BigYawn

“It was cold and the rain was falling…”

These could easily be lines from a Leonard Cohen(85) song, but they actually begin to describe the mood at Merriweather Post Pavilion, where this show took place. Initially I was astonished as to how Cohen was not playing a slightly more intimate venue that had 4 walls and a roof; I mean, who expected him to play a shed tour? But given the weather and the feeling in the air, it truly might have been a little too stuffy to have seen him at say, the Warner Theater. Of course, my feelings might have been different if it was 85 degrees and sunny out.

Cohen is pushing 75 and had not played the states in nearly 15 years. This alone was reason to see him, because sadly, who knows if there would be another chance. But truly, despite what I think about his Paul Bunyan-esque career that has many who have nary heard a Cohen song embellishing him, the man is pretty damn close to a legend. And cutting himself off from the industry and touring for so long was a pretty slick career move. Finding Islam and changing his name may have doomed Cat Stevens, but spending a number of years in a monastery has only made Cohen’s name canon. This is a liberal comparison at best, but that only goes to further underlie the seemingly new found status Cohen has discovered.

The show itself was rather magical. Being a self-confessed Leonard Cohen newbie, it was not hard to fall right into his arms as he nailed hit after hit. In many ways, with age he has taken his NYC folk sound and upgraded it almost into a lounge act, but on a much larger scale and without the negative connotations of being a “lounge singer.” I’m talking about a 5,000 person lounge here. Cohen’s relationship with his band, and their obvious talent, stood out wonderfully; there was not a dud in the bunch. And while the set list early on didn’t vary much from his Live in London track listing, it really didn’t matter. Just getting to hear Cohen play his own material after hearing so many others butcher it over the years, was really special.

Sitting through Cohen’s set, in a crowd full of baby-boomers with the occasional spatter of 20 or 30 somethings, I wondered where all these people came from. Who is a Leonard Cohen fan? Besides Bono, no one I mentioned Leonard to really even recognized his name, at least not till I included Jeff Buckley and “Hallelujah.” A song which, for the record, was done significantly better by Rufus Wainwright, Shrek be damned! I polled the old and young, and while there was some passing familiarity within the older set, no one claimed fan-hood. And as he played songs like “Everybody Knows” or “Famous Blue Raincoat,” both I only know, again, thanks to other artists covering them, it was hard to know who was, like me, kind of faking it, or who was a die-hard. I was sitting next to a teenager who was obviously dragged along by his parents, and he really wasn’t interested in the music. How many others came to see the show optimistically, to see Cohen the legend, but shortly felt the same way as this kid did?

Everything about the show seemed near perfect to me: the sound, the band, Cohen’s charm, which affected me all the way in section ZZZZZZ, which was thankfully shy of the many rain-soaked fans sitting on the lawn. This was an impressive experience, but it wouldn’t be so for everyone. While his songs and his lyrics are timeless and meaningful to even the dullest brick, the style of the show would have turned people away. This tour is apparently lasting well into the Autumn, and will hit many a city worldwide; In an attempt, no doubt, to recover some of the money Cohen apparently lost to yet another in a long line of shady agents. But what happens then? Does he continue to record? Will he tour again, and receive the same adorations? The same standing ovations after every song? Cohen is an interesting figure I don’t fully “get.” But his music, and his charm impressed me into becoming a fan. He won’t reach everyone this way, but by the time this tour is over, he will have a lot of people who will remember these shows, meaning his legacy will firmly remain intact for years to come.

Surprises happen, let’s face it, and in the world of live music, they happen a lot. That being said, I was astonished by how this show went. In fact, I had it pegged as exactly the opposite of what actually occurred. I anticipated being very interested in Ghost(84)’s psych-rock and bored with Magik Markers(83) more noise-based work. Nope.

Funny story, while I can’t prove it — I don’t keep e-mails from that far back — I’m 99% sure Magik Markers were one of the very first bands to start sending BigYawn unsolicited e-mail in 2004. While that is a terrible story, it makes finally seeing them for the first time all the funnier. And again, I really wasn’t expecting much, having heard some of their earlier work, which trended far to the noisier mish-mash than I would normally prefer. But when I did actually hear them, it really wasn’t much of that going on at all.

