High Volt-age

Tonight was band #3 in my Four-Band Fortnight (thanks, Putz): Son Volt. For those of you who don't know the history, Jay Farrar (pictured) used to be in a band called Uncle Tupelo with a guy named Jeff Tweedy. When Uncle Tupelo broke up in the early '90s, Tweedy went on to form Wilco, and Farrar started Son Volt. Both bands have had their lineup issues through the years, but while Wilco (after one disc of roots rock) went the experimental route with their music, Son Volt stayed pretty true to the alt-country format of Uncle Tupelo. Long story short, SV basically broke up at the end of the 90's, and Farrar released several solo albums. But towards the end of 2004, he reformed Son Volt with a new lineup and recorded Okemah and the Melody of Riot, forever ensuring the band a place in the Weirdly-Named Album Hall of Fame. This album has a much tighter rock sound, and their live show reflected that.

Tonight was the first time I had been to The Vogue. They clearly need a new booking agent, because the place is a very cool old theater, and I can't believe that bands wouldn't enjoy playing there. We stood on the floor and were about 10 ft. from the stage and nearly at eye level with the bands. My only complaint is that after three concerts in non-smoking venues, I forgot how much I hate being engulfed in smoke during a show. And they opened the doors during Son Volt's set to let in some air, which managed to simultaneously put me in a tunnel of cold wind and yet not alleviate the cigarette smoke. I fuckin' reek right now, and my throat hurts. Wah.

Tonight's opener was Chicago's Fruit Bats. I have a couple of their albums, which are rather sedate acoustic affairs. Good for a certain mood, but not something I can listen too very often. But I found I liked them a lot better in concert, where it appears they have a tendency to rock out a bit more. Good stuff.

This was my second time seeing Son Volt, having previously seen them at the 9:30 Club in Washington, DC way back in 1996. Can't say I remember much about that show other than they played a lot of slow acoustic songs. Tonight's show was a lot more high energy and probably did a lot more damage to my hearing. They opened with 4 straight songs from the new disc, and eventually played just about the entire album. Throughout the 100-minute show, they played songs from their entire catalog, getting the biggest response for the new songs and songs from their first disc (and my personal favorite), Trace. At one point or another, I have owned every Son Volt album, but I only recognized one song that wasn't from either Okemah or Trace. Not much in the way of stage banter from Jay & Co. (as my friend Will remarked, there was no indication they had ever met each other), just a few Thank You's and All Right's thrown in between songs. Even so, I wasn't disappointed. It was an enjoyable show, I heard everything I wanted to hear, and even got a nice surprise when they dusted off Uncle Tupelo's "Chickamauga" for the last song of the encore.

Three-part Harmony

Tonight: band #2 in my current stretch of 5 concerts in 15 days: Nickel Creek. (Actually, it's 17 days, but that just doesn't have the same ring to it.) Anyway, this was my third time seeing Nickel Creek, and the first time they've been a true headliner. Openers were the Ditty Bops, who I'd seen once before on an ill-fated night when I came to hate their fans. Tonight was much better. They've really got this weird 1920's lesbian/flapper girl thing going for them, and it seems to work. Although, both times, I've come away with the impression that Tim Burton needs to use them on a soundtrack.

Then on to Nickel Creek. I've seen them in support of each of their three albums, and it's been an interesting process for me to watch them grow up with their music. Their current album, Why Should the Fire Die?, is the most mature collection of songs they've produced, and their show is beginning to show some of that maturity. NC has always been a literate band, (in the past, I've heard them cover everything from Beck to Bob Dylan to Bach) and tonight was no exception, as we heard The Band's "Cripple Creek", Kings of Leon's "Milk", and a crowd-pleasing cover of Britney Spears' "Toxic". Yes, you read that right. It's amazing what someone who can actually sing can do with that song.

And with that, I come to my point. The initial appeal of the group was that they were these three young virtuoso instrumentalists making bluegrass music beyond their years. But as they got older, (ha! they're in their 20's) their music began to change, mixing rock, pop and jazz into their repertoire. As they've experimented, they've figured out that their voices are instruments as well, and used them as such, building layers of vocals into the songs that carry just as much weight as their fiddle, mandolin, and guitar. Tonight's set leaned pretty heavily on songs from the new album, and it really allowed them to showcase how they've begun to rethink singing together. And that, to me, shows their maturation as performers more than anything else. Very, very satisfying.

