spirit, desire: we will fall

Tonight, I spent two hours grading at the Broadway Cafe, and then headed to the Uptown Theater at around 9:00. In college, I would drink booze before a show; now I drink espresso. Go figure.

As I walked up to the entrance, the ticket taker said, “You know PJ Harvey’s not playing.” Not even a question, just a statement. “Well, I do now,” I replied. He looked irritated with me.

I arrived just in time to catch the last three or four songs by the Dresden Dolls, including a wicked cover of Black Sabbath‘s “War Pigs.” Just piano and drums, but they tore that song up. Say what you will about poor, doddery, old Ozzy Osbourne, but that’s one powerful song.

After about a 30-minute break, Sonic Youth came out. Something struck me as not quite right about this show, compared to the one back in August. Maybe the sound just wasn’t right, which is really the resposibility of the venue more than the musicians. I’ve only seem them live twice now, and they sounded so crisp and clear at the Blue Note. Tonight they sounded kind of muddy. On the other hand, they did cut loose with more abandon a few times tonight. At times the songs just absolutely fell apart and careened into long stretches of feedback, which was great. I headed up to the balcony for the last 20 minutes of the show, and they sounded much better from that vantage point.

Amusing stage banter:

Kim Gordon: “It’s great to be here in Kansas, again.”
Crowd: “MISSOURI!”
[awkward pause]
Thurston Moore: “We’re in Missouri, babe.”

I know that the proprietors of Gimpysoft and Badda Blog! were there, but I did not see them. The venue was a lot bigger than I thought it was going to be.

Geez, now I’ve got to try to go to sleep. Tomorrow I hope to focus on getting some writing done.

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3 thoughts on “spirit, desire: we will fall

  1. After a long weekend of two other concerts and a long day of watching football I was too tired to remain on my feet for the Sonic Youth show, so I was slumped in a chair on the bottom level.
    At least Thurston knew where he was. We got there about in the middle of the Dresden Dolls set, and they went on and on about how important it was for people in Kansas to vote, and never seemed to figure it out from all the yelling from the crowd. They even made the obligitory Wizard of Oz reference. Ugh.

  2. Sonic Yoot, Peejay “Busted in Canada” Harrvee, Drezdenn “Steal the Show” Dolls, and The Poor Man’s Jane’s Addiction, The Music

    So we made it out. I felt up for it. We even planned to sneak in two cans of Guinness. We were ready to rock. PJ, however, was not ready to rock. She and her band got cold busted at…

  3. Apparently, I left before things got really interesting:

    By the time the band came out for its third encore, about half the house was gone. The hardcore fans who stuck around got an epic show-closer. Gordon left the stage to the four boys in the band, who bludgeoned the place with nearly 25 minutes of anarchic noise that sounded like a construction crew sawing through corrugated tin at the scene of a five-alarm disaster: a hurricane of squeals, shrieks, screams, sirens and electronic pulses.

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