Belated reviews and whatnot pt. 1-- Wolf Parade/Holy Fuck/Frog Eyes
Hey. It's been awhile. (Pause.)The following is the write-up that was intended to be posted on the Wolf Parade forum, but we were not meant to be. Image hosting sites hate me and my cheap obsolete dial-up connection, and I'm tired and need to, you know, record a cover tomorrow, so this is how it forms. If you are from the Wolf Parade forum, hi. If your head is in any of my pictures, tell me.
A little under a week ago I attended my first concert at the hailed metro. The L was so very slow, (and apparently has been since it caught on fire), and so my bedraggled sister and I found the metro by its obscenely long line of indie kids spilling onto the sidewalk. We waited for a while, taking note of the various Wrigleyville cafes and such, and the very tasteful Metro sign.
FROG EYES
HOLY F K
WOLF PARADE
The unprepared will call line another good deal of time, but we secured Spencer-side fourth row spots. Basically the only ones standing, we watched everyone sit around and talk, play bejeweled on their cell phones (obviously the cheap cell phone game of choice), and try to amuse themselves. A group of two twentysomethings ahead of me started a spirited game of (crap, what is it called? you know, the game where you try to clap your hand off the other one's hand in unison but it basically fails in a couple seconds because your mind wanders because, dude, it's not really that interesting in the first place, but you start it again anyway. [?] What game is that? I call it Chinese water torture but that's not the proper name......)
Yes, I'm just ending that paragraph RIGHT HERE.
Anyway, in due time Frog Eyes came on. [dB reducing earplugs in] I had never seen them before (actually I had never seen ANY of the bands before) and they opened with a skewered version of "The Oscillator's Hum" that I didn't really like compared to the original. However, they followed that with a new song I had never heard before with Spencer arpeggiating the hell out of some chords and "Caravan Breakers" and each song seemed better than the last. Carey was really into the songs (both in movement and in spit, I was glad not to be in the front row), and while offputting during "The Oscillator's Hum", in the later songs it really worked and just FIT, and as a whole the show was really good. Carey was personable in between songs to boot. The bass player was awesome as well. And so was Melanie the drummer.
In a related note, Spencer now sings a little for FE, and the song with the "kiss you on the corner of the eye" song was my favorite of the set.
Next up was Holy Fuck, and though they took ten years to set up, the reason why was pretty clear. Holy Fuck are basically improvisational. With two massive board tables and keyboards and pedals and samplers and a film reader comboed with a drummer and bass player, they went wherever they felt in a hit or miss set that mainly hit. When they tried to play more dark, grungy material it didn't really fit the funjoy persona and tended to go nowhere. When, as on the last song, they messed with an almost videogamey melody, they could ride it out however they wanted, and it flowed and rocked. Bonus points for the inclusion of a melodica.
Lastly came Wolf Parade, who most people came to see (shame on you if you missed the openers as almost a quarter of the crowd did). Wolf Parade was awesome. They played EVERYTHING-- Sons and Daughters, I'll believe in anything, You are a runner to Fancy Claps, Disco Sheets, Modern World, It's A Curse, Shine a Light, and they even closed their regular set with This Heart's on Fire. It was awesome and to my relief the crowd was in to it in a good, honest-fan way, as opposed to the hipster-kid way I feared.
But I imagine people would like to hear about the new songs. I had noticed an acoustic guitar was next to Spencer's stuff and so knew that some new songs would be coming. Just as Spencer got the (sound) levels right, though, the bass player from Frog Eyes snuck onstage and threw some odd mirrored sunglasses on him. Spencer tried to start the song but realized he couldn't see at all. "I can't fucking play with these on," he admitted as he popped them on his keyboard.
Unfortunately for him, he didn't take them off fast enough.
Spencer Krug, rock starThe new songs were good but still in their infancy. I remember liking Dan's a little more than Spencer's, but we'll have to see.
Later, Dan was in between songs and took the time to humorously lament Dante's wind chimes. "He gets them coated so they don't break. There goes the gas money... Yeah, what do you have to say to that DeCaro?"
"There goes the gas money."Spencer was as sharp as he was on the last set, and everyone else was great too. Dan and Hadji both had an awesome concert, seemingly working in unison.
They came back on after a fierce call for encore. Even Spencer felt it, replacing his usual "Thanks. You guys are great." to "Thanks. You guys are fucking awesome."
They closed their encore with an extended version of Dinner Bells that I had found not good on bootlegs but is simply transcendent live. The crowd danced it away.
To put it simply: I had a good, good time tonight.
posted by Matt V @ 8/14/2006 12:02:00 AM
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