Six bands, one stage, a million teeny boppers, some wasted wankers and a handful of horny bastards filled the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium for Live 105’s Not So Silent Night concert on Friday evening.
Having missed Birdmonster, the winners of Café Du Nord’s Battle of the Bands, Autolux and Coheed & Cambria, I was just in time to see Hot Hot Heat perform. The Victoria, B.C. band’s lead singer, Steve Bays, donned a fro to rival that of American Idol’s Justin Guarini’s, his vocal deliverance however, definitely surpassed Guarini’s. I’m not a fan of Hot Hot Heat but if I was 12-years-old or really, really drunk, I’m sure I’d like them then. They have catchy pop songs with a good beat. As couples vertically humped eachother I wanted to blindfold all the little kiddies in the audience, even if most of them were on E and could have cared less if their friends’ parents were partaking in X-rated action. When the band’s current hit “Goodnight Goodnight” came on, crowd surfers surfaced and it was like one big orgy fest.
Indie darlings Death Cab for Cutie mellowed out the audience with their opener “The New Year” from Transatlanticism. I know I should love them since it seems like anyone who’s into indie music loves them, but, well, I don’t. I think they’re…Okay. They have pretty good lyrics and they’re musically interesting but it’s lead singer Ben Gibbard’s voice…that's a bit too whiny for me, especially on “Soul Meets Body” off of Plans. Gibbard sounds a lot better as the front man for The Postal Service. If I had wanted to listen to whining, I could have simply plucked one of the kids from the crowd and demanded that they sing for me. They also played “Title and Registration,” “The Sound of Settling” and something from their CD We Have the Facts and We’re Voting Yes, I can’t remember what though. Sorry. Nevertheless, they do seem like very nice fellows, so I give them kudos for potentially being unpretentious musicians with big hearts and little egos.
Finally, who I really went to the show to see (I’m going to change tenses now so I can re-live the moment). I missed The White Stripes at The Greek in Berkley and I wasn’t about to miss them again. You pasty, dirty, white people from Detroit really know how to rock! Meg starts banging on the drums as if she’s trying to beat demons out of them and Jack accompanies her with a vicious rendition of “Blue Orchid” from Get Behind Me Satan. L. and I are near the front and there’s pushing and shoving and dancing and it’s great. Then not so great. We elbow our way to the side where there’s more room for breathing and dancing. “You Put Her in Your Pocket” and “Doorbell” fill in the middle. The crowd is in a fucking frenzy and they end with the killer song that catapulted them into rock heaven, “Seven Nation Army.”
Lose the teeny boppers, cut out half the bands, have The White Stripes play for more than an hour and you’d have yourself one kick-ass concert.
Beer Rating:
3 comments:
Hey, everybody's got their own taste, so I won't bother trying to convince you that DCFC is a great band. What I don't get is why you don't seem pissed off at the White Stripes set. Maybe it's because you haven't seen them before. This was a lousy set, and a huge disappointment for people like me that came to the show execting their usual bombastic performance. From the moment they took the stage I thought something was off, and it never improved. Jack's stage presence was noticeably dimmed from normal, and the interactions with Meg seemed sloppy. His commentary, usually minimal, was removed entirely. On top of all that, the set was amazingly short. Including the 10 minutes between the main set and the encore, they were on stage less than 45 minutes. For a band that regularly plays 2-hour plus shows, that was sad.
I don't necessarily blame the band. I don't know what restrictions were placed on them. It's possible that they were told they had to be off the stage by 11:30, no exceptions. I'm sure that would have been irritating. I definitely got the feeling that they were mad, though. Whether they were mad at each other, the venue, the audience, or the setup I have no idea. I'd sure love to find out the cause of such a subpar show.
This was the first time I'd seen the White Stripes live and I had heard of their antics at other shows so I wasn't sure what to expect from them.
I have to admit that an extremely hot guy was next to me and was thoroughly distracting me from the band at times. Even when the lights came on between their songs I simply viewed it as a chance to check him out better. I apologize. I know, music before men.
Coming into the concert, they were only allotted one hour of playing time. It did not seem like an hour long set but when I'm dancing I completely lose all sense of time, so I wasn't sure.
I heard on the radio this morning that Meg was very drunk and was crying backstage during the intermission. I don't know the details but I'll keep you updated if I find out. Hopefully next time I'll be able to catch them when they're a little more sober and a lot more bombastic. Thanks for your commentary.
I have to agree with mrczar regarding the White Stripes. I was so excited to see them but was really disappointed in their performance. I don't know whether they usually have some sort of "bad kids of rock" persona since this was my first time seeing them, but I thought they acted like petulant school children. I think Jack is an awesome talent, but I felt as if he was moping behind his hair. He never acknowledged the audience once. No hello. . .no good-bye. They had their swank dressed-up roadies come out in suits and fedoras and move a ton of equipment on stage: two kettle drums, a huge xylaphone set-up, an electric keyboard, but they never touched any of them. I got the feeling they were ticked off about something, especially when they ditched the stage for ten minutes half way through the set. But I sure didn't appreciate them taking their pissiness out on me. And their sound was so over-amped that it seemed distorted. I thought the lowly Autolux sounded better and was more professional then these two spoiled white stripes. What a disappointment! P.S. Thanks for letting me vent!
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