8 posts tagged “shows”

Heart It Races - As Played By Dr. Dog

This past week has been quite action-packed, by my standards at least. Caught a lot of good live music: Architecture in Helsinki, Ming & Ping, Stars, and possibly the Moonrats at the Scene (glendale) tonight.

Hungover HK

Architecture in Helsinki are a bunch of crazy guys (and one gal) and this was my second time seeing them but they are always so cute and full of positive energy that you can't help but love them all. We managed to work our way up almost to the front of the crowd and I felt really old because I think we were surrounded by a bunch of high school kids, but I think it's great that AiH have such an enthusiastic fan base.

At the Ming & Ping show I danced so hard I couldn't remember the last time I danced. They were a lot of fun and my expectations were exceeded, and their music is really really good. I got to talk to Ming afterwards and he was totally spicy and funny and just plain awesome (he was nice enough to sign a poster for a friend of mine who wasn't able to go to the show), and I got to take advantage of some photo ops with him.

Ming & Maggie

Calendar Girl

I was on my way to the Stars concert last night when I caused the 5 freeway to stop completely for about.. 10 seconds or so? I was zooming through Burbank when all of a sudden there was a mattress in my lane. I couldn't change lanes because there was a car to my left, and if I went right I would have still hit the mattress. All logical thought left me at that moment, and what happened next is a bit of a blur but I basically ended up swerving across three or four lanes, and when I tried to brake I spun out and when I came to a stop I was facing oncoming traffic. The whole time I was bracing myself for impact, but someone up there must like me because I didn't hit a single thing. I turned myself around and took the streets the rest of the way, and called 911 to report debris in the road.

All I could think of, was how lucky I was, and how close I was to having something really serious happen.

And the Stars concert, well, it was just brilliant. One of the best shows I've ever been to. Lloyd Cole, who I never expected to see perform, opened. The Stars set was just amazing, so amazing that I'm not even going to try to describe it with words. And, at the end, when Torq was singing with all his heart: "I'M ALIVE" it meant a little more to me than it ever did before. All throughout the show the band were throwing flowers out and I managed to catch a few. I've decided to keep them on my dash as a reminder to be a safer driver, and to appreciate the everyday.

Stars at the Orpheum, 10 nov 2007.

On Wednesday I played hooky from work so that Mika & I could catch Patrick Wolf's performance on Jimmy Kimmel Live. We took the Redline to Hollywood and waited in line for an hour or two before we were ushered in and got seated in the very last row. Jimmy's pretty funny I guess, but the real treat was getting to see Patrick from about 15 feet away (and I swear our eyes met!!), thanks to Mika who somehow forged a way to the front of the second crowd. He played 'The Magic Position' which aired, and also 'Overture' and 'The Libertine.' He's a pretty entertaining entertainer-- very dramatic and really into his music, and his energy transfers well to his audience.

tour souvenir

And last night I got to see another one of my favorite Patricks, Mr Steven P. Morrissey himself, at the Hollywood Bowl. It was a pretty fabulous show, he seemed to be in a great mood and was very chatty ("Hooray for Hollywood!"). Perhaps that had something to do with the fact that the concert was being filmed for a live DVD, but whatever. He played quite a few songs that surprised me, as I hadn't kept up with the setlists for his other dates, but some favorites were how he started off with 'The Queen Is Dead' and also 'Boy With the Thorn In His Side,' 'I've Changed My Plea to Guilty,' 'Disappointed,' 'Please Please Please...' and of course I can never get enough of 'There Is A Light...' Opener Kristeen Young weren't bad either; the singer (also named Kristeen Young, what a coincidence!), decked out in glam makeup and a dress made of bubbles, has a great voice but I kinda felt the music got to be a bit same-sounding, maybe 'cause there was only vocals, keys & drums. The piano bits reminded me a bit of Dresden Dolls and Kristeen's voice/singing reminded me more than a little of Kate Bush. In fact I came home and immediately put on Hounds of Love.

And tomorrow night is LCD Soundsystem! First of 3 sold-out shows in LA, I believe.

LCD Soundsystem - "All My Friends"

Is anybody else on SonicLiving? From what I can gather, it seems to be a service that scans your last.fm/pandora/iTunes bands and syncs them up with a live show calendar (example: the shows I have tickets for are in green, the ones I am interested in are blue). Sort of like upcoming.org, only it goes one step further and looks up your bands for you. Pandering to people's inherent laziness, perhaps. Hey, works for me.

Lots of good stuff coming up for the summer... (stuff in bold I already have tickets for)

May 06: Bright Eyes @ Walt Disney Concert Hall
May 29: the Arcade Fire @ Greek Theatre
May 31: Electrelane @ Troubadour
Jun 03: Pretty Girls Make Graves (they're breaking up apparently??) @ Troubadour
Jun 08: Morrissey @ Hollywood Bowl
Jun 10: LCD Soundsystem @ El Rey
Jun 11: the Pipettes @ Troubadour SOLD OUT
Jun 12 Menomena @ Troubadour
Jun 15: The Noisettes, the Maccabees @ Troubadour
Jun 19: Architecture in Helsinki @ Henry Fonda

I still hate Ticketmaster and their fucking "convenience charges" with all my heart and soul. The Troubadour is still one of my favorite venues, one reason being that they offer alternatives to Ticketbastard.

Mika took me to see Joanna Newsom tonight and I have to say I rather enjoyed the concert. I wasn't sure what to expect because she sometimes does this weird thing with her voice but I thought she was really good tonight. And it was nice to see a harpist take center stage.

The other day I was at Virgin and I found this cd that was released by 4AD and I knew nothing about him but for some reason I was really curious... I mean, with a nerdy title like IBM 1401, A User's Manual, and it's on 4AD??? it sounded fabulous. and I'm listening to some of his stuff on his website and it's pretty good. I think it is time for me to finish weeding out my cd collection and turn stuff in for some store credit at Amoeba. Iceland is definitely securing its place in my list of countries that produce my favorite music (along with the UK and Canada).

Then I got my Amazon order today of Seinfeld Season 7 and a Camera Obscura cd-- only to open the cd case and find that there is no cd. So I have to get that replaced. But I started browsing a bit on amazon and saw that Jarvis's cd is out, and now there are deluxe editions of Different Class, His 'n' Hers, and This Is Hardcore. The hefty pricetag makes me hesitate, but then again, there isn't much current music that excites me these days so who knows. AND there is a Peel Sessions cd out for Pulp AND Gene. Is it terrible that xmas is fast-approaching and I can only think of buying stuff for myself?

The other day I went to see Cut Chemist (feat. Hymnal, aka Terry!) when he performed at the Apple Store in Santa Monica. It was quite interesting as it was the first time I got to see a DJ doing his thing, what with the scratching and turntables and hilarious footage of robots freaking out.