St. Vincent @ Webster Hall - Wed May 20th, 2009

She is a good guitar player (a bit of a poser sometiems), she is cute, but ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Junior Boys (w/ Kelley Polar, Max Tundra) @ Webster Hall - Thu May 07, 2009

[Pics]

Note: Kelley Polar was awesome. Junior Boys was not.

The Long Blondes @ Bowery Ballroom - Fri May 16, 2008

Guilt

I wanted to blame Elron Alkan for how weak The Long Blondes' second album sounds, by coming to their show on support of Couples and seeing how they would rock the new songs out live. Unfortunately, it seems it wasn't Elron's fault.


Couples does indeed have several weak songs, and they sound even weaker next to their older stuff live. Long Blondes started ironically (or not?) with an almost non energetic Here It Comes the Serious Bit. Too serious perhaps guys? That song is one my favorite songs on Couples but live didn't translate as expected. Guilt, I Liked the Boys, Too Clever By Half, and Erin O'Connor are my other favorite ones and thankfully had better luck. Actually the very simple and interesting Too Clever By Half kicked ass.

Their old stuff still sounds fresh and as you can see below, there were plenty of good songs to help assimilate the other ones:

Here Comes The Serious Bit
Weekend Without Makeup
Autonomy Boy
Round The Hairpin
Erin O'Connor
Separated By Motorways
I Liked The Boys
Century
Too Clever By Half
You Could Have Both
The Couples
Once And Never Again
Guilt
I'm Going To Hell
Giddy Stratospheres
--
Lust In The Movies

but overall it was just OK. Are the Long Blondes let down? maybe disappointed that people are not responding the way they want to their new material? I hope the low sales don't discourage them of keep it going because even tho Couples is/was not a successful second album, at least it shows us they don't want to get stuck and keep evolving. See you next time for your third album... hopefully. [photos of the show]


Ah I almost forgot. The asshole that Long Blondes have as a keyboard guy/guitarist ate a banana on stage in the middle of a song and threw the peel to us. Some of it got sticked to my friend's glasses. What was that supposed to mean? that he rocks? that he is the most stupid fan of Velvet Underground? He apologized a bit later, but it was already too late... you suck big time dude.

♫♫♫♪

Were you at the show? How did you like it?

The Long Blondes Links: Stream Couples, Stream a sampler of Someone to Drive You Home, Official Website, MySpace, Wikipedia, YouTube

Taken By Trees @ Hiro Ballroom - Fri Feb 22, 2008

Lost and Found

Fortunately for Victoria Bergsman, aka Taken By Trees, the Hiro Ballroom was pretty empty last night. Last time I saw her on a stage was for the Peter Bjorn and John tour that stopped at Mercury Lounge where she sang the couple of lines she has on their very famous Young Folks. She barely made eye contact with the public and seemed like at any moment she was going to run away. It wasn't quite like that last night.


The show started with a video projection that made the ballroom even quieter and set a good mood for listening Victoria's beautiful voice. It was a video with lots of trees... lots, and if there was a reference different from her band telling us we were about to be taken by her trees, I guess I didn't really get it. She started with Julia.

Open Field is Taken By Trees' debut album. It is a very calmed piece of pop that I like to think it reflects perfectly how Victoria is... fragile, delicate, sad on the outside and very warm in the inside. Of course that was pretty much what she played and it sounded great at Hiro, particularly the two songs that pretty much make the album for me, Lost & Found and Open Field. Ironically those two songs were not written by Victoria, but by Camera Obscura's Tracyanne Campbell and PB&J's Bjorn Yttling, respectively, so actually they don't really sound like they were not hers.

She was happy in her own way, shy and introspected, with the crowd and seemed like she gave us a last minute gift for how quiet we were for her. She whispered her guitarist and soon after he started playing their new song that has been hitting every blog around these days, her cover of Guns N' Roses's Sweet Child of Mine. It was definitely the best moment of the show.


She played one more song and said it was the last one, but as everybody knows, she was lying. A one song encore only by herself with her guitar was really the last song of the show, but she didn't finish it... "I am too shy, I am sorry" and she left us hanging there. I guess she really needs her band. [photos of the show]

♫♫♫♪

Were you at the show? How did you like it?

