Late last year, Alison made me listen to MCR's latest album, The Black Parade. I put it on not expecting much but to my surprise I fell in love – with the soaring anthemic melodic rocks songs, the passionate lyrics, the underlying punk attitude, the absolute sing-a-long enjoyableness of an album that is ostensibly about death. And I could not wait to see them live and sing-a-long with my fist in the air, which is the default feeling I get when I listen to the albums over and over again.
Support act Another Day Down came across really LAME, trying to be this heavy rock band. One of them had a mullet and looked right out of the 80s, but without the irony. Totally forgettable songs that didn't even sound good the first time.
But My Chemical Romance were AWESOME. They played so much from The Black Parade, almost the entirety. Gerard sounded great and looked healthy and happy, and seemed like he was really enjoying himself in Australia. During 'Dead!' the front of the mosh got quite scary and he stopped the song completely to try and calm it down. He made sure the people getting crushed were pulled out, he instructed everyone to take some steps backwards slowly to create more room, and told the kids that no matter who much fun they were having they should stop and help people up if they’ve gone down in the mosh. He had the room’s attention all nigh. He made a great frontman, with gestures and voice and passion, throwing himself around the stage, singing his heart out. I *love* him.
The rest of the band were great, but subdued. Ray was so so so good – whenever I knew a great lick was coming up I would make sure I was watching him shred on his guitar. There wasn’t much band interaction during the set, mostly Gerard talked to the audience and had them eating out of the palm of his hand. The highlight of the night was last song 'Famous Last Word'. It was insanely good live, with Gerard taking out his earpiece to hear the audience yelling the refrain back to him, arms reaching out towards the stage, loving him and the band and their music and his words.
The End
Dead!
How I Disappear
I’m Not Okay
Mama
Welcome to the Black Parade
I Don’t Love You
Thank You for the Venom
Teenagers
House of Wolves
You Know What They Do to Guys Like Us in Prison
Helena
Sleep
Cancer
Famous Last Words
Saturday, January 27, 2007
Wednesday, January 24, 2007
Muse - 23 Jan 2007 - Hordern Pavillion
Hordern = not so good. It is my least favourite venue for shows, because in its supposed egalitarianism of all GA it just damns short people like me, and for some reason the worst crowds I've ever encountered have all been at the Hordern. But I saw half the Ground Components set with Alison and her friends and I quite enjoyed them; Fiona had told us beforehand that they were “scream-y, but with good melodies” and it was true, but she forgot to mention the screaming was done by an Iggy Pop lookalike over catchy rockabilly tunes (this is a plus).
In between the sets I went and hung out with some other friends right of centre, in the thick of the mosh. The crowd was uniformly tall and hulking, with lots of very excited/drunk/high guys, and it was getting pretty rough in the wait for Muse. People kept asking me, “Are you sure you’re going to be ok?” I thought I was going to be fine...in the end, I lasted in the mosh for the first four songs, then my glasses flew off my face (ACK!!!!!) After rescuing them, I decided that I was sick of bracing myself against giant frat boy types who were threatening to fall on me en masse every other moment and made my way out towards the side. But before that, someone dumped a beer over the crowd near me during the second song, so I smelt like beer and sweat for the rest of the night, which earned me lots of dirty looks from other girls during the concert, understandably. I ended on the far right, about 6 rows from the front but so so far away from Matt Bellamy. *sadface* I did have fun dancing around like crazy and moshing in that area though; it was good that the energy levels were so crazy that the mosh was fairly far reaching actually, and where I was there were lots more short happy fans and it was a comfortable, fun mosh rather than a violent experience. But there was the only one moment during the gig that I got a decent view of the band, when I had a rest on the steps to the seats before a security guard forced me to move, which is partly why I can't say I had the best concert experience; while the music was awesome, I just felt like I came away with almost no sense of the band as a visual experience since most of the night all I saw were sweaty shoulders, hair and more heads. I normally don’t have this much to say about the mechanics of being on the floor at a concert, but I felt a lot of what I felt about Tuesday night stemmed from that – the good and the bad.
Musically, I didn't have any qualms about the gig at all. It was pretty damn spectacular. I love the first four songs played but I had very little recollection of them because of the aforementioned mosh shenanigans. They followed that up with 'Feeling Good', and it is the classiest rock rendition of a great Nina Simone song, and then they followed that with 'Hoodoo' and it sounded so so good, with the intense piano chords and giant sound. The whole night, they sounded MASSIVE and awesome live. Even though it’s just the three of them on stage, it was so strong and powerful, whether it was the ballads with Matt's unbelievable voice, or the rock songs pounding out.
