After hearing good reviews from others, I was worried that I would go in with too high expectations and be disappointed. No fear! It was an excellent movie.
Let's start with the story as it first seems. Brendan Frye (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) is a loner at high school, an outcast by choice. His only friend is another loner nicknamed The Brain who knows everything about everyone. When Brendan's ex-girlfriend Emily, whom Brendan still loves despite being dumped so she could climb higher on the social ladder at school, rings up sounding scared and confused and asking for help, Brendan throws himself back into the thick of high school and its cliques and secrets in an effort to help her out of a mess that she won't elaborate on. When he finds her dead two days after her phone call (not a spoiler - this is the first scene of the movie), the detective work, the menace and the double-crossing really begins.
If this sound less like a teen movie, and more like old-school Hollywood noir, that's because it's a really clever and intense attempt to blend the two. There's no swearing in the movie at all, but the kids get across their messages in dialogue that's informed by the language of hard-boiled detective and pulp novels, at time confusing, but always understandable from the context. Like when Brendan asks if The Brain knows who a certain person named The Pin is, The Brain replies in sharp quick patter, "Ask any dope rat where their junk sprang and they'll say they scraped it from that who scored it from this who bought it off so and after four or five connections the list always ends with the Pin. But I bet you got every rat in town together and said 'show your hands' if any of them've actually seen the Pin, you'd get a crowd of full pockets."
But don't fret. Even if you're not a fan of Hollywood noir, or if you don't know much about it, you can just sit back and enjoy a twisty mystery that's very stylishly filmed - the clever touches in the way it looks and sounds and moves. If you are a fan though, it's even more fun on a meta level, as you identify the usual tropes and see how they play out in a high school setting. Brendan, of course, is the world-weary detective in the mould of Humphrey Bogart as Philip Marlowe or Sam Spade; Lukas Haas' plays his shady character, The Pin, with the slick style of the old gangsters, with his cane a nice touch as well as being more than an affectation; Laura, the popular girl at school with the status and money and connections, has the brains and the beauty to be the ambigous femme fatale role. And all the minor characters have their place in moving the story along at a zipping pace, while setting up some really funny scenes that break up the inherent sadness in the mystery of Emily's death, while adding to the clues at the same time.
It's very well done, and even when characters are familiar and their arcs are familiar, the path between A and B is enjoyable that it doesn't matter if you know whodunnit, really. Because the journey, and being towed along like Brendan is through that journey into the seedy underworld of this non-descript high school, is the fun and interesting part, and that comes across so well in the film.
related reading >> Hard-boiled high, an article on two teen-noir features on at the moment, Brick and Veronica Mars
Sunday, August 6, 2006
Saturday, July 29, 2006
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story (2006; d. Michael Winterbottom)
Tristram Shandy: A Cock and Bull Story is possibly the best movie I've seen this year (which is only half over, but I doubt I'll engage with and enjoy another quite as much). Even now, as I think over the movie, I find myself laughing out loud remembering a visual joke here, a bit of slapstick there, the clever dialogue all throughout, the ridiculous yet pointedly observant scenes.
It's got a set-up that could be as pretentious and boring and badly done as anything you could imagine - it's a film adaptation of a rambling 18th century English novel that has been dubbed "unfilmable", packed with top British actors (and one well-known American actress), and also a film about the film of an adaptation of a rambling 19th century novel...but it's very very funny and clever and hits just the right note of arch without being wanky. While trying to sound profound, the lead actor gives an interview about the greatness of the novel he's in without having ever read the novel and says, "This is a postmodern novel before there was any modernism to be post about."
You don't have to have read the novel either, and that's one of the running jokes of the film, that no one on set has actually read the 600+ pages of novel. Very few people have, really, because while it is supposed to be about Tristram Shandy's life but because of the author's passion for digressions and moving between past and present on tangents it also ends right after the main character is born! Thus in reflection of this, the movie that is shown to the producers at the end (ie. the movie we've just watched) is also so digressive that very few of the originally scripted and pitched scenes (ie. the ones from the novel) actually make it into the film. Confused? Now, the movie itself is set on the film set of a movie adaptation of this novel with some of the actors playing characters on this film-within-film as well as playing the actors themselves (eg. Steve Coogan, the actor and comedian, plays an actor and comedian named "Steve Coogan") while other actors are playing crew members (eg. Jeremy Northam plays a director named Mark, who is really a stand in for the real director, Michael Winterbottom). Now completely confused? However, don't worry - it's a lot more understandable when you see it unfold wonderfully on-screen, as they break fourth-wall and talk to the camera, and move between scenes and sets and "real life", all with a funny, hyper-realistic script that flows naturally between all the different modes.
