brotherhood.

Coldplay has become something of a living, traveling mini-era of good feeling, and experiencing them live is like wrapping yourself up in a kind of active tranquility, where the usual stresses and rigors of the world melt away, and you can let yourself run run run. They're high energy and big-hearted, and you can easily see that they love what they do, and they love sharing it with the fans.

This is, of course, the Viva La Vida World Tour, so they stuck mostly to their most recent album of the same name. and were particularly haunting, and the popular flagship hit made a triumphant mid-show, out-of-nowhere splash.

As you might expect, however, they still dipped into their existing library, with an early appearance by the perennially beloved , a magically somber version of , and a largely communal , in which the entire congregation of 15,000 people sang the song's choruses. The cathartic came from practically a standing start, and near the end, the band played the most heart-wrenching version of I could have hoped for.

The show was not without surprises as well: when the boys started to play , the crowd was greeted by fifty gigantic yellow balloons filled with yellow confetti (most of which were hurled toward the stage to a waiting Chris Martin, with a tack taped to the end of his guitar). Most notably, however, were the band's intermittent treks out into the crowd, where surprise mini-stages were waiting. This is easily the most wonderful thing I've ever seen a group of musicians do for their fans: they're out to give even the people in the back, who couldn't nab (or even afford) front-row tickets, a close-up show of their own.

During one of these moments, Chris Martin asked for the lights to come down, and instructed all 15,000 in attendance to take out their cell phones. I can't even describe to you what it felt like to see that. Amazing. But he wasn't satisfied. So with a little direction, the entire congregation conducted a cell phone wave around the immense arena - three times - and on the third time, Coldplay launched into the Monkees favorite "Then I Saw Her Face," to an entire sea of thousands of waving, twirling twinkles of light, and thousands of voices singing along.

There was no encore, and there didn't need to be. made for such a beautifully memorable closing that we all felt something monumental and important had transpired. And maybe it had. I've never left a concert so refreshed and happy to be alive.

Admittedly, I haven't been to many concerts, but this is easily my favorite, simply because of the unabated reverence Coldplay has for their fans. Their music comes from the heart, and their popularity is a testament to the basic human desire to indulge and be a part of that.

And if the concert wasn't enough, Chris Martin had a final surprise: each and every attendee would receive a free copy of Left Right Left Right Left, a nine-song live compilation of some of Coldplay's songs recorded during previous tour shows (available for download HERE). These guys know how to satisfy.

Also of note, the opening acts were supremely enjoyable in their own right. The Aussie-band Howling Bells, forged by the remnants of Waikiki, gave fans a driving, soulful symphony as they struggled to find their seats in the dark. A little while later, Snow Patrol provided the perfectly jubilant bridge to Coldplay, playing a surprisingly long set that included , in my view one of the most well-written songs in this decade.

So, I went to see Daniel Johnston Saturday night at the Music Box at the Henry Fonda Theatre in Hollywood. And this is my really badly articulated and poorly edited account of the experience. I had to get there using only public transportation- my first time using the public transportation system in Los Angeles. After 10 miles and about an hour and 15 minutes I was there and there about half an hour early (quite an accomplishment for me). So I contemplated buying a signed print of a Captain America drawing but bought a shirt instead, called my dad to brag about showing up so early, and listened to Harvest (which they played in its entirety) while waiting for the show to start. Now, I hadn't heard of either of the opening acts before I saw them on stage, but still enjoyed them. They were pretty good.
First was SoKo, a French actress/musician apparently. She ran out onstage with a stuffed animal tiger on her back, saying that she was going to be a tiger tonight. Backing her were members of his Orchestra (which I know because I recognized the drummer as Raviv Ullman from Phil of the Future which I actually only watched because I thought he was cute...) and from what I can tell, her brother, Max.
Here is a sample of kind of what she was like part of the time:
&feature=related
though the Daniel Johnston line got a huge reaction from the crowd on Saturday, obviously. Oh, and her skirt kept coming undone, about to fall and the violinist, Paul, was telling her just to let it fall. He was actually a really good violinist... And the last song she did had the audience singing "how are you" over and over, appropriately I thought.
Next was the Hymns, a Brooklyn-based band (though most of the band members seem to be from the South originally, and they did play a kind of country and/or blues rock...). The only issue with them was that the music was sometimes so loud that I couldn't make out the singer. But they were entertaining. The lead guitarist was crazy, jumping and running around the stage, while maintaining pretty good quality actually (and I think I'm using that word quite a bit...), it just seemed like he (almost) bumped into the singer multiple times.... They brought on some musicians from the previous act and some random (to me) people to play during some of the songs. Paul did violin on one of the songs and was amazing. And there were also trumpet and saxophone players who were really good who played on another song. They did a cover of "Dig a Pony" (there were three Beatles covers all night) which wasn't actually that different from the original, the singer's voice probably being the biggest difference. And now I feel like I'm bad mouthing them...
Here's one of the songs they played (but from 10 days earlier) for you to judge yourself:
&feature=player_profilepage
Then Daniel Johnston came on, the man we'd all been waiting for. The first two songs (I believe two, it might have been three, not that that's relevant) were DJ solo, playing some sort of stringed instrument I'm apparently too ignorant to have recognized (though after searching through all the plucked stringed instruments on Wikipedia, I'm not sure it even does exist...). Then he brought out a guitar player to play the rest of that set while he just sang. Near the beginning, someone from the crowd yelled "Tell a story!" to which he replied, "Okay," and proceeded to tell us about a dream he'd had (though who knows if that's true...) about a man who was sentenced to death for attempting suicide. And the man was him. And he was taken into the back of the courtroom and he yelled "No! No!" Then he got straight back into singing. The second Beatles cover was during this part (I think...) and was "I Will". But the highlights of this half for me were "Living Life" and "Hey Joe" which was stuck in my head the rest of the night.
&NR=1
Then he took a short break, saying he'd be back with a band. And the band ended up being the Hymns, who have apparently been touring with DJ for quite a while. At this point I had mixed feelings because the lead singer of the Hymns is cute but I was afraid I wouldn't be able to hear DJ singing during the rest of the set (though some people might think that a good thing). But, as it turned out, I could hear him pretty clearly and definitely better than I could the Hymns singer. And though the first half of his set was probably better, this half was more rocking and headbangery. Even the seemingly pretentious guy in front of me [who looked like John Lennon in his glasses and army jacket and talked with another guy about Palestine, Mao, Stephen Colbert, The Shining, and Easy Rider (okay, maybe he's not that bad) between sets] was doing his fair share of headbanging during this half of the set. Somewhere in this half he said something along the lines of "Thanks for the money," which, like his previous comment, many people (including myself) found amusing... And the third Beatles cover, "Revolution," was in this section. And at the end DJ added "Viva la revolucion!" (I can't figure out how to get a damn accent mark on there in the right font and size!!!!!) And a couple of the highlights of this half were "Speeding Motorcycle" and "Rock 'n' Roll".
&feature=related
Then the curtain started coming down (as it did during each break) but there was a guy who had to keep telling the guy who was lowering the curtain to pull it back up because DJ was coming back on to do an encore, "True Love Will Find You in the End".
&feature=related
Then I took a train to Union Station (gorgeous, by the way) and my roommate picked me up.
And sorry for the length... I could have said more, but this is way too long as it is and I've barely said anything of substance anyway...