Apparently the band has mellowed, slightly at least. Much of the noise has been toned down, and the material from their last two LPs is really more melodic than anything else they’ve ever done. Lead singer Elisa Ambrogio’s voice, which has been criticized unfairly in the past, is really one of the main reasons for this sudden change. Mostly cause she’s like, well,  really singing now. The Sarah Paulson gone John Hughes movie look alike  — seriously, she could have easily been Chevy Chase’s daughter in any National Lampoons movie when she was younger — led the trio through what could have easily been the soundtrack to The Blair Witch Project; scary and haunting, yet gorgeous and moving all at the same time. And while I have no idea what the name of the “ballad” was at the end, and while it was clear Elise did not want to play it, it was so, so good. If anyone reading this has an idea, please let me know. I’m quite excited to see Magik Markers again.

Ghost on the other hand, were hard to swallow. Maybe I’m a wimp, but I just couldn’t make it through the entire set by these Japanese psych-rock legends. This was their first tour since they refused to play the US until after Bush was out of office. I like that, and the music isn’t terrible, but it lacks the cohesiveness I need to really get interested in it. When I see dudes gregariously bobbing there heads, I haven’t the slightest idea why, and for a band that is supposed to be this legendary, that leaves me with a bad taste in my mouth.

I know I should appreciate these guys more, but to be honest, I’m not sure I can. Be it the large crowd of hot and smelly dudes, the long droning on and on of the intro to each song, or just the standing there having to deal with all of the above, it kinda sucked. Getting a chance to see Ghost or band like the Flower Travelin’ Band don’t come around very often (I left the FTB show earlier this year because it was over an hour late just getting statred) and perhaps I will regret this sometime in the future. But for now, for a guy like me, these shows are simply too hard to swallow. Well, too hard to breath at actually.

There are two genres of music it is best not for me to generally comment on. One which has been previously mentioned in these pages is “Jam” music. Another, and this is the type of music played by Camela Widad Kraemer(82), is the genre of folk music; particularly the type played solo, with acoustic guitar, and often with the smell of coffee in the air.

I won’t give Camela a hard time, I wasn’t planning on seeing her at Tryst, but she happened to be friends with an artist whose work was being debuted there. And I, while there having dinner and hanging on, happened to hear her. Her music was typical of this genre, no doubt from the heart, simple and intentionally designed to be uplifting. That is all well and good, but to me, this is the equivalent of nails on the chalk board.

I’m quite sure I would have been happy for most of the acts on the Lilith tour — not to grossly lump all women with guitars into that category — but Camela and others who would have likely ended up playing the early 30 minute sets would have drawn me to tears. This is nothing personal on Camela, it sounded like she is far more than a capable guitarist and her voice was unassuming and actually sounded quite nice. It just simply isn’t in the cards for me to properly evaluate this genre fairly. Can I take a mulligan?

The sad part here is that I only know Camela’s name because my girlfriend signed up for her mailing list. She took one for the team, as this is now a complete review, but she will be getting e-mails about coffee shop shows till the end of time.

It seems to me, that Max Tundra(80) is a bit of a chameleon; he jumps genres like I change my shoes, matching them to a mood or a color he happens to be wearing. This one man band relies on mixers, synths and loops to create unique songs, each of them almost one-offs on a particular genre. Tundra plays with 80’s revivalism, glitch pop, Daedalus styled hip-hop, even Justin Timberlake-like pop. All with a uniquely British attitude and a smile on his face, which, given the small crowd he began playing too, was impressive.

