Monday, January 29, 2007

1-21-07 Lightning Bolt at the Northsix - or - The Only Good Concert I Ever Went To Where I Wanted To Boo Two Different Bands Off of the Stage

This was a really good show? How the hell do you judge something like this?

Well, for starters, the crowd was not alienating, it was, I think an 18+ show which means that the enthusiastic kid contingent was in effect. This is always a good thing, no matter what anyone says. People jumped around, acted like they wanted to, acted like, "well, I don't really want to, but I'm ok with standing here while you do it" or got the fuck away. People did shout requests, which, for a Lightning Bolt show where all but one song was an improvo-oneoff sort of thing, was stupid. But I'll look past it and blame it on youthful exuberance.

To go negative for a mo: the openers were shit! They were shit! Lord amighty I still get mad about these things. I hate to slander bands that perhaps don't deserve it / are not big enough to deserve it, though, so I'll change names to be all protective for once. The first band let's call them Algert Hisst played one 20 minute long drone that, if played by a band like Sunn 0))) on gigantic demon amplifiers at earsplitting volumes could have been interesting. As it was it sounded puny, pointless, uninteresting and basically like the jams my band would play in high school after we were done playing real songs in rehearsal in my basement (granted, this is how I learned how to use feedback, how I learned to commune with amplifier, etc. so it isn't all bad - just don't do it on stage in front of people who came to see interesting music). I had brough earplugs, and I used them. Fuck.

White Mice were good. Good. Yes.

Slow Jams: ok. The time has come for all you crazies to think to yourself, "should we have made Girl Talk as famous as we did? Is this truly a Constructive Enterprise?" Slow Jams says "no!"

"What about MC Paul Barman?" Slow Jams: "no!"

"Does one terrible band mean that humorous laptop based hip hop created by white people is, in essence, a doomed idea, culturally irresponsible, and downright offensive?" Slow Jams: "no, I wouldn't go that far."

"While we are terrible, unskilled, untalented, unprepared, ignorant, and pathetic (in the sense that people pity us and should feel sorry for how we managed to embarrass ourselves at a high profile show), this does not mean that the buck stops with us. Just because our DJ heard Girl Talk and assumed he could do it, doesn't mean there aren't people out there who get the same feeling correctly. The ultimate lessons you can learn from us is that bands should rehearse. Bands should not create DVDs of visual content that do not work. Bands should not exist because of the scene. Bands should exist organically, naturally and without exposing the artifice that lies behind the very idea of a band. We're making EVERYONE look bad!"

Lightning Bolt wasted no time setting their music to "erase memories of terrible opening act". For this I cannot thank them enough.

A postscript for Northsix booking agents: What the Fuck were you thinking! Stop making assheads and book some good openers! What are you people! Employ people who won't be able to make me depressed in the 30 second time frame it takes for me to obtain my will call tickets! I used to like this venue! I um, ok that thats it.

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1 Comments:

At Thu Feb 01, 11:32:00 PM, Blogger Rebecca K. said...

Doug, this is kind of unrelated to your rant, but next time you're going to a show give me a heads up because I may want to tag along.

 

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