My review of that Decemberists concert the other night was my first DCist piece in nine months!
The most devout among you might conceivably care that I reviewed two prior Decemberists concerts, from March 2007 and June 2009, both for the Washington Post.
When you fling a bra into the abyss, the abyss flings it back at you.
…where, ah, “the abyss” is the possibly-biggest-selling, certainly-biggest-sounding band in indie rock. Specifically, Arcade Fire. More specifically, Régine Chassagne, singer and co-songwriter and spouse of frontman Win Butler, who, late in Arcade Fire’s ecstatic 95-minute concert at Merriweather Post Pavilion last night, briefly abandoned her post behind the piano to toss that ladies’ garmet (which might actually have been a halter top; it was hard to see) back to its owner. This isn’t 1987 and we’re not Poison, her revolted glare seemed to scold.
Of course, it could very well have been circa-1987 U2, what with the urgent vastness of the music; the related sense of a big, important band grown huge and courting self-importance; and also the lack of any detectable awareness of sex– which is kind of weird, given how driving and propulsive Arcade Fire’s most arresting music is. On a tune like “Rebellion (Lies)”, the dizzying set-closer that invited the bra-throw, all eight musicians on stage were basically playing percussion, and almost all of them were shouting the lyrics whether they had microphones or not. Continue reading
Posted in Uncategorized
Tagged Arcade Fire, Click Track, concerts, Merriweather Post Pavilion, setlists, The Washington Post
Believe the Hype: Chuck D and Flavor Flav at Virgin Free Fest's West Stage. Photo by Francis Chung.
My arbitrary and semi-complete (owing to some collaborative difficulties) recap of yesterday’s Virgin Free Fest is up at DCist now, accompanied by more photos like the Public Enemy shot above by Francis Chang.
Posted in music, shameless self-promotion
Tagged DCist, Merriweather Post Pavilion, pop music, Virgin Mobile Festival
Oklahoma’s Flaming Lips have subverted expectation of how a “rock” band should sound and behave for so long that the most radical performance they could give at this stage of their singular career would be merely to perform an hour-and-a-half of songs absent psychedelic videos, Yeti-costumed cheerleaders, or Mini Cooper-sized balloons full of confetti.
Still, no one was complaining at Merriweather Friday night when the Lips turned up with all their circus wagons full of Yippie ephemera in tow. Frontman Wayne Coyne was onstage 20 minutes before their performance began, helping to set up gear in full view of the tri-generational crowd. (He got a big cheer when he unpacked the plastic bubble he would soon inflate and enclose himself in for his customary walk-and-roll above the most pit.) Continue reading
Ladies and Gentlemen, opening for the serene and poetical Mr. Leonard Cohen this evening: the brilliant and genteel Mr. Leonard Cohen.
At Merriweather Monday night, under skies that might be called “Coheneque” — cold, rainy, despairing, but not without a solitary beauty — the spry 74-year-old* songwriter’s songwriter glided on-stage at 7:35, and sang for 65 minutes. Yes, sang. Save your jokes. He’s heard them all, and written some of the better ones himself.** Continue reading
Aging gracefully? It’s for wimps!
If e’er you rolled a ten-sided die during the 1980s, you were a candidate for the Cult of Maiden. (Although I’m pretty sure that by the time I got into Maiden for a couple years starting in sixth grade, any hysteria over their alleged satanism had mostly blown over. Certainly, my mom never ordered me to take my Seventh Son of a Seventh Son poster down.)
My review of Iron Maiden’s nostalgic-by-design Somewhere Back in Time tour is in today’s Paper of Record.
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