Everything Max Tundra played was not necessarily a huge crowd pleaser, but as a performer, I think it is likely that he won many of the over. While it is hard to nail him down to any genre, he clearly has an infatuation with the 1980’s, but one can certainly question whether it is the good 80’s or the bad 80’s; it all depends on your disposition towards that decade. One of the last songs he played was what he called “old rave.” With that — assuming you buy his own genre labeling — he stepped clearly into the 90’s. I’m not sure if this is a decade Max can handle quite as well, but I’d love to see him try it on another night. I admittedly was drinking a lot at this show, but that didn’t take away from my impressions of Max

The Junior Boys(81) initially seemed like great partners on this bill, but after a few songs, this seemed less to be the case. The Boy’s newest album Begone Dull Care is not their best, and the reasons for that are akin to why their performance did not blow me away. As the image to the left begins to suggest, the Boys themselves have turned into 70’s lounge lizards on this release, and their way dialed-down new material, which is apparently based on a film/jazz collaboration from the 1940’s, sounds like it could have been material originally heard in a velvet draped room in some smoke-filled back room.

Now, that description doesn’t have to be a negative one, but in this case it kind of is. While I have never been fully drawn in by the Junior Boys earlier material, it had always hinted to me that I will eventually love some of their stuff. but this new direction is one I’m not so much a fan of. I can’t say the band has gone so far as to create a concept album, but it does not easily lend itself to someone looking for catchy songs. The band interlaced a lot of the new material with some older stuff, which did get the crowd going a bit, but nothing really made me move, and I left a little before it was over.

I wanted, and still hope to, really like the Junior Boys. But it was not meant to happen on this night.

It certainly wasn’t in the plans to see Willem Dicke(79). In fact, I should have been at either the Twilight Sad show or the Pack A.D. show, very possibly both, but a seven hour meeting at work derailed those plans, so I went looking for booze and decent food. Luckily, James Hoban’s in Dupont had both. And they also had a singer-songwriter playing covers behind the bar.

Judging from his Myspace site, Willem has got his own thing going on, playing his own music, possibly even with a band. But, I’m guessing he qualifies as a “struggling” artist, and as is often the case with the struggling artist, a man has to find a way to make a living and pay the bills. Nights like this at James Hoban’s, playing well known covers to drunk people, probably helps make that happen for Willem. I’m certainly not gonna judge, the man knows a lot of songs, I’d do it too if I were him.

Willem’s repertoire was not complicated: mostly very familiar pop hits from the  80s and 90s. I’m willing to bet anyone reading this would know 90-95% of the songs he played. As examples, “Last Dance with Mary Jane” by Tom Petty, “Africa” by Toto, “In Your Eyes” by Peter Gabriel, “Yellow” by Coldplay. I’m pretty sure you’re likely going to hear most of these on whatever your WASH FM equivalent is. But so what, I was drinking and eating with my girl, and it is exactly the type of sing along stuff I wanted to hear, even if I didn’t want to actually sing along. And you know what, the guy mixed it up too. While it seems pretty obvious a man and an acoustic guitar will play a Pearl Jam song a little differently that the original, it was still a nice switch. and his version of the Outfield’s “Your Love,” possibly my favorite song of all time, was dead on perfect. The dude even played Indigo Girls on request. And no, that request was not from me.

Good for him, hopes he makes some cash on these gigs, and can afford to follow his dream of playing his own songs. Though, sorry to say Willem, they can’t possibly be better than the songs you were playing on this night.

Full disclosure I left before getting to hear Ian Svenonius‘ new project, Chain and the Gang. It was pretty late, I’m lamer than I thought, and truth be told, Ian scares me a little.

What I did see in the back room of Comet Ping Pong was pretty thought provoking, as an experience more so than the music. Sure Mahjongg(77) were ok for a weirdo noise-type band, but with Baltimore so close, I feel like I’ve seen and heard a lot better. The guys started a little late, which didn’t help me by any means, and they were really over the place. The crowd, which I’ll get to in a second, seemed largely disinterested, though some younger fans were clearly getting excited up front. Admittedly I was a little surprised, I expected more of an indie rock band, but instead got diet Dan Deacon. At least the place was packed, so the band had that going for them. Later in the night Calvin Johnson said they had picked up Mahjongg for a few stops on the tour. A curious pairing, to say the least.

Calvin and his new band, the Hive Dwellers(78) sounded pretty solidly like Calvin’s solo stuff. He played basic acoustic guitar and was backed by a rhythm section of sorts. This was all pretty stripped down. I took off before their set was over, but this left me feeling the way I always do about Calvin’s stuff, whether solo, or with Beat Happening; I kinda just don’t get it. Don’t get me wrong, I completely appreciate what Calvin and Beat Happening did for the music scene in the Pacific northwest, and “alternative” indie music as whole. And I was excited to see him live, but I’m still not a huge fan of his music.

