Ok, so this is going to be a very short review. It was great to see Interpol with Mike Vance and Jack Rollins. It’s great that Mike Vance and Jack Rollins really like Interpol. I, sadly, do not. I listened to all of their albums and tried to remain open minded during the show, but I just couldn’t get into it. “C’Mere,” “NYC,” and “Slow Hands” all have a moody indie appeal, but overall, Interpol’s not for me.
HFStival was fun because it was different. The lineup was all late 80’s / early 90’s bands (not exactly my genre), so it was a nice change of pace. I had also gone to the more modern Virgin Mobile Festival the past two summers, so I was ready for something new. The first band on stage when I arrived was Presidents of the United States of America.
Presidents of the United States of America
It’s hard to imagine a better opening band than Presidents. They played to a pavilion that couldn’t have been more than a third filled, and they walked off hours before Third Eye Blind approached the parking lot, yet they played like they were the main event. Frontman Chris Ballew slid up, down, left, and right on stage, practically daring the audience not to get into it. It was hard to miss the upbeat vibe: band members were dressed in blue, pink, and yellow pastels, resembling three human party streamers! Highlights of the party included “Peaches,” “Lump,” “Kitty,” “Boe Weevil,” “Video Killed the Radio Star,” and “Kick Out the Jams.” (I especially liked this “Jams” line: “I solemnly swear to uphold the constitution / Got a rock and roll problem? Well, we got the solution.” Catchy!)
Beyond the actual songs, though, what impressed me was their showmanship. Ballew played his guitar literally to the ground one song, jumped on top of a speaker for another, and timed a stage drop exactly for the last note of a third. I also enjoyed the ‘invisible’ harmonica solo and the playful shots at their old age: “We’re gonna have to take a deep breath and relax after the next song, considering all the lines of coke we’ve been doing…” In the end, Strike himself said it best: “You’ve gotta love everybody and make them feel good about themselves.” Mission accomplished.
Grade: A
Fortunately, after a song or two, things improved. There was still a lot of self-serious mumbling, but the audience started to recognize more of their songs: “I Alone,” “All Over You,” “The Dolphins Cry,” “Run to the Water” among them. The audience also seemed to appreciate the gallons of sweat frontman Ed Kowalczyk was pouring in. Midway through, Kowalczyk cracked me up when he said, “Y’all may have noticed that I use a lot of water imagery in my songs” a minute after I’d written, “Man, could you get any more water?!”
Live’s clear best song was the last one, “Lightning Crashes.” It had a slow build and a number of well struck power notes – a perfect ballad to end on.
Undoubtedly the funniest moment occurred at the end of the set, when they had the audience out of the seats, jumping and dancing to a vocal version of the guitar riff from “Seven Nation Army.” Mid jump, lead rapper Treach shouted, “Where my white boys at? Where my white girls at?” Gotta know your audience!
Grade: C-
Updated Grade: C [Moves up a little because “Volvo Driving Soccer Mom” is hilarious and “Wonderful” is appropriately named.]
So many of their songs seem suited for the stage: “Never Let You Go,” a breezy, sing-along romance; “Graduate,” a euphoric rebel yell; and “Semi-Charmed of Life,” an upbeat tongue twister everyone in the audience would have known. It also would have been funny to hear “Crystal Baller” live considering the word “baller” has another meaning it did not have the decade it was written. Moreover, I cannot imagine a more powerful end to a festival than “Slow Motion,” a haunting drug tale that would make you swear off Ibuprofen, let alone anything illegal.
So there were all the ingredients for a great concert. That concert never happened, though, because frontman Stephan Jenkins had a HORRIBLE voice. On CD, he sounds earnest and soulful. There are rough edges, but those edges make him sound more natural and believable. Live, it seemed like there was nothing but rough edges. He slurred melodies, shouted choruses – it was a mess.
I felt bad because he gave this inspiring speech about driving across the country to be “among friends…We’re all screwups; we’re all Third Eye Blind!” The friends comment was appropriate because I had written in my notes “the lead singer looks like a bit like Chandler.” The next note, sadly: “sounds more like Phoebe”...
When the performance started, I assumed Idol would sound as mediocre as he did on his albums. None of the sixteen songs on his Greatest Hits CD suggested this would be a memorable show. Also against him was the fact that he looked ancient. James Porter commented beforehand, “Wait, Billy Idol’s still alive?” and it was true. He looked like a randy nursing home resident who had ducked out of bingo just in time to make the show. All of it seemed to point to a train wreck: a 74-year-old with half-open shirts and frost tipped hair singing “Flesh or Fantasy” – yikes!
Incredibly, though, ALL of it worked. His command of his body, the stage, and the crowd was impeccable. And unlike the previous two performers, he could actually sing! His voice showed power, tone, precision – everything you look for in a vocal. He was such a pro that you even accepted the outfits: half-buttoned shirts, quarter-buttoned shirts, unbuttoned shirts, three-piece suits – everything fit!
The best songs were, admittedly, the most famous: “Dancing with Myself,” “Cradle of Love,” “White Wedding,” and “Rebel Yell.” Idol tore into them with the greatest fervor, and audience members followed his lead – pumping their fists, shaking their hips, and shouting “more, more, more” whenever prompted. It’s hard to pick the overall best part of the show. The moment in the first song when I realized Idol was the real deal was memorable, and Stevie Stevens’ behind-the-back guitar solo was, as Idol described, “pretty bada--.“ In the end, though, the top moment would have to be midway through the concert when Idol stopped a song a few notes in. “We were about to play a slow song here,” he explained, “but whaddya say we rock out instead?” Awesome.
