The last time I saw Emily Haines at Cafe du Nord, she was playing solo and was guided with a rope and a blindfold. Now, Emily has two other members in her solo side project and a whole slew of songs from her beautiful album Knives Don't Have Your Back.
Emily is so upbeat and crazy during her Metric shows that seeing her do slower songs is a welcome change. It just shows a different side of her. And she still looks damn hot doing it.
With various film shorts projected in the background, Emily played a good majority of her album. She opened up with "Our Hell" which is the first song from her album. The bass was a welcome to this song, but the sound system at the du Nord didn't necessarily cooperate with that. Her single, "The Lottery" was beautifully played with her voice singing each lyric delicately. Emily would chat with the audience every now and then, saying that the guys from Metric completely approved of her solo side project, lest there be any doubters out there.
It was just a nice, relaxing night of music. Nothing too exciting or complicated. Just simple.
I nearly fell off my chair just finding this awesome recording of the Belle & Sebastian show at the Hollywood Bowl with the Los Angeles Philharmonic. You can find the mp3s HERE.
Highlights include "Your Cover's Blown" at 3:40. At this point, I was chasing Stuart. You can hear the audience say, "crazy fan." Yup. They were referring to me.
Another one is the big orchestra crescendo during "Don't Leave the Light On Baby."
I've never seen Ima Robot before. And I heard a ton of great things about them from friends who have seen them many times before. The consensus, for the most part, is that they put on a very active show, full of crazy antics. In other words, they have great stage presence.
After missing them a couple of times at Popscene, I dared not miss them this time around. Much to my dismay, they are playing Mezzanine. It's not a bad venue, but if it gets pretty packed, it's hard to see anything going on.
I thought this show sold out a while ago, since I couldn't buy tickets on TicketWeb, but after getting into the venue, the place wasn't even close to capacity. We got there early in anticipation of that, but instead my friend and I just hung out at the back while Tempo No Tempo and Persephone's Bees played. They sounded alright, but we'd rather chew the fat than watch these guys.
Ima Robot came on around 12:30am. Didn't seem that long, but having a couple of drinks and talking about random things (world domination, other parties to go to, etc.) definitely helped. Alex Ebert, Ima Robot's lead singer, came out wearing white M.C. Hammer pants! You don't know what those are? Will this help?
Well, it isn't white, but you get the picture. Ridiculous! And let's not get into what the bass player was wearing...
They opened up their set with the first three songs from their debut L.P. "Dynomite" was just a shot of energy from the get-go. "Song #1" (not to be confused with Blur's Song 2), was also another hit of fun. At this very early point, people in the middle of the floor were just having spaz attacks. "Alive" was great as well, with people jumping around at the chorus.
To the extent peole knew them, the new songs also translated well live. "Creeps Me Out" was a very danceable tune. Ebert's rapping abilities truly appeared in this song. The lyrics are pretty clever too. I guess some guys can relate to this. Another favourite of mine from Monument to the Masses is "Eskimo Ride." I don't understand what this song is (my friend said it's about the zeitgeist mentality?) but I could care less because I was getting hyper for this song.
Absolute highlight is when Ima Robot played "Black Jettas." We went to the middle of the Ima Robot dancing circle and yelled out "Ex girlfriends! Black Jettas!" Yeah, it was fun.
Overall, great show. The only setback is they didn't play "Disconnect." Which would have made this set so much better.
1: Sonic Youth @ The Fillmore 11: The Pogues @ The Fillmore 12: The Pogues @ The Fillmore 13: The Long Winters, What Made Milwaukee Famous @ Cafe du Nord 25: Gomez, Matt Pond PA @ Warfield 28: Figurines, Citizens Here & Abroad @ Rickshaw Stop
November:
18: Mini Pop @ Bottom of the Hill 25: Les Georges Leningrad @ Bottom of the Hill
Oh, oh. Last time I saw Cat Power, she was with a full band and she was absolutely flawless. Definitely one of the most perfect shows I've seen in a long time. But now, she is solo and this worries me. When I saw her years ago, she was a complete mess. Barely knew how to play guitar and constantly apologizing to the crowd.
Well, this time, Chan wasn't so crazy. But she was still her eclectic self. When she came on, she was seated with her electric guitar. She asked the crowd if we would all sit down so everyone can see. So we did, and it was just ridiculously uncomfortable. I was sitting down like a pretzel. Evena contortionist wouldn't feel comfortable the way I was sitting.
Now, I wasn't too familiar with her songs other than what's on The Greatest and The Covers Album, but it wouldn't have mattered. She played the chords to one song, but then sang another. Even Cat Power fans were confused on which song she was singing. She was even doing a cover of a White Stripes song and I got confused on how that showed up all of a sudden.
People finally stood up from their aching positions and Chan played some more. Someone asked her if she still drinks, and she said she only does it once a month. I didn't know she had an alcohol problem. I guess that's why she gets all crazy on stage? I don't know, just a theory.
She came on at around 11:30 and she was still playing some more come 1 a.m. At that point, me and a lot of others in attendance, left.
What the show lacked in stage presence was redeemed when we were watching this guy try to pick up on this girl. The girl totally took advantage of him (getting 2 drinks) but he lost out. He did get her digits, but are they legit? Good luck dude. Besides, the girl was skank-a-licious so I don't even know why you tried.
I only knew one Format song coming into this show. That song, "Time Bomb" was just a very catch indie pop tune. It was good. And I wanted to know more about these guys, so I checked them out at Slim's.
Maybe I shouldn't have. I went in there and it was an absolute teen fest. Maybe there were some older 1st or 2nd year college kids there too, but it was just too much for me to handle. I felt like I was at the Bait Shop in The OC. I was just waiting for Seth to find out that Summer is dating some other douche bag, or maybe Ryan will catch Marissa snorting coke again in the bathroom. I don't know. Whatever. I was actually hoping either of those events would happen, but it didn't happen.
Instead, I got treated to an MTV $2 bill concert gone bad. All these screaming idiots and their parents that went with them. Ugh. I needed more alcolhol to even enjoy it.
The Format, to their credit, are not bad musicians. They started off with "Dog Problems" and it was pretty good. But then it went downhill from there. I was so annoyed by everything around me that I just left and didn't even wait for "Time Bomb."
This is a tad late, but the Fischerspooner show at Mezzanine a couple of weeks ago was just amazing! Fischerpooner were true to form and they put on an elaborate show that kept the sold out (and high paying) crowd entertained from beggining to end.
When I first saw Fischerspooner a couple of years ago at the Fillmore, Casey Spooner was practically lip syncing the entire set, with no reservations whatsoever. Now, he is actually singing and dancing with a full band. Costumes and all.
Although there was no large fan or him dressed up in his skivvies like at the Fillmore show, he did put on a fantastic show full of dancing. Here's a video I found on YouTube:
A little shaky, but you get the point.
All the hits from Odyssey and #1 were played. Including favourites "Emerge," "The 15th" and "We Need a War". At one point, he played "Emerge" but changed it to another song. This was just an elaborate set up obviously because they did play that song at the end. Baloons were released from the roof and all this confetti was flying all over. There was crowd surfing from the band too.
