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Home Music Concert Diary |
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| Created: 20 Nov 1999 | ||
| Updated: 30 Jan 2001 |
A sudden bout of concert-going in the fall of 1999 inspired me to scribble down some thoughts, recollections, and entirely subjective reviews of live musical performances I have attended. I only get around to updating this every couple of years, so a few shows may have slipped between the cracks ... but the really memorable ones will eventually get written up here (and not just because they're good: "memorable" cuts both ways!)
Man, he looks like a total wanker, but this guy can play the guitar like a god. And it turns out that he's actually quite warm and down-to-earth on stage. He just needs a better haircut. Anyways, the music's the important thing, and this band was smoking hot. There were 8-10 performers on stage for most of the show, most of them virtuosos (one backup guitarist and the bassist weren't given much of a chance to show off, but everyone else was). Most of the show was complex, high-energy, instrumental music: loads of rhythm and buckets of acoustic guitar. They brought in a couple of guest singers -- apparently semi-famous jazz singers -- whose names escape me. Also had a load of samba drummers (maybe 20 of them) on stage for the last couple of songs; the sheer volume (in both senses of the word) of drum was impressive. And the final encore was unamplified with yet another guest singer, who I have actually heard of: Ron Sexsmith. I didn't realize what a fine voice he had. Anyways, they had a phalanx of video cameras taping the whole thing (and three more shows over the next two days), and it's supposed to result in a DVD -- should be good viewing if you like mostly-acoustic instrumental, genre-busting music.
The Dears are veterans of the booming Montreal indie scene (see next entry). I wish someone had told me about them a couple of years ago! Oh well, I'm in the loop now and quite mad for their 2003 album, No Cities Left. So naturally I was thrilled as heck at the chance to see them live before their next album (which, apparently, is already in the can) comes out. And a damn fine show it was. They started off with a couple of new songs, which sounded a bit pared-down compared to the big, epic sound I love from No Cities Left. Then they got the crowd going with a couple of those big epic songs from the album: glorious! They kept us on our toes, alternating more new stuff with older songs, all quite invigorating and loads of fun. I'm definitely looking forward to the new album (and I don't even have their first album yet!).
In case you've been living under a rock for the last couple of years, there's been an explosion of great pop music in Canada, quite a lot of it in Montreal. Wolf Parade is of the many fine bands to emerge recently. They put on a good show: just the right amount of rock-star posturing to make it fun, but still quite tight musically. While they only have one full-length album out so far, it has a bunch of good songs and a couple of great ones, and they played the right ones live. Also played some new stuff which was immediately enjoyable. Looking forward to more from these guys in the future.
Apparently a famous Finnish folk band. I quite like most of the Nordic folk music I've heard, and intrigued by the Lord of the Rings connection (they did the music for the currently-failing-to-wow-'em-in-Toronto LotR musical), so this sounded like it could be interesting. Turned out they're not really a folk band anymore -- this was competent but uninspiring pop music with strong folk influences, in Finnish.
Two concerts for the price of one! Miriodor is a Montreal band that lives somewhere in the shadowy realm between weird contemporary art music and progressive rock, but they pull it off well. The concert was mostly unfamiliar to me, since (at the time) I didn't have any of their albums more recent than Jongleries Élastiques (1995). But their intricate instrumental chamber rock (oh, you know, the usual lineup: guitar, bass, drums, keyboards, violin, saxophone) kept my attention all the same. A good band if you like interesting modern music that's not too brain-bendingly weird.
As for Present: this is where you go if you want it weird. Brain-bending, mind-numbing, eardrum-shattering weird. These guys are so weird I've never really gotten too heavily into their recorded music, unlike the better-known and vaguely-related Univers Zero (who are also deeply strange, but not quite so eardrum-shatteringly so). But I could hardly pass up the chance to see an obscure Belgian band, could I? As for the concert, it was every bit as dark, screechy, off-the-wall, and out-and-out dissonant as one could hope for -- a ripping good time had by all, I think. The biggest problem was that it was TOO DAMN LOUD -- the soundcheck was a bad sign, since each musician just kept turning up his own level. I think they kept it up throughout the concert; by the end, the finale was nothing more than a solid wall of white noise... which may have been the intent all along. Still, a little respect for the audience (which couldn't have been more than 100 -- the Lion d'Or is a small venue) would have been nice.
The other highlight of the evening was the building itself: if you've ever wondered just what the Freemasons do, I suspect they raise money to build Masonic temples. This one, which is a memorial to George Washington (one of the better-known Freemasons), is spectacular, the auditorium especially. The stonework is flawless, naturally, and the acoustics are great too. Wonder why it doesn't get used for more concerts -- probably a Masonic conspiracy (sigh).
The only downside was the completely gratuitious presence of a drummer. In principle, I have nothing against drummers in traditional Celtic groups; I like them in rock and jazz, so why not in folk? However, they're not really traditional and certainly not necessary to provide a sense of rhythm -- so they should only be present when they really add something, such as interesting and compelling playing. This guy did not. What's worse, he was allowed to perpetrate a drum solo, which should not be permitted of any drummer of such mediocre calibre. Leave soloing to the likes of Neil Peart and Tony Williams, please. Why doesn't some Celtic band hook up with Mickey Hart, who has been doing such interesting work since the Dead died?
The show started out with promise; the current incarnation of Mother Mallard includes electric guitar, clarinet, and a few other goodies alongside all the synths and piano. They did a great job of Philip Glass' 1000 Airplanes on the Roof; I'm not familiar with this one, but based on that performance I'm guessing it's one of Glass' better compositions, and I really like his good stuff. Why nobody else has thought to play Glass on electric guitar mystifies me: it was fantastic.