Taken By Trees Links: Stream Open Field, Official Website, MySpace, Wikipedia

Bright Eyes @ Radio City Music Hall - Nov 19, 2007

What is simple in the moonlight by the morning never is

I have a mixed appreciation of Bright Eyes. I recently started liking Conor Oberst's music a lot (starting with his new release Cassadaga and now prefering I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning) and decided to buy a ticket to go to see him at a big venue like Radio City, even though I don't enjoy places like that anymore. What really got me into Bright Eyes' music were Conor's voice, his lyrics and the way he sings them, more than the melody of his songs, so a show in a huge place with a sound system destroying his deliver most of the time and a guitar too often too loud was quite a let down. Having so many fans, with Bright Eyes there's no escape and I don't think there will be. What's gonna be next? Madison Square Garden? Unless they have an exclusive show at Bowery Ballroom and I happen to score a ticket without investing all my salary on it, this might have been the first and the last time that I get to see them then. So where are the mixed feelings? Since I came back from the show on Monday, I haven't been able to stop playing the only two albums I have by them, I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning and Cassadaga. They keep getting better and better in my headphones... during the show I don't know what happened but some of these songs were just plain boring to hear them live. Was it really the venue's size what didn't let me appreciate the show? or actually Bright Eyes is just boring sometimes?


Conor showed up dressing like one of the thousands of fans waiting for him, not in white as everybody expected, and with shorter hair than what I'd seen recently advertised on the web. He grabbed his acoustic guitar, put his knees together leaving some space between his feet and started a show with a ferocious Another Traveling Song. Taking about ferocious, have you seen him spitting? Man, he almost does it as many times as Cole, of the Black Lips fame... good that his band mates don't mind it cause the guy's spit sometimes flies way too long.

Well, I think a found the reason. I just found a set list of the show over the comments in Brooklynvegan and it's helping me to understand why I was spacing out most of the show. Here it is:

Another Traveling Song
Four Winds
We Are Nowhere And Its Now
You Will
Arc Of Time
Method Acting
Spring Cleaning
If The Brakeman Turns My Way
Bowl Of Oranges
Lua
Poison Oak
Old Soul Song
A Song To Pass The Time
-Encore-
Lover I Dont Have To Love
True
Blue Walls (Tom Petty Cover)
Rosevelts Room

Ten of his sixteen songs are not on the only two albums I have, which are presumably his two best ones. Are the other albums he has that good and representative of his music to him that he decides to use some songs from those as the heart of his show? Anyways, he lost me right there for at least 30 minutes of those ten songs. I can only give a personal opinion, as someone who doesn't really know this artist: the show wasn't great. In fact, forgetting how much I like the original six songs that I knew, and considering that I go to tons of shows where I have no idea of the music I am about to hear, I think it wasn't good overall, even considering what I am experiencing right now, which is that Oberst's music is on the grower side. I did enjoy those six songs tho, especially Poison Oak, but it was because I did like them already, not because it was particularly special to hear them live.

You know what? I'm just very confused or just very upset that he didn't play First Day of My Life, a song that after playing and playing it so many times these days still gives me chills. Truth is, I shouldn't have started writing this... it went and it's going nowhere. [photos of the show]

♫♫♫♪

Were you at the show? How did you like it?

Bright Eyes links: Stream Cassadaga, Live at KCRW, Official Website, YouTube, MySpace, Wikipedia

The Ponys @ Bowery Ballroom - Jul 21, 2007

Turn the Lights Out

After M.I.A.'s set at Coney Island I still had some energy to waste. I went to see The Ponys, because I read that Bradford Cox, of Deerhunter, was recommending them as a live show. He actually said "You won't leave dissapointed", and I didn't, but didn't like them more than I did already.

