Wednesday, 2 November 2005
Jack and Meg Paint the Town Red
Living for the moment, slacking off, procrastinating - whatever you want to call it, I never did get around to writing about the concert that Heather and I saw two and a half weeks ago, Sunday, 16 October.
That concert was the White Stripes, and it was pretty decent. Their stripped-down sound carried well to a live show. Though you could only see Jack and Meg White on stage, it was pretty apparent that there was at least one, maybe two people, off-stage. Despite its being contrived to keep the illusion of only two band members on stage, at least using real off-stage musicians was truer to their keep-it-real sound. I for one definitely prefer that option to the alternative of using prerecorded backing tracks.
I really like how the White Stripes have gone back to certain rock fundamentals: shorter songs (typically around three minutes), clever lyrics and catchy tunes, a willingness to mix sounds (blues and country sounds seep in), a stripped-down approach to recording in an over-engineered world. In all these ways, their concert was a success.
Friday, 28 October 2005
Röyksopp's Night Out
Hit a bit (oh, just a tiny bit) by the shell shock of starting the process to buying an apartment, I didn't write yesterday about our latest concert experience.
Wednesday night, the same day as finding the apartment, Heather and I went to see Röyksopp. They played the Élysée Montmartre, the same place we saw Zero 7 last year.
The show was good, nothing remarkable. I really like Röyksopp's music - at least, the first album (I don't have the second one) - but there's very little an electronica group can do to impress. Well, there's always a big light show, but not everyone is loaded with money. Certainly not these two Norwegian geeks (and I mean that in the kindest way. Also the "geek" part).
I was surprised to find that the female vocals were done live; often, a woman's voice is sampled. This was cool to find out for "Sparks," a song with a somewhat retro-sound to the vocals. I'd always assumed it was a sample from an old record. On the other hand, the singer (Anneli Drecker) was overly camp while she vamped - to the point of being corny. Congrats to her for doing a tour while five months pregnant, that's some stamina.
Also cool to discover was that a lot of the percussion was live. The drum kit was virtual (except for a lone cymbal), but the half of the duo who played the drum pads really went at it with full vigor. I tried hard to capture it in a photo, but wasn't successful.
All in all, a solid show. Röyksopp played almost their full catalog (at least as far as I could tell), including some tracks not on their albums (I knew they were old, a friend said that they're not included on the second album). Better yet, they played all of my favorites - including a couple of great reworked songs (hard to call live versions "remixes"). Not bad for an earnestly geeky duo and their two backups (vocals and guitar).
Thursday, 6 October 2005
Brotherly Block-Rockin' Beats
It's two-fer Thursday! I'm looking back a bit here, so bear with me.
The Chemical Brothers in concert at the Zénith de Paris
Besides giving me an iPod for Christmas, Heather gave me tickets to a concert for my birthday. Not just any concert, but one I'd been gabbing about for some time: The Chemical Brothers. I was good boy.
Mind you, the concert was in February, so this entry is hardly news - but the concert was cool. Being the old people we were, Heather and I sat. But the show didn't have any reserved seating (aside from VIP seats that were pretty crappy, actually), and we ended up with a great view of the stage. Unless we'd been at the front of the standing crowd - crushed by sweaty, bouncing bodies, oh fun! - we couldn't have done better.
What can I say? The music was great, and so was the light show. Heather hadn't heard a lot of their music, but recognized a lot of songs, so the tickets turned out to be a good investment for her too. We had a blast.
during the last song, Brother Screen reminded us to get outside more often
But since there isn't much to say, I'll just leave you with the pictures. Lots and lots of pictures. Pretty, animated ones. Listen to the sound of my voice. You are getting sleepy. Very sleepy. Feeling like, you could send me all your money. Aside from a nebulous feeling of generosity towards me, you'll remember nothing after I snap my fingers...
*Snap!*
More after the jump...
Thursday, 29 September 2005
Jamiroquai Brings It On
Besides getting engaged, earning French permanent residency, and planning for my future, I've been doing some more "normal" stuff - for instance, going to concerts.
Jamiroquai in concert at the Palais des Omnisports de Bercy
Last Friday, Heather and I went to see Jamiroquai at the Palais des Omnisports de Bercy. Yes, "last Friday" - this is a timely entry, for a change!
I think we each only own one of his albums, and it might even be the same one. But ever since my friend and then-roommate Mark introduced me to the music, I've grooved on Jamiroquai. No? That didn't work? Yeah, I can't pull off being cool or hip. But you can deal with it.