One of the ideas of the film is not just to give a sense of the shambles of the novel (which is does wonderfully, thus being a great adaptation in that it gives the atmosphere if not the plot) but also to revel in the process of film-making and a feel for the little bubble world a film set is. While outside events unfurl - a radio news report gravely reports on the Iraq insurgency - the actors and crew members are tangled up in their petty worries, fretting over the latest crisis on set; whether it be the battle of egos between two actors ("we're co-leads", Rob Brydon insists, while Steve Coogan sharply replies, "well, we'll see in the edit!") or Steve coming to terms with his new family unit of girlfriend and child while trying to hold onto his old life by flirting with a pretty film runner who has the same name as his girlfriend or the producers insisting they not use money they don't have to refilm a diastrous battle scene in which extras - in anachronistic costumes - stroll across the screen desultorily! The inside jokes are great for anyone who loves film, and I'm told there are even inside jokes in the inside jokes for those who really love their movies.
The cast is amazing. A veritable list of great British actors, doing good work no matter how big or small their part. In particular, Steve Coogan is great - he's such an vain, insecure man as an actor, but he also shows a softer side playing a new father, and it makes him endearingly human and thus likeable - plus he has a difficult job playing three parts as Tristram the narrator, Walter Shandy his father, and Steve Coogan the actor. Rob Brydon plays very well opposite him, and their bickering from who looks taller or has the bigger part or does the better impression of Al Pacino (a great end-of-credits sequence) is a cack. Kelly McDonald is beautiful and lovely and warm as always, and Gillian Anderson in a brief cameo is breathily sexy in an 18th century way (and funny as herself, wondering where all the scenes she shot over two weeks went).
But apart from the clever ideas, the great acting and the tamed chaos, there's also a lovely sense of the visual joke. One of the craziest, most memorable, lasting images of this movie for me is a scene where Steve Coogan is asked to test out a giant fake womb for a scene later in the movie (that doesn't actually make it into the "movie"). As he is lowered head first, complete with his 18th century costume, into a big pink uterus model, he has an argument with the production assistant about how he is positioned.
"[Mark, the director] wants it to be as realistic as possible," they say in defense of having him upside down.
"He wants realism. Yeah. I'm a grown man, talking to the camera, in a womb." Coogan yells back, through the plastic window, still stuck in the grossly overlarge and pink fleshy cavity.
Visually and in words, it's a great summary of the sublime ridiculousness of this movie.
It's got a set-up that could be as pretentious and boring and badly done as anything you could imagine - it's a film adaptation of a rambling 18th century English novel that has been dubbed "unfilmable", packed with top British actors (and one well-known American actress), and also a film about the film of an adaptation of a rambling 19th century novel...but it's very very funny and clever and hits just the right note of arch without being wanky. While trying to sound profound, the lead actor gives an interview about the greatness of the novel he's in without having ever read the novel and says, "This is a postmodern novel before there was any modernism to be post about."
You don't have to have read the novel either, and that's one of the running jokes of the film, that no one on set has actually read the 600+ pages of novel. Very few people have, really, because while it is supposed to be about Tristram Shandy's life but because of the author's passion for digressions and moving between past and present on tangents it also ends right after the main character is born! Thus in reflection of this, the movie that is shown to the producers at the end (ie. the movie we've just watched) is also so digressive that very few of the originally scripted and pitched scenes (ie. the ones from the novel) actually make it into the film. Confused? Now, the movie itself is set on the film set of a movie adaptation of this novel with some of the actors playing characters on this film-within-film as well as playing the actors themselves (eg. Steve Coogan, the actor and comedian, plays an actor and comedian named "Steve Coogan") while other actors are playing crew members (eg. Jeremy Northam plays a director named Mark, who is really a stand in for the real director, Michael Winterbottom). Now completely confused? However, don't worry - it's a lot more understandable when you see it unfold wonderfully on-screen, as they break fourth-wall and talk to the camera, and move between scenes and sets and "real life", all with a funny, hyper-realistic script that flows naturally between all the different modes.