Oh yeah, and Sara Watkins is still wicked hot.

If you're interested in hearing some Nickel Creek as they currently sound, check out this group of songs from Reg's Coffee House, including a cover of Radiohead's "Nice Dream" from The Bends. Again with the cover songs. (Click on the Nickel Creek photo on the right side of the site to bring up the music player.)

Jingle Jingle

Well, I suppose since department stores have had their Christmas decorations out for almost a month, I shouldn't be surprised that the holiday movie hype has already begun. Here's a new preview for one I'm really looking forward to: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. (You need to have Quicktime to see this.)

Freddy acts his age

So, Freddy. You're not happy on the bench. Good for you. Welcome to the big leagues, kid. I guess when everyone's been telling you how great and special and phenomenal you are since you were five, eventually, you're going to act like a spoiled brat when you don't get your way. But here's something to consider, Fred: even if you could go play for one of your dream teams like Chelsea or Real Madrid (which you legally can't until you're 18, so just relax), you'd just be sitting on the bench in a different country. If you can't win a starting job over Ben Olsen and Christian Gomez, do you really think you're going to start ahead of Zinedine Zidane or Arjen Robben? And, yeah, maybe next year you could switch teams in MLS and start for the Metrostars or Real Salt Lake or the Colorado Rapids or the Columbus Crew, but trust me when I say you're going to miss playing for a championship team. Oh sure, you may get a few more goals and a lot more attention, but when you're surrounded by mediocre players on a team that's trying to rebuild instead of the veteran guys who started ahead of you in DC (some of whom have 4 championship rings), you'll appreciate what you had there. Even high-profile columnists like Michael Wilbon agree with you, although he's more interested in taking MLS' marketing department to task for false promises than "helping your career". But not all is lost. Despite your teenage outburst, Bruce Arena is still going to call you into National Team Camp. If you won't listen to your club coach, maybe your National Team coach can teach you the importance of being a team player.

Meanwhile, DC United has to put aside your distraction and start the MLS Playoffs tomorrow night. If Coach Nowak lets you on the field after your public airing of dirty laundry, try to put your money where your mouth is and score another goal like this. The more you do that, the more you'll get on the field. And then you won't have to cry, to the press or anybody else.

UPDATE: Good grief, kid. Do you really want the "troubled superstar" tag at age 16? Apologize already.

U2 x 2

When a band has been making music for 25 years, including 11 studio albums and what is widely considered to be one of the top five live albums of all time, they've got a pretty heady reputation to live up to. Since I've been a fan for about 19 of those 25 years, but these two shows were to be my first live experience with U2, I had very high expectations. For the first show on Sunday night, Andy and I arrived about 25 minutes before U2 came on. Our seats were in the lower bowl, about 20 rows off the floor. The stage was set up at the opposite end of the floor, but there was a large oval walkway (referred to as "the ellipse") that extended about halfway out across the floor, creating a pit area that encompassed about a hundred lucky fans and bringing various band members closer to us throughout the night. The view from our seats looked pretty similar to this. The Wachovia Center filled in pretty quickly, and by the time U2 took the stage, the place was full. But despite the packed house, the show was, I have to say, a disappointment. I don't know exactly what it was: the sound was tinny, the band seemed sort of lifeless, and the few moments of real excitement tended to come during Bono's political rants (which ran on a bit too long). They did in fact lean pretty heavily on the newer stuff, with songs from their last two albums probably accounting for 2/3 of the setlist. A few big ones were in there (Sunday Bloody Sunday, Pride (In the Name of Love), With or Without You), but the hits were overcome by some odd choices (Miss Sarajevo?) that really brought the mood down. I thought it was a decent show, but was left preparing myself to be disappointed again on Monday night.

Well, I needn’t have worried. We arrived much earlier the second night, due to the fact that we had general admission floor tickets. When we arrived and had our tickets scanned, we were informed that they were randomly selecting people with floor tickets to go inside the ellipse, and Andy and I had been picked! After receiving two wristbands apiece to identify us as members of the elite, we got beers and proceeded to the floor to stake out our spot. As we made our way into the pit by passing under the ellipse framework, we realized that our position was going to give us a vantage point equivalent to seeing U2 in a tiny club. At the farthest point, we were probably 20 ft. from the stage. We took a spot towards the back of the pit, but just in front of the farthest point of the ellipse, where the night before members of the band had camped out during different songs. (This picture is good for reference: the people in the spotlight on the floor are right about where we stood.) Since we arrived early, we got to see the opening act, Bob Marley's son Damien. It was a decent set, mostly marked for me by the fact that at one point, there were no fewer than three Marley offspring onstage singing one of their dad's songs together.