__________________

For The 2nd time in 2 years Thank You Billy Talent. Amazing show once again. These guys are the realest.

__________________
''Haters are my favourite. I've built an empire with the bricks they've thrown at me... Keep On Hating''
- CM Punk
http://threemanbooth.files.wordpress...unkshrug02.gif

EJI Concert for Peace and Justice
Montgomery, AL

Last week a co-worker mentioned that he was going to a concert Friday night in Montgomery, AL. He wanted to know if I had heard about it (the concert, not the city). As it turned out, the city opened a museum honoring civil rights activists and a memorial dedicated to those that were killed in racial lynchings in each county of the U.S. The concert was a commemoration of the opening of both the museum and memorial.

I really had no idea what to expect of the show, only knowing the performers such as Common, The Roots, the singer from the Alabama Shakes, Dave Mathews, Kirk Franklin, and ending with Usher. Each had a set of about 4 songs. The performers mingled with each other during the sets, and that really helped create this "we are the world" vibe. The Roots sat in basically as the house band, playing backup for each major artist throughout the night. It was very impressive. Between sets, a short video would play on the screens providing historical nods to various civil rights activists and events.

It was a very nice, well-organized, peaceful event. most people had their lawn chairs out just relaxing in the grassy hill, sloping down toward the stage. Two large screens stood both left and right of the stage providing constant video coverage of the performers for those of us further back in the audience. Ages ranged from early 20s to 70s and the crowd had a solid mix of racial diversity. At times, depending on who the performer was, it almost felt like an old southern gospel choir assembly as some musicians would play old hymns and civil rights era songs. Many older people in the crowd would sing and harmonize along. It was very spiritual and welcoming, the overall mood I mean.

At the end of the night, Usher finished his set with a "good night" to the audience. Several moments later Bryan Stevenson (founder of EJI, Montgomery) stepped onto the stage to say a few words on the evening, thanking the artists for sharing their talents and us, the audience, for taking part as they were not sure if anyone would really come out for the event. The venue actually sold out with 6,000 guests (or so I heard). As the host closed his speech, he offered a gift to the crowd as a way to say thank you for taking part in the event. He then introduced Mr. Stevie Wonder, whose name was not associated in any way to the night's line up. This was a major shock to the audience, some of which had already started packing their things to leave. Stevie Wonder was guided onto the stage and spoke to the audience for several minutes, clearly moved by the intention of the event, the history, and that apparently so many people had come to take part. He performed a medley of Wonder classics while most of us in the crowd struggled to believe that he was actually on stage, live, and singing "Higher Ground."

After several songs, with The Roots filling as his backing back (which was just awesome, in and of itself), he stopped for an equipment change and said that he wanted to play an unscheduled song that the band was unaware of. He set up what I believe was a harpejji (sample here), and played an impromptu version of "Swing Low, Sweet Chariot." It was lovely and unearthly, his voice, paired with the tapping strings of the instrument.

Once he played through several iterations of the chorus, the backing band joined in and all of the previous artists joined together on stage to close out the night in one final song.

Common

Dave Mathews

Black Thought of The Roots with Jeremy Ellis on samples

Kirk Franklin

Brittany Howard of the Alabama Shakes

Usher closing out the show

Bryan Stevenson, Founder and Executive Director of the Equal Justice Initiative in Montgomery, AL, stepping on stage to say "thank you" and to introduce none other than...

Surprise guest, Mr. Stevie Wonder!

Stevie Wonder gets two shots here because no one knew he would be there---and because it's Stevie-mutherfuggin-WONDER!!!

Questlove, of The Roots rocking it all night