The crowd at Comet was truly the show of the night. You would expect, with Calvin and Ian in town, a fair amount of the graying DC punk scene to show up, and they were well represented. While I’d really like to know who the people I didn’t immediately recognize were, the DC monarchy was well represented with Guy Picciotto and Ian Mackaye. Stewart Lupton was there as well, all of them no doubt paying homage to the other Ian. I actually saw Mackaye walk right past Calvin without saying anything though, which made me wonder if the two were ever close, given they were iconic figures at the same time.

It is hard to put into words the feelings I have about this crowd. It skewed heavy on the 40 year-old parenting dynamic. This was the generation that grew up when the DC scene was at it’s peak. These are the people who can honestly say they were born DC natives, not the cast of thousands in their 20s or 30s who call DC home now, but came from someplace else. This is the crowd who graduated from their punk roots into houses in Tenleytown or Glover Park, who may still need babysitters for their kids, but also still remember a time when it wasn’t so bad to send your kid to DC public schools, cause that’s where they went. What I’m saying here, is this was a scene, a culture, one that is still kicking, albeit not necessarily centered around the same things as it once was. The current DC scene is a weak, pale comparison. There is nothing holding it together, it is tied loosely around a few remaining bands that are so segmented into niches it almost seems awkward calling any of it a “scene.” I’ve been a part of this world in some form or another for almost six years, and while I certainly still qualify as an outsider, I’m not really sure being an insider really means anything anymore. A musical community meant something 25 years ago. Now the scene is really almost a negative connotation. DJ nights, sloppy drunkenness and cocaine seem to be more of a defining piece of the DC landscape than the actual music itself, and that is fucking sad.

I’m not reminiscing about the Dischord years, they’re over. And I’m not pushing a political agenda either, my integrity is too tattered for that. I just want this city to represent something musically again; to have a community that isn’t a bunch of seclusionists. I want someplace where people my age come out to see a show because it is Calvin fucking Johnson and Ian Svenonius, not because it is something some stupid pseudo-mainstream blog is all over.

I started BigYawn back in 2004 because I wanted to see what could be done about the above. I’m not a musician, I don’t know the right people, so unfortunately, in my mind at least, there was little I could do. Even organizing a city-wide festival seemed futile, cause no one seemed to care. All that’s fine, it certainly doesn’t have to be me, but if DC is ever going to be seen again as a city with a real musical community, a whole lot needs to change, a whole lot needs to happen. I’ve long tired of talking about this, but seeing this crowd made me remember what the musical landscape in this city once was, though not exactly what it could ever be again.

This show was a complete unknown to me until I got an e-mail from someone that had BigYawn Presents alums Asobi Seksu(75) tour dates, and saw they were playing DC again, so soon after their headlining set at the Rock and Roll Hotel. I was out of town for that show, so this was a total bonus, who cared who that Yann Teirsen(76) guy was anyway?

It was a big plus that this show ended up at the French Embassy. Le Maison Francaise, actually. Similar to the House of Sweden in Georgetown, it acts as a cultural center, hosting events of the French, European and American variety. The outside of the Maison Francaise is gorgeous, the architecture, the art in the lobby, this place was classy. Sadly, the concert hall reminded of what an auditorium in the old EPA building in Southwest DC must have looked like. A stark contrast, but they kept the lights low, so few were the wiser.

After Asobi Seksu started, I realized that they are a much better band to see while sitting down. I suppose they really aren’t any mellower than they used to be, but they’ve picked up on the feedback and fuzz, and removed some of the prettier elements. Now a two-piece in the studio, they remain a four man touring band. I’m not sure how this has pushed them in this direction, but I don’t really have a clue if this shift in formula actually makes them sound better or worse. Just, different?

I don’t know if you are like me, but sitting down at shows is often the kiss of death, even for bands I like a lot. I didn’t catch any zzz’s, but I was a little bored.