One of the ideas of the film is not just to give a sense of the shambles of the novel (which is does wonderfully, thus being a great adaptation in that it gives the atmosphere if not the plot) but also to revel in the process of film-making and a feel for the little bubble world a film set is. While outside events unfurl - a radio news report gravely reports on the Iraq insurgency - the actors and crew members are tangled up in their petty worries, fretting over the latest crisis on set; whether it be the battle of egos between two actors ("we're co-leads", Rob Brydon insists, while Steve Coogan sharply replies, "well, we'll see in the edit!") or Steve coming to terms with his new family unit of girlfriend and child while trying to hold onto his old life by flirting with a pretty film runner who has the same name as his girlfriend or the producers insisting they not use money they don't have to refilm a diastrous battle scene in which extras - in anachronistic costumes - stroll across the screen desultorily! The inside jokes are great for anyone who loves film, and I'm told there are even inside jokes in the inside jokes for those who really love their movies.
The cast is amazing. A veritable list of great British actors, doing good work no matter how big or small their part. In particular, Steve Coogan is great - he's such an vain, insecure man as an actor, but he also shows a softer side playing a new father, and it makes him endearingly human and thus likeable - plus he has a difficult job playing three parts as Tristram the narrator, Walter Shandy his father, and Steve Coogan the actor. Rob Brydon plays very well opposite him, and their bickering from who looks taller or has the bigger part or does the better impression of Al Pacino (a great end-of-credits sequence) is a cack. Kelly McDonald is beautiful and lovely and warm as always, and Gillian Anderson in a brief cameo is breathily sexy in an 18th century way (and funny as herself, wondering where all the scenes she shot over two weeks went).
But apart from the clever ideas, the great acting and the tamed chaos, there's also a lovely sense of the visual joke. One of the craziest, most memorable, lasting images of this movie for me is a scene where Steve Coogan is asked to test out a giant fake womb for a scene later in the movie (that doesn't actually make it into the "movie"). As he is lowered head first, complete with his 18th century costume, into a big pink uterus model, he has an argument with the production assistant about how he is positioned.
"[Mark, the director] wants it to be as realistic as possible," they say in defense of having him upside down.
"He wants realism. Yeah. I'm a grown man, talking to the camera, in a womb." Coogan yells back, through the plastic window, still stuck in the grossly overlarge and pink fleshy cavity.
Visually and in words, it's a great summary of the sublime ridiculousness of this movie.
Thursday, July 27, 2006
Snow Patrol - 24 Jul 2006 - Enmore Theatre
So, let's recap: cute rock boys with dry senses of humour and Scottish accents playing guitars and singing awesome songs = a good night.
The lead singer, Gary Lightbody, made me giggle like a charmed schoolgirl - it's partly the accent, and partly because he sounded so natural at drawing the audience in. He chatted to the them throughout the night, with extended riffs about being in Australia and how things weren't what they expected; from the rain ("we didn't think you got that here") to the fact they still hadn't seen any kangaroos ("[Nathan, the guitar player] got punched in the face the other day for saying kangaroos don't exist. Discuss. [longer pause as audience yells various answers] Well, we haven't see any ...ergo."), to attempts at surfing ("Well when I say surfing, I mean swallowing a lot of sea water, but hey, at least I didn't get eaten by a shark.") Also, he plays his guitar and bounds all over the stage like he's possessed.
Onto the music. Gary's voice has been plagued by nodules/polyps, and it was kind of noticeable. He started off by saying "I shouldn't really say this 'cause it's kind of admitting defeat, but I've not been feeling...well, nevermind. My voice hasn't been the the best the last couple of months, so sing along if you know the words." And usually, it meant at the beginning of each song he would sound a little off key and hoarse, but usually by the end it would warm up and become a lot better, apart from the odd high note. The concert itself followed a similar pattern - the energy wasn't quite there at the start, but it really hit its stride after the first few songs and it was so awesome in the songs people knew best when everyone stood up and clapped and danced and sang.
I was estatic when they played my two favourites back to back, especially because Somewhere A Clock is Ticking isn't that well known (as evidenced by the suddenly quieter crowd) but I just love this song and it's weird fluttering and clockwork rhythms behind the falsetto in the verses and the choir-like chorus building and building. What I love about the songs are that they are so melodically dramatic, rises and falls with the emotions while retaining a lush beautiful and catchy sound, and paired with Make this Go On Forever, I think I made a fair few happy squeaks as the beginning chords of each song rang out.
A real crowd favourite was Run, which sounded great and had this crackling energy, and at the end it was just really sweet - they kept playing and the audience just launched as a whole into one last repeat of the chorus and the band just looked so chuffed at the response.
Spitting Games
Wow
Chocolate
It’s Beginning to Get to Me
Headlights on Dark Roads
?
