Adam Brucker

That Pitchfork post from earlier tonight got my blood up a bit and the “tight pants” reference reminded me of a review of a fun weekend of music that I posted a few years back to a friend’s (now defunct) music blog.

I cover a lot of ground, and was probably jacked up on a few cups of Dunkin Donuts coffee when I wrote it that Monday morning, but it’s a pretty good read that deserves to see the online light-of-day again.

Oh, and I retract my negative comments about Band of Horses’ second album and no disrespect was meant to grocery baggers in general - just the one who may have been at this show…

Enjoy:

-=-=-

Friday Night - Band Of Horses @ Paradise Rock Club

Fun night all around with a big crowd of friends whom I hadn’t seen in a while. BofH’s (which is really just one guy with a pro back-up band) was fantastic, at points… Their debut album, Everything All The Time, is a solid 36 minutes of well written and well played material that sounds a lot like a combination of the guitars from Built To Spill and the vocals from My Morning Jacket - yet somehow seems original and fresh. If you don’t own it, you should - it’s definitely a top album of 2006. These songs were the highlight of the night and, even though we had to wait until after 1AM to hear some of them, were well worth the price of admission. Now…, the rest of the night was a great lesson on why INDIE ROCK GENERALLY SUCKS LIVE.

To The Crowd: If you wore looser clothing and maybe ate something every once in a while, you might have more of an inclination to dance and have a good time. I haven’t seen this many poseur hipster jackasses outside of a bike shop since the Radiohead show at Harborlights earlier this summer and I can’t see how acting like this is in anyway fun. When the band sings their hits, they want you to sing along with the chorus, they want you dance, they want you to high five the guy next to you, they want you to yell and pump your fist at them between songs. Sure, a little beer might get spilled on your extra-small, extra-ironic t-shirt but you know what, sh*t happens and I’m sure that your Mom will wash it out for you in time for your next shift bagging groceries at Whole Foods.

To The Band: Yes, we know you only have 36 minutes of “great” songs - after hearing the crap off of your “lucky-if-it-ever-gets-made second album” that was pretty apparent even without you mentioning it. However, there are a lot of other “great” bands out there who have written “great” songs that you might want to cover - you just have to remember the operative word: “great.” A crappy ELO deep-cut from 1976 is still a crappy song 30 years later and smugly announcing “that was an ELO cover” during one of your 6 minute breaks between your 3 minutes songs does nothing to inspire the crowd to increase their vibrations above the steady 0 degrees Kelvin they’ve been holding at thus far.

That said, “that was an ELO cover” would make a great tight t-shirt slogan - you should submit it to threadless.com (probably best on a green background) and use the cash prize to buy a few Led Zeppelin albums to give you a few good ideas of songs to cover. In fact, I propose that any band that has not made the cover of Rolling Stone magazine at least three times should be contractually required to play at least one Zeppelin tune at each show, preferably in the encore slot.

There is not a band out there that wouldn’t benefit from this suggestion, I am certain of it.

Seriously though, I liked these guys and I wish them well, but I’d catch them soon if you’re interested - you might not get another chance.

Saturday Night - Roger Waters plays Dark Side of the Moon @ Greatwoods

You know who doesn’t need to cover a Zeppelin tune? Roger Waters, that’s who. This is a man who understands showmanship and how to entertain an audience (and it doesn’t hurt that he has one of the greatest modern songbooks to cherry-pick tunes from). Not to mention that it seemed like he had about a million dollar production budget for the show. I sat dead center, about 20 rows back from the stage (see the picture from my phone on the right) and was subjected to a relentless barrage of pyrotechnics, confetti, video effects, lasers, strobe lights, bubbles, smoke, confetti, giant blow up pigs, and an auditory, surround-sound assault that was delivered by about 100 extra speakers set up around the venue. This one goes to 11 indeed!

Too much sizzle and not enough steak you may say? Tell that to the 15,000 people standing in jaw-dropping-spine-tingling amazement during “Great Gig in the Sky” or screaming “We Don’t Need No Education!” at top volume.

This tour has been reviewed to death online so I won’t say anything more here except that you still have a month to see this live around the US. Go ahead make your travel plans and be sure to pay for the good seats - sell one of your kids if you have to, it’ll be worth it.

Sunday Night - The Flaming Lips @ Harborlights

Let’s just say that when you waiting in line to get into a show and the random kid in front of you turns around and excitably asks with a huge smile “have you seen these guys yet?” you know that you are in for a good time.

Wayne Coyne and the boys from Oklahoma City truly embody all that is great about live music and their recent popularity and commercial success is well deserved after 20 tough years together as a band. Still reeling from the spectacle of the night before, I once again found myself in the front section (this time with Jennie) dodging blasts of confetti and streamers, bouncing huge balloons around, and trying to avoid having a seizure from staring too long at the hand held strobe lights being flashed into the crowd by a pack of scantily clad aliens and Santa Clauses. Yeah, read that last one again - Wonder Woman and Captain America were there as well…

The Flaming Lips often get criticized for being overly gimmicky to cover up for a lack of musicianship. My theory is that these reviewers are the same people who would cite the aforementioned Band of Horses show as the best night of their lives…. Either way, they are totally missing the point. A FLips show is designed to do one thing: use any an all possible means to give the audience a chance to peek behind the curtain of their day-to-day reality, transcend all of that bullsh*t, and have a few hours to think about what really matters in life. A sort of psychedelic trip without the psychedelics (for at least some of the crowd…). Who cares if all of their songs are in C or G major if you can realize that it doesn’t matter that you got shafted with the small cube at your new job, or that BMW doesn’t make the new 5 series in the shade of black that you really wanted? Wayne, for all his goofiness, is insistent that you forget all that crap and give the person standing next to you a big hug and have a good time for at least the rest of the show. If some of that sentiment carries over to the rest of your life then all the better.

Oh, and to top it all off, they came back out for a second encore and ended the show with a raging Black Sabbath tune - not Zeppelin but you get the point: these guys are professionals. Given the Boston setting, Aerosmith would have also been an acceptable substitution… Anyway, make sure to put these guys on your list as well.