Air concert (more diary than review)
Apr. 17th, 2004 08:32 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaYesterday I got home and started an entry, but killed lj by mistake. It's just as well, really, because I was pretty disjointed. I think all I wanted to do was get a first reaction off my chest to the effect of OMGWTF THAT REALLY WAS THEM SINGING. XD I knew the Air duo did all the vocals on this album, mind you - all the reviews mention it, for reasons that are obvious in retrospect - but methinks it never really clicked until I saw their lips move. Sort of like Gackt, really, only waaay in the opposite direction.
(In the meantime, a day and a night and common sense prevailed, and now I'm hypothesizing for the sake of my sanity that synthd00d!Nicolas routes his microphone input through some heavy filters. But even so - even so, isn't that taking the DYI aesthetic a little too far? T_T Filters or not, I now have to contend with the idea that it's a guy singing on "Cherry Blossom Girl", let alone "Sexy Boys". Last night I had a sudden flash of realisation that the first time I heard that song was actually at Shoujocon '01, when someone had made an AMV with clips of all the anime guys s/he found t3h h0tt. So for nearly three years I've thought the vocals on that song was a woman. And what if that really is how he sings? THIS IS GOING TO HAUNT ME FOREVER.)
Okay, seriously, the show... Ced and I got into Metropolis at 15 past 9, the quarter-hour having been spent shovelling down fried junk at La Belle Province on the corner. Thus have zero idea who the opening act was, but as we came in the door they were doing a dreamy acousticky cover of "Bizarre Love Triangle" for instant Sabina points. XD Four scruffy-intellectual dudes in jackets and beards fronted by this dark-haired girl, barefoot in a flared New Look dress patterned with grey and pink flowers, obviously a dancer. Songs were quite!good but sound was off, vocals all but drowned. Found seats with a good view on the balcony level and stayed there throughout the show, pcq damaged left side medicated on the fly with Tylenol and saké and wot, not as if there was going to be dancing to be missed out on. XD;;; (Actually there nearly was. The crowd was very happy to be there, and the best proof of it is that there were sporadically more-than-isolated attempts at x-treme geekdance. To Air, for cripes' sake, and this is me here, Woman With No Social Embarrassment Who'd Dance To Anything. The encore calls were uproarious floor-stomping affairs.) Nearly fell asleep during the setup, but there were people smoking up a brushfire below and to either side, not all of it kosher tobacco. Some of said people were also the worst offenders in the geekdance department later on. XD
Setlist: uhh... most of concert proper was "Talkie Walkie", by which I am just fine. "Venus" first, then "Alpha Beta Gaga" (guitard00d!JD did the whistling XD), and then it gets hazy.![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
calintz is right, against stereotype this schtuff is better in performance. More than anything it sounds like what I always imagined Sigur Ros live to be: instrumentals transmogrify into long jazzy psychedelic jams, live drums pounding and guitar droning, building climax after fall after climax. Samples distort into walls of shrill electronic sound just this edge of music, and those uber-pretty piano bits rising to the surface like ice cubes in a fizzy drink... Sort of get the pale effect by playing "Surfin' On A Rocket" as loudly as the computer will go. I'm ruining my ears progressively, because the decibel level gladdened my heart. XD "Cherry Blossom Girls" went mostly acoustic with flashing pink-and-green lights; "Sexy Boys" (during the first encore) went Garbage-esque techno-rock. The last song pre-encore was "Kelly Watch The Stars", which is like everyone else's fave Moon Safari tune - I've never been more than lukewarm on it for some reason. ^^; Sometime before that was "Run". calintz, he gave the same spiel more or less, only in French - "une chanson très romantique". <3
There was a Moment during that one, a guitar passage that comes from nothing in the recorded version; lush and too much melody, right out there like that, impolitically tugging on the heartstrings. Saying love - love - love.
Kenran Butou Sai (now to ep.2): to iu wake de, I suppose Pirate Captain Elisabeth is the equivalent of Ryuuzaki-sensei? .........Actually, that sort of works, doesn't it?
Tenjou Tenge: so what I'm seeing is, it's Rival Schools. (This is by no means a bad thing. XD XD XD) I like how Maya's henshin appears to be famous within the male student body, those guys in the background so obviously had their day made... The OP is genius.
La Petite Cossette: I can't remember the full title, so that's what I'm calling it. Trippy stylish goth horror, lays the aesthetic on pretty thick - worth picking up for the Kajiura Yuki soundtrack, and the fact that it's got Saiga Mitsuki of all people playing the male protagonist. Saiga Mitsuki! One of those hapless normal dudes who get their hearts eaten rather than broken in supernatural dark shoujo, you know the type. Mind you she's very good in it.
Kyou Kara Maou: so how many of you guys have watched Fushigi Yuugi recently? Because KKM is no worse or better so far than FY - which says something, alas, given that the former is really obviously a parody. XD;; (Hells, damning with faint praise this may be, but the main character is more with-it than Miaka. Any comedic timing Miaka had was strict inadvertence on the part of the series, and then there was the food issue.)
(In the meantime, a day and a night and common sense prevailed, and now I'm hypothesizing for the sake of my sanity that synthd00d!Nicolas routes his microphone input through some heavy filters. But even so - even so, isn't that taking the DYI aesthetic a little too far? T_T Filters or not, I now have to contend with the idea that it's a guy singing on "Cherry Blossom Girl", let alone "Sexy Boys". Last night I had a sudden flash of realisation that the first time I heard that song was actually at Shoujocon '01, when someone had made an AMV with clips of all the anime guys s/he found t3h h0tt. So for nearly three years I've thought the vocals on that song was a woman. And what if that really is how he sings? THIS IS GOING TO HAUNT ME FOREVER.)