Enter Yann Tiersen and his band. The only thing I knew about this guy was that he did the soundtrack for the movie Amelie — in my mind not a plus — and that he was big in Europe. Since he shares the latter honor with David Hasselhoff, I really wasn’t sure what to expect. Would it be all classical pieces? Would he be singing Euro-Pop, god help us? I admit, I missed hitting his myspace page, but to be fair, that wouldn’t have helped me either. Cause this guy whipped out the post-rock stick on all of us and kicked our asses.

While not all of his songs are sans vocals, a number are, and even when heard, the vocals, possibly from Yann, or a female vocalist, or the whole damn band at one point, act more as instruments, not taking your attention away from the sounds you are hearing as pop vocals often do. I will say this, the band was loud. So loud that there were more than a few folks in the audience — largely of an older inclination — that just up and left. Obviously I wasn’t the only one who didn’t know what to expect. I had head a number of people clapping when it was announced that former tennis player Yannick Noah, the father of the ugliest player in the NBA, would be playing soon at Le Maison Francaise. I’m pretty sure they are ones who left.

The interesting thing about many of Tiersen’s songs — all of which were amazing — is that they seemed unfinished. His structure was different from many post- rock artists in that while they don’t often follow a rigid structure, his often did. In many cases I could hear a singer singing over the song in my mind, and there were hooks, there was a true melody. These were true rock songs that were simply deconstructed, remixed, if you will, into more lengthy progressive pieces, but the elements that made them catchy were still there. This is interesting to me, and very different from the post-rock I often listen to. The only band I think that is really close to what Yann is doing is a now defunct Canadian band called A Northern Chorus. If any of the above sounds interesting to you, I urge you to check them out.

So, I’m still trying to figure out of this was Yann’s first ever US show, it might have been, and was certainly the first on this US tour. I was pretty damn blown away. He was playing far more conventional venues than Le Maison Francasise on the tour, but I’m glad I got to see him there. It made it more French, more cultural in a way. More real perhaps. I realize that may be terribly lame, but it is an interesting notch on my 333 Band bed post. Well, two notches actually. I’m such a slut.

I have made every attempt possible to catch all of the opening band’s sets during my year of 333 shows, but sometimes, it is near impossible. Too many shows in a given time period wears me out, I won’t lie. So, I planned to miss some of Crocodiles’(72) set. Luckily, I showed up just in time to catch the minimum of three songs. What I did see was ok, but deep down I’m pretty sure I didn’t miss much.

Crocodiles were a more beats oriented A Place to Bury Strangers, or so it seemed from what I caught. Two guys, standing there in near darkness, playing the fuzz. Ah, shoegaze at its best, though it is clear these guys are taking a slightly different path than most. Still, if the timing is right, it looks like there will be some opportunities to catch these guys again down the line. And I might, if only just to prove myself right.

Since this was a double headlining set, the Faint(73) came on and played for over an hour as the “middle” band. I caught the Faint just last year at the 9:30 Club, and while I hate to sound like a broken record, that show was better. Lead singer Tim Fink obviously had a cold or some other throat ailment, so the show was handicapped to begin with. While he uses tons of vocal effects it doesn’t change the fact that he does need to still hit the high notes.

The first half of the set was a downer, which sadly included my favorite Faint song, “The Conductor.” They completely butchered this one, slowing it down to a crawl. Not at all what that song should sound like, though I appreciate the fact that a band can get tired of playing the same stuff, so switching up the mix or trying a song in a different style may go a long way to a band’s sanity. Someone should tell that to the Killers.

Luckily things did pick up in the second half of the set. I’ll chock it up to Fink’s Robitussin kicking in. The energy picked up both in song pacing and with the band’s energy. While I’m not a fan of the new album from last year, the songs they played off that album held up live, and those were clearly the ones the band loved playing the most.

Closing the set with “Agenda Suicide” was a great move.  The Faint will likely never come up with anything to top Danse Macabre, but their shows are always worth seeing. Though this one started out slow, in the end it they did a great job with it, and left me looking forward to Ladytron(74) instead of dreading standing there for another two hours.

