Beirut @ Metropolis, July 11, 2009
Jul. 13th, 2009 04:22 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
petroniaJEEBUS DOES ZACH CONDON HAVE A LOT OF FANGIRLS OR WHAT
Metropolis was packed out like I'd never seen, even the balcony was standing room only. Cut Copy was a bona fide rave-up, but one can dance to Cut Copy whereas Beirut's riddim inspires gentle hip-swinging at best. XD; Yet the atmosphere was comparable i.e. apeshit bananas. Or maybe I just got stuck with the girls shrieking "WE LOVE YOU ZACH ♥♥♥" after every song. I had had six glasses of wine at H's party beforehand, though (enough that I dozed off and didn't really catch the tail end of The Dodos' opening set), and there are worse ways to attend gigs than happy-drunk with a crowd that is super digging it.
The thing with Beirut that is simultaneously endearing and frustrating is that they technically overreach, which becomes glaringly apparent when presented in the context of a two-week international jazz festival that also encompasses Afripop, reggae, blues rock, dub electronica and whatnot. I listen to them in this framework anyway, meaning for instance that I have every track memorized but have no idea nor care what the words are to most of the songs. It works fine on record, but live I find I mentally expect them to go into a five-minute instrumental jam with brass solos after the second chorus, and instead they just stop. D: Like, at the 3:30 mark Zach Condon waves a hand, everyone cuts off dead in the middle of the note. The set was all of 75 minutes including the two encores, but they got through a lot of songs this way. Made me wish I were seeing them in five years' time. XD; They also didn't have any strings with them, which maybe had something to do with it. In any case the most interesting part for me was seeing if they would do the Holland songs live (they did), and if so, how (by playing the synth parts on accordion and keyboard - LOL undramatic I know).
Anyway this is wrongheaded because early Beirut subsists on ~*feeling*~. It's that particular strand of saudade that cuts across genres and for that matter disciplines - Proust is a kissing cousin - but is rare because by the time artists have the sk1ll0rz to get the inchoate melancholia of extreme youth across to an audience, they're too old to feel it (if indeed they ever felt it - I doubt all artists do). So there's a one-, maybe two-album window... Patrick Wolf had it with the first two, lost it with the third. Blur only had it with Modern Life Is Rubbish (not, interestingly, with Leisure). This is why I kind of think it's wrongheaded to make Burial's nostalgia all about the historical context, because it isn't really. If it weren't that he'd be nostalgic about something else, that's the kind of dude he is.
Back to gig - best moment: literal LOL during the first encore when blond dude raised his trumpet and the distinctive fanfare of "Se Telefonando" rang out over the crowd. What are the chances.** Explains why Zach Condon spent the previous five minutes going ":D?" at each of his band in turn (all of whom responded with massive sweatdrop-face but were CLEARLY OVERRULED). In figure skating parlance, one of those jumps you land in practice but not, perhaps, in competition. Also no one else in the crowd knew the song anyway, fff whatevs indie kidz.
** Okay fine, pretty high considering that they'd already covered "La Javanaise" at this point. A+ lulz Condon, take a page from La Wainwright and let's have us some Piaf next round.
Metropolis was packed out like I'd never seen, even the balcony was standing room only. Cut Copy was a bona fide rave-up, but one can dance to Cut Copy whereas Beirut's riddim inspires gentle hip-swinging at best. XD; Yet the atmosphere was comparable i.e. apeshit bananas. Or maybe I just got stuck with the girls shrieking "WE LOVE YOU ZACH ♥♥♥" after every song. I had had six glasses of wine at H's party beforehand, though (enough that I dozed off and didn't really catch the tail end of The Dodos' opening set), and there are worse ways to attend gigs than happy-drunk with a crowd that is super digging it.
The thing with Beirut that is simultaneously endearing and frustrating is that they technically overreach, which becomes glaringly apparent when presented in the context of a two-week international jazz festival that also encompasses Afripop, reggae, blues rock, dub electronica and whatnot. I listen to them in this framework anyway, meaning for instance that I have every track memorized but have no idea nor care what the words are to most of the songs. It works fine on record, but live I find I mentally expect them to go into a five-minute instrumental jam with brass solos after the second chorus, and instead they just stop. D: Like, at the 3:30 mark Zach Condon waves a hand, everyone cuts off dead in the middle of the note. The set was all of 75 minutes including the two encores, but they got through a lot of songs this way. Made me wish I were seeing them in five years' time. XD; They also didn't have any strings with them, which maybe had something to do with it. In any case the most interesting part for me was seeing if they would do the Holland songs live (they did), and if so, how (by playing the synth parts on accordion and keyboard - LOL undramatic I know).
Anyway this is wrongheaded because early Beirut subsists on ~*feeling*~. It's that particular strand of saudade that cuts across genres and for that matter disciplines - Proust is a kissing cousin - but is rare because by the time artists have the sk1ll0rz to get the inchoate melancholia of extreme youth across to an audience, they're too old to feel it (if indeed they ever felt it - I doubt all artists do). So there's a one-, maybe two-album window... Patrick Wolf had it with the first two, lost it with the third. Blur only had it with Modern Life Is Rubbish (not, interestingly, with Leisure). This is why I kind of think it's wrongheaded to make Burial's nostalgia all about the historical context, because it isn't really. If it weren't that he'd be nostalgic about something else, that's the kind of dude he is.
Back to gig - best moment: literal LOL during the first encore when blond dude raised his trumpet and the distinctive fanfare of "Se Telefonando" rang out over the crowd. What are the chances.** Explains why Zach Condon spent the previous five minutes going ":D?" at each of his band in turn (all of whom responded with massive sweatdrop-face but were CLEARLY OVERRULED). In figure skating parlance, one of those jumps you land in practice but not, perhaps, in competition. Also no one else in the crowd knew the song anyway, fff whatevs indie kidz.
** Okay fine, pretty high considering that they'd already covered "La Javanaise" at this point. A+ lulz Condon, take a page from La Wainwright and let's have us some Piaf next round.