Chasing Cars
Shut Your Eyes
How to be Dead
Somewhere A Clock is Ticking
Make This Go On Forever
Ways and Means
Run
You’re All I Have
Open Your Eyes
?
The lead singer, Gary Lightbody, made me giggle like a charmed schoolgirl - it's partly the accent, and partly because he sounded so natural at drawing the audience in. He chatted to the them throughout the night, with extended riffs about being in Australia and how things weren't what they expected; from the rain ("we didn't think you got that here") to the fact they still hadn't seen any kangaroos ("[Nathan, the guitar player] got punched in the face the other day for saying kangaroos don't exist. Discuss. [longer pause as audience yells various answers] Well, we haven't see any ...ergo."), to attempts at surfing ("Well when I say surfing, I mean swallowing a lot of sea water, but hey, at least I didn't get eaten by a shark.") Also, he plays his guitar and bounds all over the stage like he's possessed.
Onto the music. Gary's voice has been plagued by nodules/polyps, and it was kind of noticeable. He started off by saying "I shouldn't really say this 'cause it's kind of admitting defeat, but I've not been feeling...well, nevermind. My voice hasn't been the the best the last couple of months, so sing along if you know the words." And usually, it meant at the beginning of each song he would sound a little off key and hoarse, but usually by the end it would warm up and become a lot better, apart from the odd high note. The concert itself followed a similar pattern - the energy wasn't quite there at the start, but it really hit its stride after the first few songs and it was so awesome in the songs people knew best when everyone stood up and clapped and danced and sang.
I was estatic when they played my two favourites back to back, especially because Somewhere A Clock is Ticking isn't that well known (as evidenced by the suddenly quieter crowd) but I just love this song and it's weird fluttering and clockwork rhythms behind the falsetto in the verses and the choir-like chorus building and building. What I love about the songs are that they are so melodically dramatic, rises and falls with the emotions while retaining a lush beautiful and catchy sound, and paired with Make this Go On Forever, I think I made a fair few happy squeaks as the beginning chords of each song rang out.
A real crowd favourite was Run, which sounded great and had this crackling energy, and at the end it was just really sweet - they kept playing and the audience just launched as a whole into one last repeat of the chorus and the band just looked so chuffed at the response.
Spitting Games
Wow
Chocolate
It’s Beginning to Get to Me
Headlights on Dark Roads
?
Chasing Cars
Shut Your Eyes
How to be Dead
Somewhere A Clock is Ticking
Make This Go On Forever
Ways and Means
Run
You’re All I Have
Open Your Eyes
?
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Yeah Yeah Yeahs - 20 Jul 2006 - Enmore Theatre
The band is known for being crazy and having really energetic shows, so I was a little apprehensive of the crowd and just really unsure of what to expect. The band came on a little late (about 10:15pm) and played a relatively short set for an hour, almost half-half from their two albums. And though Karen O sounded...spacey...the show was pretty tight and had a real energy to the sound.
Her voice was not always in tune, but it worked with her vocal style and the music, and it was still really lovely during Maps. They played it with the full backing at first, then Karen O said they were going to try something they'd never done before because she felt like it (I may have taken a few obscenities out for that paraphrase) and that was a great acoustic version of Maps, just her voice and an electric guitar, and it really is a great love song, with an indie rock feel. And the band seemed like they were having fun, with Karen O throwing herself all over the stage (without any mishap) and wearing crazy sparkly pompoms on her head and at one point spinning half a disco ball on her head in time with the music. All in all, a fun experience.
Phenomena
Date With the Night
Art Star
Way Out
Cold Light
Modern Romance
?
Gold Lion
Cheated Hearts
Dudley
Maps
Maps (acoustic)
Warrior
Y-Control
Her voice was not always in tune, but it worked with her vocal style and the music, and it was still really lovely during Maps. They played it with the full backing at first, then Karen O said they were going to try something they'd never done before because she felt like it (I may have taken a few obscenities out for that paraphrase) and that was a great acoustic version of Maps, just her voice and an electric guitar, and it really is a great love song, with an indie rock feel. And the band seemed like they were having fun, with Karen O throwing herself all over the stage (without any mishap) and wearing crazy sparkly pompoms on her head and at one point spinning half a disco ball on her head in time with the music. All in all, a fun experience.
Phenomena
Date With the Night
Art Star
Way Out
Cold Light
Modern Romance
?
Gold Lion
Cheated Hearts
Dudley
Maps
Maps (acoustic)
Warrior
Y-Control
Tuesday, July 18, 2006
Death Cab for Cutie - 16 Jul 2006 - Home
A strange choice of venue, sparse with minimal security, but that said, it was such a small space that the concert felt really intimate.
