Black Lips @ Bowery Ballroom - Mar 10, 2008

I was born ready for this

Not much has changed in Black Lips world since last time I saw them. They put on one of my best live shows last year. Since it was that good, I came back last Monday to see them again and they sent me back home feeling like I was 18 one more time.


The next day after the show I read on some blogs people complaining about how Black Lips' music appeals so much to 16 years old guys and girls and hence it diminishes it. Yeah , that's stupid. I mean, I bet your 15 year old brother or sister love ice cream, so therefore ice cream sucks? Of course not, so just admit it... you are old and they have better taste in music. Suck it up.


This time Black Lips started the show playing their Good Bad Not Evil with I Saw a Ghost (Lean) and Katrina right after. They were killers, right from the beginning, and kept it up the rest of the show with almost no time between songs. There was crowd surfing, as always, and the dancing seriously never stopped. In the middle of my enjoying (yes, I was dancing with your 16 year old brothers) I heard Boomerang, a song I don't remember right now its name but that it has the word "abandoned" somewhere, Bad Kids, Dirty Hands, Buried Alive, Cold Hands, Lost and Found, Everybody is Doing It, and a cover of a King Khan & the Shrines song. Awesome.


I think I have a crush on Cole. He is the rocker in the picture above. So Cole, if you happen to read this one day and you happen to be gay, just leave a comment somewhere here and I'll make sure I get back to you. Please keep being as crazy and cute as you are... I like to spread the word of a punk singer, with a drunk voice and a Colombian mom, who has visited the city where I was born. How come we didn't meet there?


Coming back to earth, perhaps the only difference between the two Black Lips shows I've seen is that this time they did play an encore, cause I remember having some time to breath. I remember they played the nice Veni Vidi Vici, one more song, and then they were gone to smoke some weed. Time to record another great record guys. [photos of the show]

♫♫♫♫♫

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

Black Lips Links: Stream Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo, Official Website, Youtube (Recommended), Black Lips' Middle East Summer Vacation Part 1 and Part 2, MySpace, Vice Records, Wikipedia, Blog

Black Lips @ Bowery Ballroom - Sep 18, 2007

Ahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh

I was prepared to have the kind of show where you stare at the band and barely move your head to their tunes. Damn Black Lips didn't let me do it... they played a set that made me jump and dance around and sweat the gin and tonics I had been having all night.

Black Lips music is all about having fun. The garage rock influences, the screaming, the funny lyrics and contagious sound, like if you were in the middle of a fair, will embrace you, will make you hug your friends and will become the soundtrack to a pretty fun night. I mean, I haven't had this much fun in rock shows in a long time! What does have the Bowery ballroom that makes me feel I am seeing the next best thing most of the times I see a band there?


My favorites in the band have always been Cole and Jared. They happen to be the founders of the band (with Ben Eberbaugh, who died a couple of years after forming the band) and the ones that seem to be the wildest and craziest when it comes to having the show. Jared was missing his old school Ray-ban glasses I am used to see on him and Cole, well, I love that kid, he was wearing quite a hat and just looking at him, man, you just wanna invite him a drink.


The band itself is very particular, or they pretend to be. Ian, one of the guitarists, looked pretty fucked up in a good way. He might have played his guitar well but what he did better tonight along the set was to send us some funny storms from the stage like if he was a protoss blizzard attacking us, poor terrans. Did you ever play StarCraft? You know what I'm talking about then.


I only own their Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo and their new album Good Bad Not Evil, but that was pretty much what they played tonight, plus a cover and a new or very old song I hadn't heard before. I tried to keep track of the set list... I tried. I sort of took notes, but sweating and dancing didn't really help... this is what I got: They started with I Saw A Ghost (Lean) and their awesome O Katrina! just like in their new album to continue with Boomerang, and Hippie, Hippie, Hoorah. How Do You Tell A Chil That Someone Has Died was next and let us have some rest while still encouraging us to move drunkly from side to side. Then it came Dirty Hands, Cold Hands, Buried Alive and a new/old song I don't know. One of my favorite songs on Good Bad Not Evil is Lock and Key and one of my favorite ones from their live album is Not A Problem (which is sang by the drummer!), and both were played one after the other one... I couldn't stop myself of going to the front to be part of the pog. Damn Black Lips, I f*cking like you quite a lot now. After that I pretty much forgot I was taking notes and let myself enjoy the show even more than I had. I remember hearing Bad Kids, M.I.A. and Fairy Stories among that fantastical noise the Black Lips are. Unfortunately they gave us no encore and the lights went on...


The past couple of weeks I had been having an affair with the Black Lips music, but after tonight, this has become a serious relationship. [photos of the show]

♫♫♫♫♫

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

Black Lips' Links: Stream Good Bad Not Evil & Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo, Youtube (Recommended), Black Lips' Middle East Summer Vacation Part 1 and Part 2, MySpace, Vice Records, Wikipedia, Blog