Lately, I've been making a concerted effort to avoid drinking heavily. Of course, this means that hanging out with any of my friends is a near impossibility since everybody likes to drink, right? Add in the fact that I've been sick all week and I've been pretty low on alternate means of amusement. As far as tonight goes, at first I was considering heading to the O'Death/Titus Andronicus show at Bowery, which I'm sure was a hoot, but, from experience, attending O'Death shows doesn't exactly go hand in hand with staying sober. A few friends had raved about Yeasayer's live show, and although I was skeptical, I figured it was time to finally get off my fat ass and check them out. Plus I already know that I dig Chairlift.
Left the apartment a little after eight, with designs on getting stoned, hitting up Oasis on North 7th for a $3 falafel pre-show and walking into the venue just in time to catch the opening act, about whom I knew absolutely nothing. Of course, as soon as I found myself super stoned (somewhere between Havemeyer and Roebling), all the usual super-stoned thoughts began rumbling through my brain: "what if I don't have enough money in my wallet for the ticket?" "What if I don't have enough money for the falafel?" "What happens if I can't afford BOTH the ticket AND the falafel?!" By the time I actually made it to Oasis I figured out that I had exactly $15 in singles on me... just enough for the ticket, and no more. Only when you're stoned, right? Poor planning.
So I made it inside Music Hall of Williamsburg at about quarter of 9, planning on sitting on the bleachers in the mezzanine and playing phone Tetris if the first band sucked. A couple chords into their first song, however, and I could tell they'd be worth watching.
Fang Island are apparently from Brooklyn, and by the looks of 'em they're pretty young. I was really impressed by these guys' set top to bottom: definitely a solid foundation in prog, featuring three guitarists, a bassist, occasional keys, and very impressive drumming. However, simply dismissing these guys as prog for prog's sake would be unwise: the majority of the music was characterized by sunny, anthemic, uplifting qualities: on their MySpace page listed under "sounds like" they have "everybody high-fiving everyone" which honestly is a reasonably accurate way of describing their sound. The guitarists each displayed their own skilled techniques: dude to the left strummed so fast his right hand was a blur; dude next to him showed off some incredible finger-tapping, and dude who doubled on keyboards had a killer tone and burned off some killer leads. The three combined for some tasty harmony leads during several songs, which I'm always a sucker for. And I'd be remiss without mentioning that their drummer was fucking awesome, handling the tempo changes deftly and shifting from style to style (notably, at one point, from a hardcore beat directly into some artful tom-tapping) seamlessly. All in all, I'd compare these guys' performance favorably to Birds of Avalon the first time I saw them, which is a compliment considering how much I enjoyed that set. If I have any constructive criticism of Fang Island, it would be directed towards the vocals, which were kinda ragged (yet emphatic).
Chairlift was up next, and, having enjoyed their set when I saw them in July (opening for Crystal Antlers) I was eager to see them again. If you're thinking you've never heard Chairlift yourself, you're definitely wrong; their song "Bruises" (the one with the "I tried to do handstands for you" lyric, c'mon, you've definitely heard it) has been all over the TV in the newer iPod Nano commercials. Anyway, Chairlift's subtly awesome electropop got a good portion of the crowd moving, which was nice, even amazingly managing to convince the two miniature drunk "tough guys" who were standing to my left to shut the fuck up and enjoy the music. I've said it before, but vocalist Caroline Polachek is really a captivating performer with an incredible voice: tonight I definitely noticed some strident Annie Lennox influence along with her always-flawless upper register. The early part of the set included "Garbage" and "Somewhere Around Here" before "Bruises" and personal fave "Evident Utensil" (my second favorite song of the year; I'll have the list up this week), with the set finally closing with "Planet Health," a song which gave the band the opportunity to show off its more playful side, with its "stop, drop and roll" refrain. Another fine set.
Yeasayer were up next, and by this point my back was killing me. (Pathetic.) I stuck around for a handful of songs before bolting and I liked these guys (they're way, way better than, say, Vampire Weekend or whatever), but meh, I'll have other chances to catch 'em live, no doubt about it. Again, I liked what I heard but I was fuckin' starving by that point and wanted to sit down... enter beef stew with rice and beans. KIIIIIIID!
Okay, gotta go, SEC Championship game is on in less than a half hour, and I'm nowhere near stoned enough. I'm probably planning on hitting tomorrow (Sunday) night's Love Is All show with Crystal Stilts at Bowery depending on what kind of shape I'm in, so Tuddd out for now.
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THE STATE OF THE BLOG
I've got a bunch of shit in the pipeline, if anyone's interested: a full list of all the shows I saw in 2008 (I'm up to 83 total on the year now, bitchez) with l'il synopses (Synopsises? Aaah, fudgesicles.) for each. Also the aforementioned "Best Songs of 2008" list, for which I have something a little special planned, then, hopefully before Christmas the Granddaddy of Them All, my "Albums I Heard in 2008 Ordered from Best To Worst," which will have over 100 entries on it. And if I can get around to ie, I'll put up a "Top 10 Biggest Assholes I Encountered at Shows This Year" list again. Jesus, that's a lot of work ahead of me. I better start taking the "creative" drugs. You know, the drugs that make you creative? Those ones? Yeah.
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