The first encore was the real highlight though. When they came back out, Matt said that we should all get our lighters and mobile phones out for 'Soldier’s Poem', but in my area we were all giggling because this person had a lighter that was more like a flamethrower, it threw out these massive tongues of fire and you could see the owner getting their thumb burnt over and over again, but he kept doing it and we really appreciated the spectacle. Then the energy levels went through the roof with 'Hysteria' and 'Stockholm Syndrome' back to back, again tight and fast and insane, and yeah, I enjoyed this mosh. “Second” encore was just fun, with a crowd karaoke singalong to Knights of Cydonia, so tongue-in-cheek and enjoyable live, ending the on a high energy note.
Take A Bow
Map Of The Problematique
Butterflies And Hurricanes
Supermassive Black Hole
Newborn
Starlight
Forced In
Bliss
Feeling Good
Hoodoo
Invincible
Time Is Running Out
Plug In Baby
Soldier's Poem
Hysteria
Stockholm Syndrome
Knights Of Cydonia
In between the sets I went and hung out with some other friends right of centre, in the thick of the mosh. The crowd was uniformly tall and hulking, with lots of very excited/drunk/high guys, and it was getting pretty rough in the wait for Muse. People kept asking me, “Are you sure you’re going to be ok?” I thought I was going to be fine...in the end, I lasted in the mosh for the first four songs, then my glasses flew off my face (ACK!!!!!) After rescuing them, I decided that I was sick of bracing myself against giant frat boy types who were threatening to fall on me en masse every other moment and made my way out towards the side. But before that, someone dumped a beer over the crowd near me during the second song, so I smelt like beer and sweat for the rest of the night, which earned me lots of dirty looks from other girls during the concert, understandably. I ended on the far right, about 6 rows from the front but so so far away from Matt Bellamy. *sadface* I did have fun dancing around like crazy and moshing in that area though; it was good that the energy levels were so crazy that the mosh was fairly far reaching actually, and where I was there were lots more short happy fans and it was a comfortable, fun mosh rather than a violent experience. But there was the only one moment during the gig that I got a decent view of the band, when I had a rest on the steps to the seats before a security guard forced me to move, which is partly why I can't say I had the best concert experience; while the music was awesome, I just felt like I came away with almost no sense of the band as a visual experience since most of the night all I saw were sweaty shoulders, hair and more heads. I normally don’t have this much to say about the mechanics of being on the floor at a concert, but I felt a lot of what I felt about Tuesday night stemmed from that – the good and the bad.
Musically, I didn't have any qualms about the gig at all. It was pretty damn spectacular. I love the first four songs played but I had very little recollection of them because of the aforementioned mosh shenanigans. They followed that up with 'Feeling Good', and it is the classiest rock rendition of a great Nina Simone song, and then they followed that with 'Hoodoo' and it sounded so so good, with the intense piano chords and giant sound. The whole night, they sounded MASSIVE and awesome live. Even though it’s just the three of them on stage, it was so strong and powerful, whether it was the ballads with Matt's unbelievable voice, or the rock songs pounding out.
The first encore was the real highlight though. When they came back out, Matt said that we should all get our lighters and mobile phones out for 'Soldier’s Poem', but in my area we were all giggling because this person had a lighter that was more like a flamethrower, it threw out these massive tongues of fire and you could see the owner getting their thumb burnt over and over again, but he kept doing it and we really appreciated the spectacle. Then the energy levels went through the roof with 'Hysteria' and 'Stockholm Syndrome' back to back, again tight and fast and insane, and yeah, I enjoyed this mosh. “Second” encore was just fun, with a crowd karaoke singalong to Knights of Cydonia, so tongue-in-cheek and enjoyable live, ending the on a high energy note.
Take A Bow
Map Of The Problematique
Butterflies And Hurricanes
Supermassive Black Hole
Newborn
Starlight
Forced In
Bliss
Feeling Good
Hoodoo
Invincible
Time Is Running Out
Plug In Baby
Soldier's Poem
Hysteria
Stockholm Syndrome
Knights Of Cydonia
Thursday, January 4, 2007
Modest Mouse - 3 Jan 2007 - Enmore Theatre
I didn’t really have any expectations going in, because I am woefully acquainted with the entirety of the Modest Mouse oeuvre (though what I know I like) so I was ready to go and experience for experience's sake. It was good to see some really good live ROCK (when I'm listening to Modest Mouse my dad will often pop in and ask what all the noise is) with the jangly guitars, the growling bass, the massive percussion section.
