Hollywood Bowl: Rodrigo y Gabriela / Devotchka / Lord Huron
Lord Huron was not unpleasant.
Devotchka has influences all over the map. I mean Wikipedia lists their genres as "Gypsy punk, dark cabaret, indie folk, indie rock" [to which I would add mariachi]. When they stuck with one genre at a time, they did pretty well, but some of their songs seemed to flip genres midway through. Is this what the world has come to with shortened attention spans? We used to listen to entire operas -- ok, we never really did that -- we'd get bored and flirt with the marquis or contessa next to us -- later we could handle all of Dark Side of the Moon, then we could only listen to one song on shuffle play before we needed something different, and now we can't listen to a whole song before we need it to change.
But still, definitely some better stuff in there, and I give bonus snaps to any band with a female sousaphonist, even if she never launched into that sousaphone solo I was hoping for. Their encore was awesome and sounded realllly familiar, and afterwards the KCRW person mentioned that Devotchka had done the soundtrack for Little Miss Sunshine, so I'm guess it was something from that, possibly The Enemy Guns, or at least something of theirs with plenty of whistling.
Then Rodrigo y Gabriela as the headline act. For two people with two guitars, they filled that place with plenty of sound. Sure, they have amplification, but still...
There's a place where virtuosity edges into the realm of magic and miracle, and that's what they delivered. Uncanny, and the Bowl did a great job with closeup cameras on their hands to put up on the screens. I feel a little guilty that I was disappointed they didn't really do any of their inventive covers. But otherwise there was no disappointment. They came out and worked their asses off with hardly any breaks between songs. And none of their songs allow either of them to just coast. They each took a turn at soloing (I assume so that the other could go soak their hands in a bucket of ice water or something) but for the most part they played like mad.
Getting out of the Bowl was a nightmare due to the protest winding up at Hollywood/Highland right about the same time the Bowl let out. Thousands fleeing the Bowl is bad enough normally. This was ridiculous.
Oh hey look, someone's already got some video up at YouTube:
Devotchka has influences all over the map. I mean Wikipedia lists their genres as "Gypsy punk, dark cabaret, indie folk, indie rock" [to which I would add mariachi]. When they stuck with one genre at a time, they did pretty well, but some of their songs seemed to flip genres midway through. Is this what the world has come to with shortened attention spans? We used to listen to entire operas -- ok, we never really did that -- we'd get bored and flirt with the marquis or contessa next to us -- later we could handle all of Dark Side of the Moon, then we could only listen to one song on shuffle play before we needed something different, and now we can't listen to a whole song before we need it to change.
But still, definitely some better stuff in there, and I give bonus snaps to any band with a female sousaphonist, even if she never launched into that sousaphone solo I was hoping for. Their encore was awesome and sounded realllly familiar, and afterwards the KCRW person mentioned that Devotchka had done the soundtrack for Little Miss Sunshine, so I'm guess it was something from that, possibly The Enemy Guns, or at least something of theirs with plenty of whistling.
Then Rodrigo y Gabriela as the headline act. For two people with two guitars, they filled that place with plenty of sound. Sure, they have amplification, but still...
There's a place where virtuosity edges into the realm of magic and miracle, and that's what they delivered. Uncanny, and the Bowl did a great job with closeup cameras on their hands to put up on the screens. I feel a little guilty that I was disappointed they didn't really do any of their inventive covers. But otherwise there was no disappointment. They came out and worked their asses off with hardly any breaks between songs. And none of their songs allow either of them to just coast. They each took a turn at soloing (I assume so that the other could go soak their hands in a bucket of ice water or something) but for the most part they played like mad.
Getting out of the Bowl was a nightmare due to the protest winding up at Hollywood/Highland right about the same time the Bowl let out. Thousands fleeing the Bowl is bad enough normally. This was ridiculous.
Oh hey look, someone's already got some video up at YouTube:
Click to view