The Ponys are three guys and one girl all from Chicago, and they seem to have a lot of friends who happen to be models in fashion or something. I hadn't seen so many tall, good looking people in the same place for a concert... ahh and I say friends because they were saying hi all the time. The photographers were quite entertained taking pictures equally of the band and beautiful women who were almost pogo-ing. Isn't that unusual? Pretty and fancy dressed girls drunk dancing to a rock band at the Bowery Ballroom? Maybe I haven't been to enough shows but it was the first time for me. Anyways, I just recalled the singer, Jered, was tall and started talking about all this stuff.


First five songs into the set I was clueless about the music. I felt I was seeing the wrong band because their music didn't sound as good as what I had heard before on my computer. But it all became clear when Jered warned us that the old ones were almost over and they were going to play only new songs from now then. Then I realized that Turn the Lights Out, the album they put out this year, was not their debut album and I had been missing them for a while. I guess it's all right cause those songs didn't click on me.

Fortunately, the rest of the show wasn't dissapointing, as Bradford warned us before. Just judging the songs I didn't know, I feel they really got their shit together for this new album. They were tight and sounded enigmatic. The Ponys have two guitarists, Jered and Brian, one drummer, and one bassist, who is Jered's girlfriend. If they all had long hair then I would say they like to have it on their face while playing, but the awesome Brian on one of the guitars doesn't go to the same salon.


My friends are right. I am more into rock these new days. I am happy and still enjoying it. [photos of the show]

♫♫♫♪

Were you at the show? How did you like it?

The Ponys Links: Stream Turn the Lights Out, Official Website, Matador Records, MySpace, Daytrotter Session

The Field @ Studio B - Jul 18, 2007

☺

Last night everything seemed to be out of place. By the time I got to Studio B, the venue was having problems with lights and sound on the main floor and I guess that was the cause for The Field to take the stage at 1:25 am on a Wednesday evening. I guess nobody there had to wake up early the next morning.

The first thing I did was to buy a Brooklyn lager, my new favorite beer. When I got it (6 dollars!@?#@) I remembered reading somewhere that it was also Axel Willner's new favorite beer. So I was looking forward to drink the same beer the guy I went to see was going to drink... you know and say hey you like "Brooklyn! Cheers!" later while playing or something. Never happened. Alex, aka The Field, was having Stella... and lots of it!


Dude started playing the excellent From Here We Go Sublime, the only really chill song on his debut (and wonderful!) album, titled as the song. I guess if you are reading this, you've heard the album already and the sample by The Flamingos that song contains... it's cool, and live, it's funny, cause everybody makes a face of yeah, right, I know what that is...

Then he played Sun & Ice. I am also sure you have noticed the mistake he made while recording live that song... well he made a mistake like that live too. Obviously, on purpose. He turned his face up to us taking it away from his computer two seconds like looking surprised for what just happened... then he had a sip of the third Stella he had next to his deck. He was sweating.


He was sweating not for being nervous or for dancing much to his music. He was sweating cause the f*cking AC wasn't working! We must have liked this guy's music a lot to have stayed there all the time. It was hot, and he had nothing else to do but to have his usual every two minute sip, and I followed too... well not every two minutes cause I bought only one Brooklyn the whole night.

The Field's music is not about dancing. It's a beautiful minimal techno full of samples, but I insist, it is not really for dancing. He did try to make us move tho. He played for us his old remix of Annie's Heartbeat and his new remix of the also great Hera by Gui Boratto plus several killer songs of his Sublime, like Over the Ice, The Little Heart Beats So Fast (full of all those fake vocals he likes), Everyday, and A Paw In My Face. Right, so Willner played almost all his debut. It was impressive to see him work on his songs live, with his software, from scratch, and deliver them so clean and armonic to us.


But I wanted more. I don't know, it felt so short and I think it never reached a peak. He only played like 50 minutes and I was tired. Anyways, there was a lack of energy either not coming out from me, the crowd, or possibly him, that was supposed to be there last night.

The show finished and he had to go to the bathroom to pee... too many Stellas. I think he had a good time... maybe, I should have had more Brooklyns. [photos of the show]

♫♫♫♪

Were you at the show? How did you like it?

The Field Links: Stream From Here We Go Sublime, MySpace, Official Website, Kompakt Records