I Got Plenty of Time
&
It's good to lose, and it's good to win sometimes
It's good to die, and it's good to be alive
Sanctuary in his kiss,
We still can't find to end of this
Two concerts, no subway rides. Let's do this.
Venue
DB/SV: The David Byrne/St. Vincent show was in Willamsburg Park. Still not a park, still very close to my apartment, which would be the best except…
Dum Dum Girls: …The Europa is actually closer! I don't usually describe it as the closest concert venue because I don't really consider it a venue. It's really a bar/nightclub that sometimes has concerts. Most of the time it's just the place where you can "pop pop pop dance with the Polish girls," as the apartment's previous landlord used to tell Nathaniel. I've never been inside it before. It has chandeliers and a disco ball, and kind of reminded me of Carlito's Way except it looks less like a yacht.
Opening Act
DB/SV: My favorite opening act-none! At the concert, they played songs from Love This Giant, plus Talking Heads/David Byrne songs, plus St. Vincent songs, so it's like they opened for themselves and mixed in the opening sets throughout.
Dum Dum Girls: There were two. We only saw one: Chez Deep. It was performers in drag lip-synching to famous songs. That's fine in and of itself. It was pleasant because they played songs I knew, so on one level it was less boring than other opening bands. But some of the performers didn't know the words. If all you're doing is lip-synching/dancing, I think that's pretty essential. But I thought maybe that was half the fun, being kind of bad at it. But then I looked up the band's Tumblr, and one of them had written this (I can't find it again): "the closing number of our set today was colin, alexis, and sam lipping 'running up that hill' as bailey did african air drums and fertility dance couturiesa and i literally wept in a corner." You take yourself too seriously, Chez Deep. If you're going to move yourself to tears, you've got to know exactly when Bjork screams in "It's Oh So Quiet" first.
OPQ (Old-Person Quotient)
Both OPQs were helped by proximity to my apartment, but they were both stand-up shows, and Dum Dum Girls started and ended pretty late for a Sunday.
Seats/Position in Crowd/Up-In-Itness
DB/SV: It's hard to get really Up In It at the Williamsburg Park. It's a pretty big place. We were back a ways and off to the side.
Dum Dum Girls: In contrast, the floor for Europa was pretty small, so we were pretty close even if there were six or seven people in front of us.
Setlist
DB/SV: Jesse hasn't posted yet, so we turn to setlist.fm. The setlist includes all of the songs I liked most from Love This Giant, plus my favorite of the St. Vincent songs I know ("Cruel"). But it also had my least-favorite St. Vincent song ("Cheerleader," which I find super monotonous)-I really wish I could've swapped it for "Actor Out of Work." I also wish I could've controlled which David Byrne/Talking Heads songs they played. I love both "This Must Be the Place" and "Like Humans Do," but they seem so similar to me, with bouncy beats to them, that it was redundant to hear both. I also like "Life is Long" better than "Strange Overtones," and I could take or leave "Lazy." But they did "Burning Down the House" and people went nuts for it, so I can't really complain.
Dum Dum Girls: The setlist for the Europa show is not on setlist.fm, but I bet this one, from LA a couple days earlier, is close enough. Actually, I have no idea. I'm not hugely familiar with the Dum Dum Girls. Jesse burned their albums for me all on one cd and I've listened to it a few times. So, since my heart wasn't set on hearing any specific song, it was all gravy.
High Point
DB/SV: All of the songs were pretty choreographed in a super-stagey way, with synchronized movements for both them and the band. It was really fun to watch. My favorite was this little side-step-snap thing they did after every line of the "dishes in the sink…TV's in repair" part of "Like Humans Do." I will think of that every time I hear that song now. But I'd be lying if I said the high point wasn't "Burning Down the House." I love it when the crowd goes especially crazy for one song. (It was the same for "Girls and Boys" when I saw Blur.)
Dum Dum Girls: Is it weird to say that they reminded me of the Bangles, but in a totally good way? I think that sounds insulting, but I don't mean it to be. I loved the Bangles back in the day! Girls of today need Bangles of their own to look up to.
Low Point
DB/SV: "Cheerleader." Sorry, St. Vincent! That song is nails on a chalkboard.
Dum Dum Girls: They totally have the hot-girl-band DSLR problem. I forgot about this type of thing since I haven't seen Jenny Lewis in a while, but when the third "photographer" elbowed in front of me to get a shot of the band, I was painfully reminded. I don't think my show experience should take a back seat to people who don't care enough to actually get to the show but might glance at some pictures on a blog later (if, in fact, these people are taking pictures for a blog and not just their lame-ass LiveJournals). (Hey, wait.)
Exuberance
DB/SV: They definitely looked really happy to be there, and so did the crowd, but it was a controlled exuberance. Exuberance with blazers.
Dum Dum Girls: The band was definitely exuberant, but the crowd was a little restrained. Maybe it was the chandeliers.