By the time U2 hit the stage, the arena was again packed, but unlike the night before, the crowd was electric (although this may have had something to do with the fact that instead of being towards the back of all the shouting, I was basically standing in the epicenter where the crowd sounded thunderous). The Edge appeared onstage, followed by Larry and Adam, and then suddenly Bono passed within 6 inches of me as he was ushered to his starting position at the tip of the ellipse by a phalanx of security. From the very first song, it was clear this night was going to be different. The band seemed much more awake and energetic, and the crowd responded, which in turn fueled Bono to take his performance to another level. I lost count of how many times he turned the mic to the crowd and let us sing, and I must say, we were in fine voice. It's been a long time since I've shouted and sung myself hoarse at a concert, but as anyone who spoke to me today can attest, my voice is gone. They basically followed the same setlist from Sunday until they got to the encores, but each song seemed to have that little more on this night. The sound problems from Sunday were solved, as Bono's vocals had a lot more bass, and he tightened up his speeches and kept them short. You expect some politicking from the man, and as long as it's not at the expense of the concert's flow, it's fine.

So the show was going well, the crowd was into it, the band was feeling good, and just when no one thought things would get any better, they did. Several songs into the encore, the stage crew set up another microphone and a guitar, and from behind the stage, up pops Bruce Springsteen himself, looking, as Andy remarked, like he'd just woken up from a nap. Bruce (and wife Patty Scialfa, after some coaxing from Bono), joined the band to cover "People Get Ready," with Bono making up lines as The Edge and The Boss traded solos. And the place went completely apeshit, for lack of a better word. If U2 were trying to endear themselves even more to their fans in Philly (not something that appears necessary), they did it with this guest appearance. After a long jam, the Springsteens left and U2 finished with three more songs, leaving me about as satisfied as I could get.

Talk about a save. I went from being pretty bummed that one of my all-time favorite bands (for whom, I might add, I had paid a lot of money for tickets and flown halfway across the country) was losing it, to being ready to re-crown them as the world's greatest band, all in 24 hours. But it was also a learning experience. I discovered two things about U2 from these shows. One, as goes Bono, so goes the show. Sunday, he seemed disconnected and listless, and the show was a disappointment. Monday, he was on and loving his audience, and the show reflected it... which brings me to point two. Not surprisingly, it's the fans that really drive this band. At the risk of sounding cheesy, on Sunday night, we saw a U2 show. On Monday, we were part of the show. Watching the band feed off the energy of the audience was a pretty incredible thing. During "Sometimes You Can't Make It On Your Own," an emotional song dedicated by Bono to his deceased father, the crowd sang the line "You don't have to go it alone" back to Bono. And at that moment, you could see by the look on his face that he knew it was true.

Here's some links:
u2.com's review of Monday night
Monday's setlist
Sunday's setlist

The City of Brotherly Love meets the City of Blinding Lights

I'm off to Philly in the morning to visit my friend Andy and see back-to-back U2 concerts. This will be my first (and second) U2 shows, and I'm pretty fired up. I'm in the midst of listening to their entire catalog on shuffle, and that's only increasing my enthusiasm. I've heard they're leaning pretty heavily on How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb in the setlist, but throwing some older gems in there as well. And they've been changing the set from night to night, so we don't have to worry about seeing the same show twice. Should be a good time, and as always, a welcome excuse to get out of town for a few days.