Ladytron have always seemed to play DC when I wasn’t around, so this was a bill I was excited about, finally getting to see these guys after all this time. I can’t say that I am a huge fan, but I do look forward to their albums coming out, as they always seem to have a song or two they stay with you. “Destroy Everything You Touch” remains one of my favorite songs of all time.

Hearing Helen Marnie’s voice live for the first time really sent chills down my back. The ultimate indie ice-queen, Helen has always given me the creeps, yet drawn me in at the same time. Playing as a six piece, the set was not without it’s problems, shutting down for over 5 minutes at one point. The stage banter was interesting, because, as the bands pointed out, they usually don’t talk on stage. At all. So, for the two woman in particular it must have been interesting to lose the chanteuse facades and actually have a personality. They giggled and acted silly on stage, completely shattering my image of them, but their humanity made them all the better in my eyes. When asked to say something funny, Mira (the one with the more feminine sounding Bulgarian accent) giggled “A dislexic walks into a bra.” I’m still laughing at that one.

The set itself was heavy on that last two albums, and covered all the singles: “Seventeen,” Destroy…,” “Black Cat,” “Runaway,” and “Tomorrow.” Again, the light show, completely different from the Faint, was incredible, possibly the best I’ve ever seen. A band like Ladytron probably couldn’t get by with a simple light show, they’d lose some of their mystique. But even on a night like this, where crackling cables and jokes about dyslexics caused a few awkward moments, it seemed even a slightly flawed Ladytron more than held their own. One of the best performances I’ve seen this  year.

I had completely sworn off DAR after only one show. Seeing the Pixies back in 2004 was great, but that was because it was the Pixies. While we had floor seats, being forced to sit down during the Pixies set was ridiculous. TV on the Radio sounded like shit too, which I ultimately blamed completely on the venue. I never wanted to go back, and didn’t, until this show. I vowed never to buy tickets to a DAR show again, and, happily,  I didn’t pay for these tickets.  While I liked the bands I think that would have been directly against all of my faded but not yet broken principles.

And of course, after this show I am left to wonder if it is in fact, all about your seats. The lovely press folks for the Cold War Kids(70) were nice enough to give me great seats, maybe 20 rows back. And the sound, and the show, was vastly improved. DAM! Festival alums the Cold War Kids — that’s right, I booked them waaay back when — sounded awesome. They’ve always been a solid if not quite amazing group, and have certainly progressed from their festival show at the significantly smaller DC9. While that sweaty room and its intimacy was a highlight of the first DAM! Fest, it is pretty obvious these guys need a much bigger room for folks to fully appreciate their sound. Their set was just long enough to pull the right amount of songs from their two albums, of which the material from Robbers and Cowards was my favorite. While I was sad I missed Ra Ra Riot - -why do DAR show start so damn early? — These guys more than made up for it.

It had been so long since I had seen Death Cab for Cutie(71), I had nearly forgotten seeing them at all. That was at the 9:30 Club however. So many “DAR” sized bands have been playing the 9:30 Club lately (Bloc Party(55), The National, TV on the Radio, the Shins) that it almost seemed funny DCFC would headline at DAR. But, this was a fairly short tour, so a two night stay at the Club was likely not in the cards. I get why bands play DAR, but it still doesn’t mean I have to like it.

My first thought during DCFC was how thin Ben Gibbard looked. His pending nuptials to Zooey Deschanel must have been the impetus to finally lose that baby fat. And then I thought that Chris Walla looked skinny and evil. Throughout the set he clearly was having some monitor issues or some other problem as he was often complaining to the sound folks, and at the end of the set he threw his guitar to the ground, which caused the synths he was playing to also come crashing down. In these hard economic times trashing your instrument is not an option Chris, simply not an option.

The set was well curated from up and down DCFC’s albums, and, being a late-blooming DCFC fan, I was excited to hear many of the songs I loved, including the encore closer, “Transatlanticism,” which just seems like a perfect closer to me. Maybe they play it frequently but they didn’t when I had seem them previously. The light show was well done as well, which suprised me, as I never imagined DCFC as a band needing or even wanting much of a light show.