The support band was Belles Will Ring, who I've never heard of before. All through their set, I had this niggling feeling that they sounded like some other band, and that was the problem with them - while they were a perfectly competent and decent rock band, they sounded so generic as to be unmemorable while inoffensive.
Death Cab came on with minimum fuss, just four unassuming guys on a small stage. But they played awesomely, the rhythm section loud and strong and great, the band sounded tight and together, and Ben Gibbard's voice sounded excellent over it all. Even with the softer songs, they have the ability to build this wall of sound, warm and enveloping and strong.
Marching Bands of Manhattan
The New Year
We Laugh Indoors
Title and Registration
President of What
Soul Meets Body
Summer Skin
Crooked Teeth
Company Calls
Company Calls Epilogue
Photobooth
A Movie Script Ending
Styrofoam Plates
Blacking Out the Friction
All Is Full of Love
Expo 86
The Sound of Settling
I Will Follow You Into the Dark
Tiny Vessels
Transatlanticism
The support band was Belles Will Ring, who I've never heard of before. All through their set, I had this niggling feeling that they sounded like some other band, and that was the problem with them - while they were a perfectly competent and decent rock band, they sounded so generic as to be unmemorable while inoffensive.
Death Cab came on with minimum fuss, just four unassuming guys on a small stage. But they played awesomely, the rhythm section loud and strong and great, the band sounded tight and together, and Ben Gibbard's voice sounded excellent over it all. Even with the softer songs, they have the ability to build this wall of sound, warm and enveloping and strong.
Marching Bands of Manhattan
The New Year
We Laugh Indoors
Title and Registration
President of What
Soul Meets Body
Summer Skin
Crooked Teeth
Company Calls
Company Calls Epilogue
Photobooth
A Movie Script Ending
Styrofoam Plates
Blacking Out the Friction
All Is Full of Love
Expo 86
The Sound of Settling
I Will Follow You Into the Dark
Tiny Vessels
Transatlanticism
Monday, May 15, 2006
The Living End - 12 May 2006 - Hordern Pavillion
I've been wanting to see the Living End for years, and they didn't disappoint on Friday night. High energy atmosphere, awesome playing and mostly catchy tunes - what more could a girl ask for? Apart from the insane crush at the start of the concert and the fact I caught about 7 glimpses of the band in total, it was a great night.
I did jump around a lot, not just because the music dictated a pretty good mosh, but in trying to see better; this big guy in front of me (who seemed like one of maybe ten people who were our age and up, GAH) noticed and indicated he'd pick me up for a bit if I wanted. So I hopped on, wobbled perilously and I think actually made some kind of noise that was interpreted as a "whooo!" (I'm not sure if that was what I was thinking though, heh) and took a blurry photo from the vantage point and had a quick scour of the massed crowd below. Very cool. This guy also held my camera up a bit so I could take some video. I'm not sure if he was just very very nice, or rather annoyed at having this little Asian girl bouncing up and down behind him with her camera in the air, so. But anyway.
The music was mostly songs off the new album (State of Emergency - pretty much everything *except* my favourite track, Order of the Day) with a few old favourites chucked in. The absolute best thing was the jamming, extending familiar songs with awesome, really tight playing. The highlight was the rockabilly track because it was just excellent listening to them and wondering how the hell they can play that fast, that well, and so in sync with each other. Of course, with the really popular older singles, the crowd just went nuts all over again and ramped up the energy levels. I was dripping sweat after the first song and by the end I was dripping with everyone else's sweat.
All in all they were lots of fun, and completely worth seeing live. I got to hear old favourites, act like I was 16 again, and even got sold on a few of the newer tracks.
Who's Gonna Save Us
Save the Day
I Can't Give You What I Haven't Got
We Want More
No Way Out
Monday
One Step Behind
Black Cat
All Torn Down
Medley of older songs (incl. From Here On In and English Army)
Prisoner of Society
'Til the End
Wake Up
(rockabilly country thing)
Long Live the Weekend
?
Roll On
The Room
West End Riot
I did jump around a lot, not just because the music dictated a pretty good mosh, but in trying to see better; this big guy in front of me (who seemed like one of maybe ten people who were our age and up, GAH) noticed and indicated he'd pick me up for a bit if I wanted. So I hopped on, wobbled perilously and I think actually made some kind of noise that was interpreted as a "whooo!" (I'm not sure if that was what I was thinking though, heh) and took a blurry photo from the vantage point and had a quick scour of the massed crowd below. Very cool. This guy also held my camera up a bit so I could take some video. I'm not sure if he was just very very nice, or rather annoyed at having this little Asian girl bouncing up and down behind him with her camera in the air, so. But anyway.