Jay Kay is a little ball of energy; I don't think he stopped jumping around for more than a few seconds at any time. It's amazing to me how someone can pull off a two-hour set like that, and not miss a beat. Yeah, don't talk to me about playback - maybe the band uses it, but I doubt it after seeing several improvs and spontaneous jams.
Friday, 27 May 2005
Swingin' Country in the Heart of Paris
Last night, I joined friends Matt and Lauren to see Mark Erelli play at a small bar in the 5th arrondissement. Mark happens to be Lauren's brother, which added a fun twist to the evening.
Country music isn't really my thing, but this wasn't exactly country music. Besides, music in general is "my thing," so I'm always open to new sounds. I love the soundtrack to O Brother, Where Art Thou?, for example.
Mark's music is fun, with the best of the blues: often uplifting and saddening at the same time. Sometimes wide-ranging and political, other times more personal. I like the stories his songs had to tell.
One guy on stage, with his guitar and harmonica. Alone but not aloof. Good stuff. You should check him out.
Thursday, 17 June 2004
A Midsummer Morning's Dream
I had a waking dream this morning (right around the time that I woke up, meaning that I could remember enough to savor the dream), involving time travel, some very familiar setting (a school? a former workplace?), a favorite band and a foreign language.
The favorite band was Bel Canto, who I haven't listened to for a while - but I assure you that I am at this very moment. Beautiful, sweeping vocals befitting the name. Odd-yet-familiar melodies. Great stuff.
The time travel element was standard sort-of-odd dream fare, the familiar setting a banal detail. The foreign language, though, was what seemed to be some Scandinavian tongue.
Friday, 16 April 2004
Zero 7 != "Seven Times Nothing"
Besides griping about stupid little things and paying my taxes, I listen to music for fun. Actually, at times I've been known to equate good music to being as necessary as breathable air. And when you listen to good music, what better way than at a live show?
Zero 7 gives a decent live show. The group is just popular enough to have a decent following, but still unknown enough that their show was in a seatless venue (those familiar with Minneapolis, think "First Avenue"). This meant that we arrived well after door-opening to a full house, but still got a spot no more than five people back from the stage. It helps that the French (in my experience) handle crowded places better than Americans, so the concerts I've been to have rarely involved aggressive shoving or personal-space hogging.
Four female vocals - two lead, two backup - and one male lead in rotating combinations gave some pretty amazing variety for a one-hour show. Make that "an hour forty-five," including encores and dead moments. For you damn kids on my front lawn, pop queen Britney Spears' scripted-to-the-bone tour has a show time of only 90 minutes. Not that I'd compare her lip-synching to the smooth and/or powerful singing coming from these five. Just sayin', is all.
Wednesday, 24 March 2004
Fresh ---, as in A Breath Of, and Other Puns
When I was younger and still at university, I used to treat myself to music whenever I'd made it over a hump. A midterm here, an essay there, sprinkle in a couple of finals - and presto! A pretty nice CD collection.
That's not to say that I rewarded myself for a job well done, which was probably just the teensiest of holes in my little party-of-one Pavlovian experiment. Still, that didn't stop me from doing it, or from enjoying the rewards - merited or not.
Well, two Thursdays ago, I wrapped up a long day spent conducting user tests (the two great tastes that taste great together: tedious and wearying at the same time! [1]). Not just the first day, mind you, but the third day in a row. I'm good at doing at least a couple or three things in life, but user tests don't appear to be one of them.
Air in concert at the Zénith de Paris
Anyway, the point is that I had tickets to go see Air for that very night. (Ironically, at the Zénith de Paris - part of the same collection of buildings as where I'd spent the whole day.) If I hadn't already bought them, I'd probably skipped the whole thing and gone to bed early. That definitely would've been my loss.
Friday, 13 February 2004
They Make for Better Listening Than Breathing, Though
At lunchtime today, I picked up a couple of tickets to see Air at the Zénith de Paris. I've liked this duo since their first album hit the US, and I'll finally be able to check off another band from my "want to see but haven't yet" list. (I don't get to concerts nearly as often as I did in the US.)
It sort of makes up for having missed the White Stripes a couple of weeks ago. Which you'd tend to expect, considering that one plays 70's-styled electronica, and the other blues-influenced punk rock. But hey, who's keeping score?
Harking back to the days of my all-ages concert-going, the whole place will be open seating/standing. This is a fine example of what I call the "tyranny of democracy": when everyone is equal, no one is special. The downside is having to arrive super-early just to get a standing spot near the stage. The upside is that I'll have a bunch of youngsters squeezed close enough to prop me up, bolstering my ageing knees and back.
Rock on.