We arrived about halfway through the Dappled Cities set, and what I heard was catchy and good. Two things in particular struck me – they can caterwaul in harmony! and the lead singer/guitarist has a really nice voice. I will be looking for more of their stuff to listen to.
Modest Mouse started with 'Ocean Breathes Salty', which was one of about five songs I wanted to hear tonight. They followed up with a stompingly good 'Black Cadillac', then a song that was only about a minute and a half long, then Isaac Brock stopped and said something along the lines of “Normally we just play this through again because that’s all there is. It’s a good song so here we go.” And then they really did just play it all the way through again.
Before the concert we'd wondered when in the set 'Float On' (their far and away best known song) would go and we guessed either first or last or in the encore to draw out is popularity. However four songs in there it was, and it was good but not great – I still love the song, but hearing it live did nothing for me. However, a few more songs in they played an absolutely blistering rendition of 'Tiny Cities Made of Ashes' that just raised the energy levels. This started a great section of songs – 'Tiny Cities', 'Bukowski', 'The World At Large', 'The View' - where the crowd really got into it; the moshers started a crazy whirling pit in the centre, and others were less timid in moving along to the rhythm and beat. And I got to geek out over the use of unexpected instrumentation, especially during Bukowski with the bit when it’s the banjo, electric double bass and accordion only – so cool.
Isaac Brock tried a bit of banter, though for him it consisted of awkwardly funny sarcasm. He was most animated when he was talking about cuddling koalas in Brisbane, which is adorable. And I’ve discovered that I really like it when frontmen are narky at certain parts of the crowd – it might be a bit mean, but it’s still amusing when they’re paying out some idiot in the crowd (I guess as long as it’s not me I’m ok with that). The crowd was a bit insane last night though, with the crazy hyper girls on the barrier, and the half-naked guy who kept trying to crowd surf and actually dove onto the stage at one point, only to be chased back onto the floor by a big security guard who dragged him away forcibly while the guy’s girlfriend hung off the security guard as an useless impediment.
Last song of the set was 'Breakthrough' (also good). There was a two song encore ending with 'Dramamine', which I did want to hear, but they noodled through it for a bit too long. The energy level of the crowd was flagging and it seemed that most were not in the mood for that kind of extended jam, which meant the concert ended on a strangely impatient note.
We arrived about halfway through the Dappled Cities set, and what I heard was catchy and good. Two things in particular struck me – they can caterwaul in harmony! and the lead singer/guitarist has a really nice voice. I will be looking for more of their stuff to listen to.
Modest Mouse started with 'Ocean Breathes Salty', which was one of about five songs I wanted to hear tonight. They followed up with a stompingly good 'Black Cadillac', then a song that was only about a minute and a half long, then Isaac Brock stopped and said something along the lines of “Normally we just play this through again because that’s all there is. It’s a good song so here we go.” And then they really did just play it all the way through again.
Before the concert we'd wondered when in the set 'Float On' (their far and away best known song) would go and we guessed either first or last or in the encore to draw out is popularity. However four songs in there it was, and it was good but not great – I still love the song, but hearing it live did nothing for me. However, a few more songs in they played an absolutely blistering rendition of 'Tiny Cities Made of Ashes' that just raised the energy levels. This started a great section of songs – 'Tiny Cities', 'Bukowski', 'The World At Large', 'The View' - where the crowd really got into it; the moshers started a crazy whirling pit in the centre, and others were less timid in moving along to the rhythm and beat. And I got to geek out over the use of unexpected instrumentation, especially during Bukowski with the bit when it’s the banjo, electric double bass and accordion only – so cool.
Isaac Brock tried a bit of banter, though for him it consisted of awkwardly funny sarcasm. He was most animated when he was talking about cuddling koalas in Brisbane, which is adorable. And I’ve discovered that I really like it when frontmen are narky at certain parts of the crowd – it might be a bit mean, but it’s still amusing when they’re paying out some idiot in the crowd (I guess as long as it’s not me I’m ok with that). The crowd was a bit insane last night though, with the crazy hyper girls on the barrier, and the half-naked guy who kept trying to crowd surf and actually dove onto the stage at one point, only to be chased back onto the floor by a big security guard who dragged him away forcibly while the guy’s girlfriend hung off the security guard as an useless impediment.
Last song of the set was 'Breakthrough' (also good). There was a two song encore ending with 'Dramamine', which I did want to hear, but they noodled through it for a bit too long. The energy level of the crowd was flagging and it seemed that most were not in the mood for that kind of extended jam, which meant the concert ended on a strangely impatient note.
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