The music was mostly songs off the new album (State of Emergency - pretty much everything *except* my favourite track, Order of the Day) with a few old favourites chucked in. The absolute best thing was the jamming, extending familiar songs with awesome, really tight playing. The highlight was the rockabilly track because it was just excellent listening to them and wondering how the hell they can play that fast, that well, and so in sync with each other. Of course, with the really popular older singles, the crowd just went nuts all over again and ramped up the energy levels. I was dripping sweat after the first song and by the end I was dripping with everyone else's sweat.
All in all they were lots of fun, and completely worth seeing live. I got to hear old favourites, act like I was 16 again, and even got sold on a few of the newer tracks.
Who's Gonna Save Us
Save the Day
I Can't Give You What I Haven't Got
We Want More
No Way Out
Monday
One Step Behind
Black Cat
All Torn Down
Medley of older songs (incl. From Here On In and English Army)
Prisoner of Society
'Til the End
Wake Up
(rockabilly country thing)
Long Live the Weekend
?
Roll On
The Room
West End Riot
Tuesday, March 28, 2006
Kanye West - 26 Mar 2006 - Hordern Pavilion
Kanye came on around 9, and it ended just before 10:45pm. He sprained his ankle pretty early on in the set and there were lengthy breaks where he would go offstage; I didn't see it happen (frankly, I didn't see much at all given the average height of the audience) but he came on after one of the breaks, which I thought were really stretched out "costume" changes - he went from a light blue coat to a gold shiny coat to the red Sgt Pepper type coat - to explain his accident and to call for a "Hennessey and coke" to help with the pain.
The concert overall was good, fun. There were plenty of opportunities to dance, and Kanye West, despite the arrogance in his publicity, is a well-spoken nice guy, and an almost subdued performer (though that might just be the pain and the alcohol). When he was on, particularly in the really well-known, more energetic songs, it was awesome; even in the unfamiliar or quiet songs, there was usually a beat to dance along to. The set was oddly punctuated - apart from the long rest breaks for Kanye, a lot of the songs were cut short as there were no special guests, so all his collaborations would be cut just to leave the choruses and Kanye's raps. He likes his mini-orchestra of strings a lot, and apart from being a nice accompaniment, he had them perform almost classical sounding versions - of Diamonds are from Sierra Leone, and the famous Bittersweet Symphony riff that he did an impromptu rap over.
Not a set list, but songs played:
Diamonds from Sierra Leone
Wake Up Mr West
Heard 'Em Say
Gold Digger
Drive Slow
Roses
Addiction
Hey Mama
Gone
Jesus Walks
Through the Wire
We Don't Care
All Falls Down
Spaceship
Slow Jamz
Bring Me Down
Touch the Sky
Rock With You (Michael Jackson)
Tainted Love (Soft Cell)
Take On Me (A-Ha)
Stand Up (Ludacris)
H to the Izzo (Jay-Z)
This Way (Dilated Peoples)
The concert overall was good, fun. There were plenty of opportunities to dance, and Kanye West, despite the arrogance in his publicity, is a well-spoken nice guy, and an almost subdued performer (though that might just be the pain and the alcohol). When he was on, particularly in the really well-known, more energetic songs, it was awesome; even in the unfamiliar or quiet songs, there was usually a beat to dance along to. The set was oddly punctuated - apart from the long rest breaks for Kanye, a lot of the songs were cut short as there were no special guests, so all his collaborations would be cut just to leave the choruses and Kanye's raps. He likes his mini-orchestra of strings a lot, and apart from being a nice accompaniment, he had them perform almost classical sounding versions - of Diamonds are from Sierra Leone, and the famous Bittersweet Symphony riff that he did an impromptu rap over.
Not a set list, but songs played:
Diamonds from Sierra Leone
Wake Up Mr West
Heard 'Em Say
Gold Digger
Drive Slow
Roses
Addiction
Hey Mama
Gone
Jesus Walks
Through the Wire
We Don't Care
All Falls Down
Spaceship
Slow Jamz
Bring Me Down
Touch the Sky
Rock With You (Michael Jackson)
Tainted Love (Soft Cell)
Take On Me (A-Ha)
Stand Up (Ludacris)
H to the Izzo (Jay-Z)
This Way (Dilated Peoples)
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