RED WIRE! (Rock Week '11, 4/5)
The last time I saw the Dismemberment Plan before this weekend, they had announced their breakup and were doing a farewell tour. We (and by "we" I mean Marisa and I and Rob and Sabrina and I'm not sure who else -- a variety of people who went to these Boston and NYC shows, probably) saw both of their shows at the Bowery Ballroom, where the band spent a lot of time taking fan requests; that was sort of the deal for that tour. It was a novel idea -- I'm not sure if I've ever seen a mostly-request show before, save for maybe parts of a few Mountain Goats shows -- but it hurt the flow of the set a little, not just because songs were being chosen on the fly, but because it required pauses after most of them to get to the next one. Also, though the idea of fan requests is appealing in theory, in the end, unless I'm personally designing the setlist, I'd usually rather hear the band choose songs (and even then, the band can surprise me and I can't, so I'd go with the band) (possible exception for Liz Phair).
Similarly, the idea of fans getting up on stage and dancing for "The Ice of Boston" as per Dismemberment Plan tradition is awesome in theory (and especially when we got to see Craig and Michelle climb up there last night), but kind of annoying in practice. In Boston, and I can't believe I'm saying this after Travis's amusing (and affectionate) characterization of Bostonians as "doers, not thinkers," people at least seemed to take the quickest path offstage when the song was over, even if a few creeps and nerds wanted to linger to hug the band or whatever. But in New York, not only did many people linger to hug and take pictures and generally celebrate themselves when the band only had a few minutes left to play, most of them basically stood in line to exit off the front of the stage rather than the sides, because, you know, just because they got to go up on stage with the band doesn't mean that they should have to give up the front row spots that were rightfully theirs (yes, all 80 or 90 people who jumped on stage were apparently originally standing front-row center before then. They certainly didn't rush to the front just to get on the stage. And, anyway, being in the front is a right that you earn by being in the front for any period of time, not just something that happens for a little bit by chance!).
But the show itself at Webster Hall was awesome, despite the way that venue is run, which is to say terribly at every turn. For example, because Webster Hall is also, perhaps primarily, a shitty nightclub, the show had a curfew of 10:30. Now, I don't mind an early show. The 9PM start time for the main band was great. But a stricter end time meant a set that ran twenty minutes shorter than Boston's, for no real reason other than the people who run Webster Hall regard the people who spend $20-40 on concert tickets with utter contempt.
However: the show itself, again, awesome. The set might've actually been better-paced and more climactic than the Boston gig, with "The City" saved for the encore finale, and many of the harder rocking songs in the second half -- a far better order than the fan-chosen grab-bag of the last New York shows. They went back around and played pretty much everything worthwhile that they didn't do in Boston, so as far as I'm concerned the only Plan song really missing from the two-night experience was "Bra" (sorry, "The Jitters" and "Academy Award"). The band sounded great, pretty much everyone around us but the Shorter Unfunny Steve Zahn and Girlfriend was dancing, and they played "Superpowers" for Rob (or at least I imagine it was for Rob). In addition to Plan veterans Michelle and Craig and Rob and Sabrina, official young people my sister and her boyfriend got to see them for the first time ever! It was Marisa's birthday! Hopefully we'll all get to go again before we're 37.
It turned out they were having a ball:
A Life of Possibilities
Spider in the Snow
Face of the Earth
Rusty
Ellen and Ben
You Are Invited
Superpowers
Memory Machine
What Do You Want Me to Say?
Pay for the Piano
Timebomb
Doin' the Standing Still
Back and Forth
If I Don't Write
The Dismemberment Plan Gets Rich!
Gyroscope
OK, Joke's Over
---
The Ice of Boston
Following Through
The City
Then we blew our 10:30 lead spending half an hour fighting out way through the clogged Webster exits and the awful Webster coat-check line. But there were cupcakes at the end of the journey, so it was basically a win.
Similarly, the idea of fans getting up on stage and dancing for "The Ice of Boston" as per Dismemberment Plan tradition is awesome in theory (and especially when we got to see Craig and Michelle climb up there last night), but kind of annoying in practice. In Boston, and I can't believe I'm saying this after Travis's amusing (and affectionate) characterization of Bostonians as "doers, not thinkers," people at least seemed to take the quickest path offstage when the song was over, even if a few creeps and nerds wanted to linger to hug the band or whatever. But in New York, not only did many people linger to hug and take pictures and generally celebrate themselves when the band only had a few minutes left to play, most of them basically stood in line to exit off the front of the stage rather than the sides, because, you know, just because they got to go up on stage with the band doesn't mean that they should have to give up the front row spots that were rightfully theirs (yes, all 80 or 90 people who jumped on stage were apparently originally standing front-row center before then. They certainly didn't rush to the front just to get on the stage. And, anyway, being in the front is a right that you earn by being in the front for any period of time, not just something that happens for a little bit by chance!).
But the show itself at Webster Hall was awesome, despite the way that venue is run, which is to say terribly at every turn. For example, because Webster Hall is also, perhaps primarily, a shitty nightclub, the show had a curfew of 10:30. Now, I don't mind an early show. The 9PM start time for the main band was great. But a stricter end time meant a set that ran twenty minutes shorter than Boston's, for no real reason other than the people who run Webster Hall regard the people who spend $20-40 on concert tickets with utter contempt.
However: the show itself, again, awesome. The set might've actually been better-paced and more climactic than the Boston gig, with "The City" saved for the encore finale, and many of the harder rocking songs in the second half -- a far better order than the fan-chosen grab-bag of the last New York shows. They went back around and played pretty much everything worthwhile that they didn't do in Boston, so as far as I'm concerned the only Plan song really missing from the two-night experience was "Bra" (sorry, "The Jitters" and "Academy Award"). The band sounded great, pretty much everyone around us but the Shorter Unfunny Steve Zahn and Girlfriend was dancing, and they played "Superpowers" for Rob (or at least I imagine it was for Rob). In addition to Plan veterans Michelle and Craig and Rob and Sabrina, official young people my sister and her boyfriend got to see them for the first time ever! It was Marisa's birthday! Hopefully we'll all get to go again before we're 37.
It turned out they were having a ball:
A Life of Possibilities
Spider in the Snow
Face of the Earth
Rusty
Ellen and Ben
You Are Invited
Superpowers
Memory Machine
What Do You Want Me to Say?
Pay for the Piano
Timebomb
Doin' the Standing Still
Back and Forth
If I Don't Write
The Dismemberment Plan Gets Rich!
Gyroscope
OK, Joke's Over
---
The Ice of Boston
Following Through
The City
Then we blew our 10:30 lead spending half an hour fighting out way through the clogged Webster exits and the awful Webster coat-check line. But there were cupcakes at the end of the journey, so it was basically a win.