Alas, things went downhill from there. I don't really remember much of the middle material; it wasn't terribly bad and it wasn't terribly good. Things went disastrously downhill at the end of the show, though. The last piece before Emerson came on was something by John Cage -- prepared piano played according to completely novel musical conventions with no apparent rhyme or reason to which notes are played when. I have a pretty open mind about music, but I guess Cage is just too weird for me. However, the towering ego of David Borden -- Mother Mallard's führer -- managed to make it even worse by playing "accompaniment" to it, i.e. playing some swishy synthesizer piece on top of the Cage. In theory, this is perfectly in tune with Cage's philosophy of music -- but Borden's conventional synth piece completely overpowered the Cage piece, rendering it more of "David Borden with bits of John Cage randomly sprinkled throughout".
Finally, the depths were truly plumbed when Keith Emerson came on: back in the 70s, he was a wildly over-the-top performer who could play keyboards like nobody's business. In my view, musical talent excuses a fair amount of on-stage silliness, so I can forgive ELP's excesses of yesteryear. However, Emerson struck me that night as a washed-up vaudevillian: precious little talent left, and not much showmanship either. The rendering of Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man (which ELP used to do with great gusto) was beyond embarassing; it was pathetic. It's hard to imagine a worse pairing of musicians than Mother Mallard -- for the most part university professors or college instructors of music -- with Keith Emerson, who was probably the greatest prog-rock vaudevillian of the 70s and today is a sad echo of his former self.
The first half of the show was about what you'd expect from any competent traditional Scottish band: reels and jigs and ballads and just-plain-songs played on guitar, fiddle, bagpipes, and keyboards. (The keyboards were usually used for synthesized piano, which wasn't too bad; occasionally, the keyboard player veered dangerously close to swooshy, vapid, New-Age-y sounds, but the rest of the band made up for it.) The band was engaging, amusing, and played very well, but didn't quite arouse the audience--I blame the audience (the bland, middle-aged Americans who seem to be the mainstay of Wolf Trap's audience do not know how to appreciate good music). The second half picked up quite a bit; the musicians' energy level ratcheted up several notches, and they even got a measurable response from the audience. Terrific performance by the band, but it verified the importance of a responsive audience to a good show.
So I was unfamiliar with most of the material Hammill played when he appeared at Phantasmagoria (an odd little combination of record shop and nightclub in the suburban wasteland north of Washington, DC) in November 1999. That didn't matter a whit: with a musician this good, it doesn't matter if you're familiar with the material or not, the intensity of the performance nails you to the wall regardless. And the intensity that Hammill wrung out of his voice (accompanied by his own playing on either keyboards or guitar, and Stuart Gordon on violin) was formidable. Before this concert, I would not have thought it possible to play flat-out, kick-ass, no-holds-barred rock 'n roll on acoustic guitar and violin, but Hammill and Gordon proved otherwise. And that was only one highlight; most of the songs would seem relatively sedate on a superficial listening, but in actuality carry a deep, dark emotional load delivered with quiet intensity. A masterful performance (and well appreciated by the tiny audience of 40 or 50).
Frisell's New Quartet (at least the one performance I saw) is delicately balanced between lighthearted and serious; the music is best characterized as supremely pleasant--an odd juxtaposition of extreme and moderate, but that's really how the music struck me. In other words, the composition and playing were top-notch, and the ambience created by the artists was warm and welcoming, but the mood and energy level throughout were always subdued. It's not quite up my alley, but was so well done that I didn't really mind.
The price of admission was worth it for The Dark Aether Project; in a nutshell, they play mostly instrumental, extended rock music. It wasn't clear how much of the performance was improvised, but that hardly matters when you don't have familiarity with the recordings to prejudice you. All in all quite well done; I got the impression that this particular lineup has not been together very long (no, I can't read musicians like a book--the keyboardist and apparent bandleader, Adam Levin, said as much in one of his remarks), but they played well enough for an hour and a half that they kept my attention almost the whole time. The closest comparison I can think of is Djarm Karet, another contemporary American band into extended instrumental rock music. Dark Aether seemed a lot more lively than Djam Karet, but that's probably an unfair comparison of live performance to recording; perhaps Djam Karet is less cool and cerebral in concert than on record, but I don't know.
Iluvator was supposedly the evening's main event, but they were quite disappointing compared to the Dark Aether Project. I suppose if they too had been a purely instrumental outfit, the $10 would have been an amazing bargain, as the musicians were quite competent, seemed familiar with the material, and exhibited a few brief, shining moments of exhilarating interplay that almost made it worth enduring the rest of the performance. Unfortunately, the "standard" guitar/bass/drums/keyboards lineup was ruined by the addition of a singer--not that I have anything against vocals, mind you, just that I have something against hystrionics, wailing, and generally carrying on like Freddie Mercury by someone who is a long, long way from being Freddie Mercury. And, oh yeah, when the singer had the sense to shut up and let the band play (which they did a fine job of), he had an annoying tendency to play air guitar, air keyboards, or just make stupid arena rock gestures that don't work too well in front of an audience of 40 or 50. Yet another potentially fine progressive rock band ruined by an unremittingly awful singer.
Definitely one of the best performances I've seen in a while. Thinking Plague lay in hiatus for too damn long after In This Life came out, and it's a wonderfully great news to see them recording and touring again. Apparently they have a new album due out sometime in 2000--I can hardly wait for it.
(beyond this point, my memory gets fuzzy--I have probably omitted a few shows)