Getting My Share Of That Sweet $600 Million
So tonight on a lark I hooked up with gnosticpi, voxel, and heathey (to the latter two of whom great thanks for saving us seats) for a free Decemberists concert, backed by the Grant Park Orchestra, at the Pritzker Bandshell in the lovely (and only a wee bit over budget) Millennium Park here in the greatest city in the world.
Now, about that bandshell -- in Frank Gehry's defense, it wasn't his idea initially to lard it up with all those metal curlicues, but Mayor Daley wanted a by-God Frank Gehry bandshell, and that meant curlicues and lots of 'em. So the thing is just hideous from almost every angle -- except, as it happens, from inside, where the worst of the arabesques are hidden by the main shell, and the view through the fretwork runs from the resplendent South Michigan street wall all the way up to the Aon Center, and the internal sight and sound lines are considerably better than the old Petrillo Stage. And the metal works, at least for this show, when the lightning in the west reflected off the stainless steel.
In front of my city, under that steel canopy and lowering cumulo-nimban skies, the setting was first rate. I'm not what you'd call a huge Decemberists fan, although I'm fairly sure I saw their Conan O'Brien debut of "O Valencia!" However, for a band that basically sounds like Richard Butler, backed by Jethro Tull, channeling Robyn Hitchcock, they put on a better-than-fine show, complete with a wave of fat summer rain to cool us off -- and you sure can't beat the price. My favorite piece was "We Both Go Down Together," but they really sold "The Infanta," and I very much liked "Los Angeles I'm Yours" and a wildly grandiloquent "I Was Meant For the Stage." The symphonic backing arrangement was what one expects -- a lot of trips to the Lalo Schifrin well, for example -- but it made the sound real big where it could (as on "Infanta") and surely didn't hurt the rest of it.
That said, the Decemberists encored in fine fettle sans symphony as the skies turned black as a cachalot's throat for a rousing up-tempo "16 Military Wives" and beloved crowd favorite "The Mariner's Revenge Song." A few drops followed us to the bus, where the deluge opened up.
We swam home through the monsoon to eat Ribs 'n' Bibs and watch Anthony Mann's criminally neglected 1949 paranoid noir Reign of Terror (aka The Black Book) and if anyone asks what I did to deserve a life this good, I just have to shrug and say, with the Decemberists, "Was there ever any doubt?"
Now, about that bandshell -- in Frank Gehry's defense, it wasn't his idea initially to lard it up with all those metal curlicues, but Mayor Daley wanted a by-God Frank Gehry bandshell, and that meant curlicues and lots of 'em. So the thing is just hideous from almost every angle -- except, as it happens, from inside, where the worst of the arabesques are hidden by the main shell, and the view through the fretwork runs from the resplendent South Michigan street wall all the way up to the Aon Center, and the internal sight and sound lines are considerably better than the old Petrillo Stage. And the metal works, at least for this show, when the lightning in the west reflected off the stainless steel.
In front of my city, under that steel canopy and lowering cumulo-nimban skies, the setting was first rate. I'm not what you'd call a huge Decemberists fan, although I'm fairly sure I saw their Conan O'Brien debut of "O Valencia!" However, for a band that basically sounds like Richard Butler, backed by Jethro Tull, channeling Robyn Hitchcock, they put on a better-than-fine show, complete with a wave of fat summer rain to cool us off -- and you sure can't beat the price. My favorite piece was "We Both Go Down Together," but they really sold "The Infanta," and I very much liked "Los Angeles I'm Yours" and a wildly grandiloquent "I Was Meant For the Stage." The symphonic backing arrangement was what one expects -- a lot of trips to the Lalo Schifrin well, for example -- but it made the sound real big where it could (as on "Infanta") and surely didn't hurt the rest of it.
That said, the Decemberists encored in fine fettle sans symphony as the skies turned black as a cachalot's throat for a rousing up-tempo "16 Military Wives" and beloved crowd favorite "The Mariner's Revenge Song." A few drops followed us to the bus, where the deluge opened up.
We swam home through the monsoon to eat Ribs 'n' Bibs and watch Anthony Mann's criminally neglected 1949 paranoid noir Reign of Terror (aka The Black Book) and if anyone asks what I did to deserve a life this good, I just have to shrug and say, with the Decemberists, "Was there ever any doubt?"