Two shows in 24 hours
Oct. 28th, 2007 10:34 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
omorkaHad a rather musical weekend . . .
Last night ,![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
bassfingers took the Spouse and myself to the Porcupine Tree show at the Longitudinal Line. First of all, let me just say that I highly approve of the city's no-smoking ordinance; going to a show and not coming out smelling like an ashtray is a very pleasant experience. Secondly, we seem to be having good luck with opening bands. The opener was a prog-metal band from Woodstock, NY that call themselves either Three, 3, or Thr3e, depending on which of their promotional items you are looking at. They were technically very proficient, and they had great hair - the lead singer/second guitarist had past-shoulder length blonde hair; the drummer's was longer, browner, and curlier; the lead guitarist had hair as long as mine, black, and blowing artistically in the wind from a fan he had set up to cool him off during the performance; the bassist/backup vocalist had shoulder-length, curly brown hair; and the keyboardist/aux percussionist was spear-bald with a good skull. They remind me vaguely of two parts Black-Album-era Metallica and one part Rush, although the lead vocalist's vocal quality isn't much like either of them (and neither were the lyrics, as far as I could make them out). As you can probably figure out from the music tag, I bought their most recent album; it's mixed with the drums a little higher than I would have chosen, but I'm still enjoying it immensely.
After the opener, the main act was actually a bit disappointing, although that was more the fault of the crowd than the band. Frankenstein's Monster, or at least a reasonable facsimile, decided to stand in front of us and block most of the stage; I had to move sideways until I was watching betweenbriareos and his lovely lady (who were also there; it was great to see y'all again!) from about two rows behind them, and the couple of guys between us and them were still occasionally blocking my view. Meanwhile, the guys immediately behind us were very, very drunk and kept smacking into me. The band had video pieces projected on the wall behind them for about half of their songs, and I have to admit that most of them left me cold - at least, what I could see. And the lead singer/group mastermind sounded like he had a rather rough voice, probably the result of an extended tour. He gave us all the energy he had, but he seemed a little drained. The rest of the band seemed a bit tired, too, or at least low-energy, although they seemed to be having a good time. They did my favorite song of theirs ("Sound of Muzak") very early in the set; their more recent stuff seemed a bit darker both in sound and in tone than what I'm familiar with, and it wasn't all that bright and cheery to begin with. Still, it was a good show, and there were bishi, bishi performers.
Then today was what Beans billed as a "Tri-Peds" show - him, Sue-Bob, and Jimb on acoustic guitar, with the Spouse lighting as always, but minus Wiley and Jimmy. I was pretty sure the band wasn't going to skip their Howl-O-Ween show - I had originally predicted the whole band back at the end of October, and I'm sorry to have been wrong about that, but I'll take what we got. It was still a twenty-song show, and ran about twenty minutes over its allotted 3 hours even without any of the "theater" show stuff and much less between-song patter. It was obvious (a) that the band is a bit rusty, but (b) that they've really needed this - Beans was at an incredible energy level, and the Spouse wasn't far behind. "Bite the Light" was one of the best versions I've heard, ever. "Soft Thud of Men" is back in the set, which it hasn't been in a long time. (Beans said he put it back in for Wednesday. He later said the same thing about "Bitter Bones," and I razzed him for doing two songs for her when he won't do "Corners" for me andquantumduck put together. He seemed surprised, and said something about taking that into consideration for the next show after "The Fi5e" is over.) I danced on 10 out of 20 songs, and would have done 11 except that "Pet the Fire" was Tribal Lilies only. (Speaking of the Lilies, I realized that their second routine, we've actually learned all the moves to except for some of the handwork.) All in all, a very good show, even in the limited format
Beans also debuted a song from the third act of "The Fi5e," called simply "Spawn Lake." It incorporates a lot of the current Bipedverse backstory not related to the Fi5e themselves, except that it does involve Giglamesh (Gig Burley) and Binkidu (Bink-a-doo, Bink Bartondale). I am embarrassed that I had not caught the second of those; I blame the spelling. More, Beans did it solo - he was playing acoustic guitar (in fact, he mentioned when he'd bought it; I was -1 that year). I am looking forward to what that sounds like in the show proper.
The Spouse recorded the whole show on the new iPod-based rig he has;shefsatyr also recorded at least part of it. No fewer than three people were taking photographs; I'm looking forwards to seeing what bassfingers captured of it. I even got into the act and got a couple of cheap digital snapshots of "Spawn Lake" just for the novelty of Beans playing an instrument (the last time I saw him do that, Waldo Bob took over bass so Zoomack could play keyboards, so Sue-Bob could be the frontwoman for "Making Mud;" that Zoomack was still in the band is an indication of how long ago that was).
I wore earplugs at the first show, of course; since the second was billed as "unplugged," I didn't wear them for that one. I think that was okay, although I am getting a bit of ringing.