On July 24, 2007, three years before this show, I saw the White Stripes' debut at Madison Square Garden. At the start of the show, Jack White walked on stage and announced, “I don’t think we’ve ever played this bar before…” It was a great beginning, a clever wink at the fact that the White Stripes were about to stray outside their comfort zone. They were about to take on an arena.
Sadly, they were not up to the challenge. Their guitar feedback was so loud that the usual funky riffs sounded like thrashing. At a smaller hall, their quirky, scratchy phrasing could have worked well, but at the Garden, it sounded like mumbling.
Considering the White Stripes’ failure, I was nervous for Arcade Fire. Were arenas just for Justin Bieber? Did Arcade Fire belong in the same venue as Disney On Ice? Adding to my nerves was the fact that I had looked forward to the show for months, claiming on numerous occasions that they were the band I most wanted to see in concert. Given these giant expectations, I could have easily been disappointed.
Lucky for me, Arcade Fire IS giant. The soaring melodies, the crescendos, the guttural wails…they seem built for more space. Couple those sounds with the striking images that flashed above the eight band members’ heads, and you had one heckuva show.
The show started exactly as it should have: with the propulsive “Ready to Start.” (Why was that not the first track on their new album? It fit much more than “The Suburbs.”) "Ready to Start" was ominous, atmospheric, and offered an immediate buy in. They followed that with strong Neon Bible tracks: “No Cars Go,” “Keep the Car Running,” and “Windowsill.” They also made me appreciate “Crown of Love” and “Rebellion” more than I did on Funeral.
By the middle of the concert, everything started to become a euphoric blur. Out of the blur, I could identify two high points: “Intervention” and “Wakeup.” “Intervention” had one of the most depressing lines I’d ever heard: “every spark of friendship and hope will die without a home.” But it also had one of the most upbeat sounds. “Wakeup” contained an equally crazy irony: the whole song was about repression, yet it laid bare your emotions. Who in the Garden did not feel the sad poetry of ''children, wake up, hold your mistake up / before they turn the summer into dust''? The transition in the middle of the song was also incredible, going from surrender to anger to action in three verses.
In the end, the word I’d use to describe the show is ‘epic.’ My students overuse the word like it’s their job, but here it fits. They did what the White Stripes couldn't; they delivered an EPIC performance.
Endnote: Spoon opened the show. Their performance was the same as last time, except fewer people knew them, so there was less enthusiasm. Though maybe enthusiasm wasn’t what frontman Britt Daniel was going for, considering he stumbled out in a pilly white t-shirt. Still like “Cherry Bomb,” still like “The Underdog,” still don’t get them overall.
Let’s start with the good stuff: it wasn’t held in a Jersey casino ballroom, I didn’t nearly crash on the way to the show, and I got to listen to Weezer – in concert. Moreover, I appreciated the times Rivers talked to the crowd, the balloons that filtered through the rows, and the well balanced setlist. The setlist had everything from “Why Bother” (a little-known, downbeat old song) to “If You’re Wondering…” (a well-known, upbeat new one). And finally, honestly, I enjoyed “Can’t Stop Partying.” Cuomo’s stab at Lil Wayne is hilarious; it’s that bad!
Despite these positives, this was definitely the least enjoyable of my three Weezer shows. Part of this was familiarity: it was not as fresh and surprising as the first times. Part of this was the environment: I was trapped in a group of dumb, fratty Maryland undergrads who seemed to know far more about shotgunning than the band. If I had been able to secure a wristband, I could have fled and joined the diehards near the stage. There had been no mention of a wristband in advertising beforehand, though, so I was stuck with the drunks.
Oh well. If they can still put out tracks like “Heart Songs,” there’s always hope for the band. Play that, “Dreamin,’” and a bunch of Pinkerton at a DAR / 9:30 Club show, and it’ll be back up to an “A”…
Grade: B-
There were a number of cool things about the Phoenix concert: I got to see it with Kim Walker and Jen McGovern, it was held at sound-boosting DAR Constitution Hall, and Phoenix brought a lot of enthusiasm to each song. (The best songs were the bouncy “Lasso,” the moody “Love Is A Sunset,” and the funky “Squaredance.” It’s also hard not to like “Lisztomania.”)
All of those cool things were overshadowed by the fact that, at the end of the concert, they gave a third of the audience a shot to run up and join them on stage! I thought they’d finished the last song, “1901,” but clearly not. As long as you could make it up there by the 20th time they repeated “fold it, fold it, fold it” (which I always thought was “ballin, ballin, ballin”), you could jump in and join the band! And by the last few seconds, by the 17th “ballin,” I did – I made it on stage. :)
Grade: B+
Picture a steam room. Without the steam. Or the random old men. Now, most bands would not choose to hold a concert in a steam room -- nor would they don Power Ranger masks and channel Rammstein / Bonnie Tyler in the same show. Most bands are not, however, the Protomen.
The Protomen show was unquestionably the strangest show I've ever been to. It wasn't bad exactly, and it certainly wasn't boring; it was just strange. They would build and pound these ten-minute mood tracks ("Hope Rides Alone," "Light Up The Night"), and then they'd deliver a spirited, upbeat cover of "Total Eclipse of the Heart." It made no sense.
I would have liked to revel in this strangeness, as Andrew Schmadel and Mike Vance were able to do, but all I could really focus on was the temperature. The show was held in the attic of The Red & The Black, a 500-foot cubby hole with 100-degree heat. If I had gone sleeveless like the guitarist or shirtless like the drummer, I might have been able to get past the heat, but a long-sleeve sweater was not going to cut it.
Overall, I'm willing to give the band another chance; they were intriguingly odd. Next time they just need to perform somewhere that has A/C.
Grade: B-
