Arcade Fire/Chromeo/The Unicorns, 4/9, The Matrix Boston
I met my cousin Rory at aboue 6:00 in Boston, and we walked over to the Matrix, expecting to have to wait in line until doors at 7:00. We get there: no line. "Where's the line??" we think, "Where are all the indie kids in blazers, smoking cigarettes and playing indier-than-thou??" We walk around the block for a bit, call my friend Elise about 50 billion times wondering where she is, come back and say, "fuck it," and start out own line. There's a group of kids in front of us, one of which is an absurdly obnoxious girl with a loud, annoying laugh. She apparently knows one of the opening bands, although we suspect they don't really like her very much (who would?), so we hope she'll leave after them.
The doors open late, naturally--when do they ever really open on time? Rory and I are the first in, because the kids in front of us had to wait to get checked in for the guest list, so we get choice spots right in the middle. We're still trying to contact Elise, who still hasn't shown up or called, by the time the Arcade Fire goes on at 8. They have 2 guitars, a keyboard, a violin, and an accordian (and drums and bass of course). The first song was really awesome, with one of the guys bashing away at a drum, and lost of "whoa-ohhhhhhhhh!"s from everyone. For the most part, they were pretty good. Fun and kind of dancey, although the vocals were so low I couldn't hear a single lyric. The accordian was disappointing, because they only used it twice, and it played the same part as the violin, so it was buried under it. But the accordian/keyboard player was this insane little French-Canadian girl, and she rocked pretty hard. All in all, they were a very entertaining live band, but I don't know that I would ever actually get the CD and just listen to it.
Halfway through their set, Elise showed up, drunk, which was amusing. And the annoying girl did leave after them, which was cause for great celebration, as she hadn't left off being annoying during the show.
Next up was Chromeo, who were, in a word, fantastic. Two guys: one with a guitar and the other with a little synth and a voice-box-distorter-thing. They had a CD playing general beats in the background, and were an intriguing blend of metal and dance. They were also hysterical. They introduced themselves about a thousand times ("We are Cro-me-yo, and all our songs are about girls."), and the guitarist was very high on something and kept giggling. During one of the songs, he took a fake phonecall from his girlfriend that went something like this: "Yo girl. No man, I'm in the middle of a show. What? You got another man? Awww shit!" So great. It was one of the funnest sets I've seen--I was laughing and dancing the entire time.
The Arcade Fire and Chromeo played for about 30-40 minutes each, so the Unicorns went on a little after 9:00. Now, I don't think I can tell you how much I was looking forward to this show. Seriously. I was more excited for it then I've been for practically any other band. Just the awesomosity of the songs in general, and the reports I'd heard about costumes, puppet shows, and general hilariosity--how could it be anything less than incredible?
Well, we were to be severely disappointed, because it seriously was. It started off well enough, everyone in Easter dress, pink and white suits, and Alden was wearing a little boy's suit pants and vest (He divested himself of the vest about halfway through, showing off his hairless, 12-year-old boy physique.), and they played "Tuff Ghost" first, which is one of my favorite songs, and it was awesome. But they played an extremely short set, barely longer than the opening bands, and half of the songs were new and not, to be perfectly honest, nearly as good as anything on WWCOHWWG. They were pretty funny--Nick kept mocking the people who yelled shit from the crowd, and Alden told a rather interesting story about having two streams of pee (it's because he's uncircumcised)--but Alden was also drunk off his ass, and kept swinging the mike stand around, knocking over his beer, and generally falling about, and not in an interesting, sexy sort of way, just in a drunk-guy-on-the-street way.
I really can't express the disappointment when they left after "I Was Born (A Unicorn)" and didn't come back--it wasn't even 10 yet. It was just kind of, "That's it? Seriously? That's what everyone's been raving about?" It wasn't that it was a bad show--all the songs I knew sounded great--it just wasn't all that amazing. Certainly not the kind of show that lives up to two months of extreme excitement. I was actually supposed to see them tonight, but it didn't seem worth the trouble of getting down to NYC and back, if it was going to be a repeat of Friday. Tres sad. They have one more chance to make up for it. We'll see how they do.
The doors open late, naturally--when do they ever really open on time? Rory and I are the first in, because the kids in front of us had to wait to get checked in for the guest list, so we get choice spots right in the middle. We're still trying to contact Elise, who still hasn't shown up or called, by the time the Arcade Fire goes on at 8. They have 2 guitars, a keyboard, a violin, and an accordian (and drums and bass of course). The first song was really awesome, with one of the guys bashing away at a drum, and lost of "whoa-ohhhhhhhhh!"s from everyone. For the most part, they were pretty good. Fun and kind of dancey, although the vocals were so low I couldn't hear a single lyric. The accordian was disappointing, because they only used it twice, and it played the same part as the violin, so it was buried under it. But the accordian/keyboard player was this insane little French-Canadian girl, and she rocked pretty hard. All in all, they were a very entertaining live band, but I don't know that I would ever actually get the CD and just listen to it.
Halfway through their set, Elise showed up, drunk, which was amusing. And the annoying girl did leave after them, which was cause for great celebration, as she hadn't left off being annoying during the show.
Next up was Chromeo, who were, in a word, fantastic. Two guys: one with a guitar and the other with a little synth and a voice-box-distorter-thing. They had a CD playing general beats in the background, and were an intriguing blend of metal and dance. They were also hysterical. They introduced themselves about a thousand times ("We are Cro-me-yo, and all our songs are about girls."), and the guitarist was very high on something and kept giggling. During one of the songs, he took a fake phonecall from his girlfriend that went something like this: "Yo girl. No man, I'm in the middle of a show. What? You got another man? Awww shit!" So great. It was one of the funnest sets I've seen--I was laughing and dancing the entire time.
The Arcade Fire and Chromeo played for about 30-40 minutes each, so the Unicorns went on a little after 9:00. Now, I don't think I can tell you how much I was looking forward to this show. Seriously. I was more excited for it then I've been for practically any other band. Just the awesomosity of the songs in general, and the reports I'd heard about costumes, puppet shows, and general hilariosity--how could it be anything less than incredible?
Well, we were to be severely disappointed, because it seriously was. It started off well enough, everyone in Easter dress, pink and white suits, and Alden was wearing a little boy's suit pants and vest (He divested himself of the vest about halfway through, showing off his hairless, 12-year-old boy physique.), and they played "Tuff Ghost" first, which is one of my favorite songs, and it was awesome. But they played an extremely short set, barely longer than the opening bands, and half of the songs were new and not, to be perfectly honest, nearly as good as anything on WWCOHWWG. They were pretty funny--Nick kept mocking the people who yelled shit from the crowd, and Alden told a rather interesting story about having two streams of pee (it's because he's uncircumcised)--but Alden was also drunk off his ass, and kept swinging the mike stand around, knocking over his beer, and generally falling about, and not in an interesting, sexy sort of way, just in a drunk-guy-on-the-street way.
I really can't express the disappointment when they left after "I Was Born (A Unicorn)" and didn't come back--it wasn't even 10 yet. It was just kind of, "That's it? Seriously? That's what everyone's been raving about?" It wasn't that it was a bad show--all the songs I knew sounded great--it just wasn't all that amazing. Certainly not the kind of show that lives up to two months of extreme excitement. I was actually supposed to see them tonight, but it didn't seem worth the trouble of getting down to NYC and back, if it was going to be a repeat of Friday. Tres sad. They have one more chance to make up for it. We'll see how they do.