Last night ,
bassfingers took the Spouse and myself to the Porcupine Tree show at the Longitudinal Line. First of all, let me just say that I highly approve of the city's no-smoking ordinance; going to a show and not coming out smelling like an ashtray is a very pleasant experience. Secondly, we seem to be having good luck with opening bands. The opener was a prog-metal band from Woodstock, NY that call themselves either Three, 3, or Thr3e, depending on which of their promotional items you are looking at. They were technically very proficient, and they had great hair - the lead singer/second guitarist had past-shoulder length blonde hair; the drummer's was longer, browner, and curlier; the lead guitarist had hair as long as mine, black, and blowing artistically in the wind from a fan he had set up to cool him off during the performance; the bassist/backup vocalist had shoulder-length, curly brown hair; and the keyboardist/aux percussionist was spear-bald with a good skull. They remind me vaguely of two parts Black-Album-era Metallica and one part Rush, although the lead vocalist's vocal quality isn't much like either of them (and neither were the lyrics, as far as I could make them out). As you can probably figure out from the music tag, I bought their most recent album; it's mixed with the drums a little higher than I would have chosen, but I'm still enjoying it immensely.After the opener, the main act was actually a bit disappointing, although that was more the fault of the crowd than the band. Frankenstein's Monster, or at least a reasonable facsimile, decided to stand in front of us and block most of the stage; I had to move sideways until I was watching between
briareos and his lovely lady (who were also there; it was great to see y'all again!) from about two rows behind them, and the couple of guys between us and them were still occasionally blocking my view. Meanwhile, the guys immediately behind us were very, very drunk and kept smacking into me. The band had video pieces projected on the wall behind them for about half of their songs, and I have to admit that most of them left me cold - at least, what I could see. And the lead singer/group mastermind sounded like he had a rather rough voice, probably the result of an extended tour. He gave us all the energy he had, but he seemed a little drained. The rest of the band seemed a bit tired, too, or at least low-energy, although they seemed to be having a good time. They did my favorite song of theirs ("Sound of Muzak") very early in the set; their more recent stuff seemed a bit darker both in sound and in tone than what I'm familiar with, and it wasn't all that bright and cheery to begin with. Still, it was a good show, and there were bishi, bishi performers.Then today was what Beans billed as a "Tri-Peds" show - him, Sue-Bob, and Jimb on acoustic guitar, with the Spouse lighting as always, but minus Wiley and Jimmy. I was pretty sure the band wasn't going to skip their Howl-O-Ween show - I had originally predicted the whole band back at the end of October, and I'm sorry to have been wrong about that, but I'll take what we got. It was still a twenty-song show, and ran about twenty minutes over its allotted 3 hours even without any of the "theater" show stuff and much less between-song patter. It was obvious (a) that the band is a bit rusty, but (b) that they've really needed this - Beans was at an incredible energy level, and the Spouse wasn't far behind. "Bite the Light" was one of the best versions I've heard, ever. "Soft Thud of Men" is back in the set, which it hasn't been in a long time. (Beans said he put it back in for Wednesday. He later said the same thing about "Bitter Bones," and I razzed him for doing two songs for her when he won't do "Corners" for me and
quantumduck put together. He seemed surprised, and said something about taking that into consideration for the next show after "The Fi5e" is over.) I danced on 10 out of 20 songs, and would have done 11 except that "Pet the Fire" was Tribal Lilies only. (Speaking of the Lilies, I realized that their second routine, we've actually learned all the moves to except for some of the handwork.) All in all, a very good show, even in the limited formatBeans also debuted a song from the third act of "The Fi5e," called simply "Spawn Lake." It incorporates a lot of the current Bipedverse backstory not related to the Fi5e themselves, except that it does involve Giglamesh (Gig Burley) and Binkidu (Bink-a-doo, Bink Bartondale). I am embarrassed that I had not caught the second of those; I blame the spelling. More, Beans did it solo - he was playing acoustic guitar (in fact, he mentioned when he'd bought it; I was -1 that year). I am looking forward to what that sounds like in the show proper.
The Spouse recorded the whole show on the new iPod-based rig he has;
shefsatyr also recorded at least part of it. No fewer than three people were taking photographs; I'm looking forwards to seeing what bassfingers captured of it. I even got into the act and got a couple of cheap digital snapshots of "Spawn Lake" just for the novelty of Beans playing an instrument (the last time I saw him do that, Waldo Bob took over bass so Zoomack could play keyboards, so Sue-Bob could be the frontwoman for "Making Mud;" that Zoomack was still in the band is an indication of how long ago that was).I wore earplugs at the first show, of course; since the second was billed as "unplugged," I didn't wear them for that one. I think that was okay, although I am getting a bit of ringing.
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Date: 2007-10-30 12:41 am (UTC)As for PT's music, the album after In Absentia (Deadwing) is brilliant, IMHO. Their latest is not quite as good as either of those but still quite listenable. They barely played anything off Deadwing, so don't judge it too quickly - the album has a wide range.
Re Earplugs: I don't go to concerts without them anymore, and good ones at that. I went to a Skinny Puppy concert this summer and had some cheap low noise-reduction plugs in and ended up with slight but noticeable hearing loss in my left ear. Most shows sound better without them, but I can't go losing my hearing, you know?