I remember first learning about Death Cab when they went on tour opening for the Dismemberment Plan. I assumed they were a hardcore band based simply on their name. I’m an idiot, I know. I think I even consciously passed up the DC leg of that tour (further indication I’m an idiot). So seeing them become this big and this tight a band, almost doesn’t seem right. And they act like they are as big as they are, but not cocky mind you, maybe the word is, professional? They have certainly matured well into stardom, and while I’m not happy I have to go to DAR to see them, I am happy that they have actually made it this far so they can keep touring and putting out music.

What a crowd! This show was on the same night as an indie rock show, a hip-hop show and a more hyped “hipster” electro show, so it made sense that the folks who showed up to this sold out affair were not your typical 9:30 Club crowd. It also didn’t help matters that virtually no one was there to see either The Whip(67) or Late of the Pier(68). These two bands were on tour together, so we are just going to assume that the club was trying to book that tour and Deadmau5(69) separately, but it just worked out on the same night. And, since they all make your ass jiggle, it was easier to just keep it all as one bill. So, everyone was here to see Deadmau5: the former Buzz kids, stoners, tweakers, the D+B kids, the dudes with the wacky colored Dr. Seuss hats, all of them made it out to this show. I might have been the fifth oldest person in the room, which made me feel a little uncomfortable, as 18 year old girls were walking by me wearing practically nothing. Poor me, yes, poor me.

The Whip seem like the type of band I would be in, if I could make music. Heavy on the synths and beats, but not as obnoxious as poorly done new wave, and not as top 40 as, say, Shiny Toy Guns. They have a couple great singles, “Trash” and “Blackout,” that were certainly set highlights. I don’t know if anyone else there was paying attention to them, but I was happy.

Late of the Pier appeared to be all the rage of late, and I was interested in seeing them live, though I am now left to wonder what it is exactly that people see in this band. I think I’m over the fact they are all very young, but I can’t confirm any one of them is even in his early 20’s. They play their songs right into each other, none of them ever really forming anything of interest, just seemed to all mush up together. The bizarre enthusiasm and frantic pace led me to think that perhaps they were all  on something, likely of the amphetamine sort, as they jumped all over the place, far beyond what was required of their set.

Maybe it is me, but nothing ever came together with these guys, they couldn’t seem to even stick to a genre, playing some more indie rock sounding songs and then others were just beats with layered noise. Sure, some of this could be that I’m just jealous I wasn’t touring the world in a band when I was their age, I admit that. But I do feel like these kids have a long way to go before they are worth the buzz about them.

And then the man in the mouse mask came out. It was black, not the red seen right, or the fairly famous blue one he has been wearing lately. And to quell the rumors, he does not wear it for his entire set, but he certainly kept it on long enough to work up a sweat. Those masks must reek!

This might have been the craziest I have ever seen an audience at the Club. Full on mayhem, folks jumping all over the place, from the front to the back, and even upstairs, though I have no earthly idea why anyone would stand upstairs to hear/see Deadmau5 spin. I was standing all the way in the back, practically leaning on the sound booth, and was getting grinded and sweat on. Yes, once again, poor me.

It really was hard not to “feel” the music. I found myself very captivated by his set, and ended up staying much longer than I had planned. Deadmau5 is best enjoyed with at least one dance partner, but I was sadly solo. I mean, Deadmua5 on a Tuesday night? You gotta either be a real fan, a kid with nothing better to do, or someone like me, with a laundry list of shows to see each month. But, the man was captivating. He even kept playing after the table he was spinning on lost it’s legs on one side, forcing him to spin on a heavy lean. You read so much about the “superstar” DJ that you come to imagine them as spoiled brats, which may or may not actually be true; Deadmau5 certainly doesn’t seem to fall under that cliche regardless.

As I’ve stated before, I have not seen that many dance shows at the 9:30 Club, so it always amazes me, the crowds that show up, and this one certainly takes the cake. But, I’ll say it, the old man had fun. Without a doubt I would catch Deadmau5 some other time when I hopefully am not alone. I’m tired of looking like the creepy dude in the corner.