Okay, seriously, the show... Ced and I got into Metropolis at 15 past 9, the quarter-hour having been spent shovelling down fried junk at La Belle Province on the corner. Thus have zero idea who the opening act was, but as we came in the door they were doing a dreamy acousticky cover of "Bizarre Love Triangle" for instant Sabina points. XD Four scruffy-intellectual dudes in jackets and beards fronted by this dark-haired girl, barefoot in a flared New Look dress patterned with grey and pink flowers, obviously a dancer. Songs were quite!good but sound was off, vocals all but drowned. Found seats with a good view on the balcony level and stayed there throughout the show, pcq damaged left side medicated on the fly with Tylenol and saké and wot, not as if there was going to be dancing to be missed out on. XD;;; (Actually there nearly was. The crowd was very happy to be there, and the best proof of it is that there were sporadically more-than-isolated attempts at x-treme geekdance. To Air, for cripes' sake, and this is me here, Woman With No Social Embarrassment Who'd Dance To Anything. The encore calls were uproarious floor-stomping affairs.) Nearly fell asleep during the setup, but there were people smoking up a brushfire below and to either side, not all of it kosher tobacco. Some of said people were also the worst offenders in the geekdance department later on. XD
Setlist: uhh... most of concert proper was "Talkie Walkie", by which I am just fine. "Venus" first, then "Alpha Beta Gaga" (guitard00d!JD did the whistling XD), and then it gets hazy.
calintz is right, against stereotype this schtuff is better in performance. More than anything it sounds like what I always imagined Sigur Ros live to be: instrumentals transmogrify into long jazzy psychedelic jams, live drums pounding and guitar droning, building climax after fall after climax. Samples distort into walls of shrill electronic sound just this edge of music, and those uber-pretty piano bits rising to the surface like ice cubes in a fizzy drink... Sort of get the pale effect by playing "Surfin' On A Rocket" as loudly as the computer will go. I'm ruining my ears progressively, because the decibel level gladdened my heart. XD "Cherry Blossom Girls" went mostly acoustic with flashing pink-and-green lights; "Sexy Boys" (during the first encore) went Garbage-esque techno-rock. The last song pre-encore was "Kelly Watch The Stars", which is like everyone else's fave Moon Safari tune - I've never been more than lukewarm on it for some reason. ^^; Sometime before that was "Run". calintz, he gave the same spiel more or less, only in French - "une chanson très romantique". <3 There was a Moment during that one, a guitar passage that comes from nothing in the recorded version; lush and too much melody, right out there like that, impolitically tugging on the heartstrings. Saying love - love - love.
Kenran Butou Sai (now to ep.2): to iu wake de, I suppose Pirate Captain Elisabeth is the equivalent of Ryuuzaki-sensei? .........Actually, that sort of works, doesn't it?
Tenjou Tenge: so what I'm seeing is, it's Rival Schools. (This is by no means a bad thing. XD XD XD) I like how Maya's henshin appears to be famous within the male student body, those guys in the background so obviously had their day made... The OP is genius.
La Petite Cossette: I can't remember the full title, so that's what I'm calling it. Trippy stylish goth horror, lays the aesthetic on pretty thick - worth picking up for the Kajiura Yuki soundtrack, and the fact that it's got Saiga Mitsuki of all people playing the male protagonist. Saiga Mitsuki! One of those hapless normal dudes who get their hearts eaten rather than broken in supernatural dark shoujo, you know the type. Mind you she's very good in it.
Kyou Kara Maou: so how many of you guys have watched Fushigi Yuugi recently? Because KKM is no worse or better so far than FY - which says something, alas, given that the former is really obviously a parody. XD;; (Hells, damning with faint praise this may be, but the main character is more with-it than Miaka. Any comedic timing Miaka had was strict inadvertence on the part of the series, and then there was the food issue.)
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no subject
Date: 2004-04-17 08:26 pm (UTC)Which also makes me think about what the "Hm, oh, some sort of French electronica duo in town, well, might as well go :D" patrons in the audience were thinking when they jammed out a loud, driving song with MEN singing "Sexy boy~"... >D
*snickers*
Concert was good, yeah? (Though, really, Sigur Ros live is a *spiritual* experience. Holy hell. <3<3<3<3<3<3)
Rectification
Date: 2004-04-17 08:39 pm (UTC)Go Habs Go!
-Ced
no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 03:02 am (UTC)Tylenol and saké and wot? You'd better be aller-ing to the hôpital, young lady.
no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 10:03 pm (UTC)Well, I will go to the clinic. But I don't want pills (hate pills), and I don't want them to do anything that might make it difficult for me to type (which isn't painful), and I don't want to have to waste eight hours in our loverly socialist-medicine waiting rooms, and... Monday is game 7 in a best-of-7 hockey series. ^^;
Re: Rectification
Date: 2004-04-18 10:05 pm (UTC)Go Habs Go! *chews nails*
no subject
Date: 2004-04-18 10:09 pm (UTC)Concert was excellent. I'll take this as a heads-up to check out Sigur Ros whenever they're in town again - I enjoy this sort of latter-day Pink Floyd-ishness. XD