Serenity Now

OK, it's an obvious headline, but gimme a break: you come up with a better one using the word "serenity". Anyway, I just got back from seeing Joss Whedon's pet project. It was entertaining, and on a Tuesday night, that's pretty much all I need. The thing I enjoyed most about this movie is that it doesn't fall into the trap of most sci-fi these days: it isn't trying to be Star Wars. It exists in its own world, and that's pretty refreshing. Granted, that world may have been a little more confusing to me if I had never seen any episodes of Firefly, the very short-lived TV show this movie was based on, but other than fleshing out the supporting cast a lot more, there wasn't a lot from Firefly that I needed for Serenity to be a good experience. In some ways, Serenity felt very much like TV (everything wrapped up pretty neatly at the end), and in some ways, a lot like it was meant to be an "event" (Joss has never been shy about maiming or killing his main characters, and this movie's no exception). And like all good sci-fi movies, it's a lot heavier on the "fi" than the "sci". I'll sum it up like this: in the 70's there were a string of mediocre, dime-a-dozen post-apocalyptic sci-fi movies which you can now sometimes find showing on Saturday afternoons (they usually feature Charlton Heston fighting humanoid apes or zombies or some such). If you've ever seen one of those movies, you have a reference point: Serenity is in the same vein, although with much better production values, special effects, and a better overall experience. So at the very least, 10 years from now it will make good Saturday afternoon viewing.

Burn, baby, burn

Been a while since I assembled a mix CD, mainly because I haven't used my car all that much lately, But after logging some driving time this weekend and realizing I'd listened to all of my mixes too many times, I decided it was time for something new, so I've been shuffling tracks all evening while doing laundry. I've had a massive influx of music lately, so it took a while to sort through everything, but it was pretty easy once I opened my Recently Played playlist in iTunes and took a look at what's been in heavy rotation lately: lots of current Brit rock, an oldie-but-goodie from Echo & the Bunnymen, the new Death Cab tracks, and Beck's most recent album that I finally gave some serious attention. The final tracklist comes down rather heavily in favor of our neighbors across the pond, led by Bloc Party with three tracks. I started the mix with "Like Eating Glass," the same track that they chose to kick off Silent Alarm. I've had this song stuck in my head for two days, and it's so damn catchy it hasn't bothered me a single bit. Here's the complete list:

Like Eating Glass, Bloc Party
Marching Bands Of Manhattan, Death Cab for Cutie
E-Pro, Beck
Bandages And Scars, Son Volt
The World Turned Upside Down, Coldplay
Picky Bugger, Elbow
Wasteland, Maxïmo Park
Forever Lost, The Magic Numbers
Set Yourself On Fire, Stars
Soul Meets Body, Death Cab for Cutie
So Here We Are, Bloc Party
The Killing Moon, Echo & The Bunnymen
I Heard It Through the Grapevine, Kaiser Chiefs
In This Home On Ice, Clap Your Hands Say Yeah
My Very Best, Elbow
How You See the World No. 2, Coldplay
Girl, Beck
Someday You Will Be Loved, Death Cab for Cutie
Blue Light (Engineers' Anti-Gravity Mix), Bloc Party

Zzzzzzz...

Here's a little note I just dropped to the folks at ESPN:

Dear ESPN,

It's Sunday at 9:27 pm CDT, and I'm watching your channel for one thing: football. Please save the highlights of other sports for Sportscenter. Aside from the fact that you're running the risk of losing half of your viewership by putting them to sleep, if you must show bore-ball highlights during halftime of Sunday Night Football, put them at the end of the halftime show so that those of us who couldn't care less might use that time as a snack break and not have to worry about missing any of the good stuff: namely, the NFL highlights. When is the media finally going to realize that America's pastime's time has passed? Give me cold weather, beer commercials, and a full Sunday slate of NFL action 'til I die, but please don't interrupt to waste my time with the only sport in this country that can cure insomnia.

I'll tip my cap to baseball's memory, but enough is enough. The sport gasped its last breath when Cal Ripken hung up his spikes. The sooner everyone realizes it, the better.

Strange Brew

Watched a couple of very weird movies this weekend, with mixed results: Terry Gilliam's Time Bandits and Tim Burton's Sleepy Hollow. I couldn't make it through Time Bandits, and that’s led me to abandon my attempt to watch all of Gilliam’s movies. Aside from Holy Grail, I just can’t get into his mix of British humor, sci-fi, and social commentary. Taken separately, I like all of those things just fine, but his early films just don't do it for me. At least I can say I tried.

On the other hand, there’s the work of Tim Burton, in its own way just as weird, but somehow much more up my alley. Sleepy Hollow is a great movie for this pre-Halloween time of year. It’s more bloody than I remembered, but just creepy and odd enough to unsettle the viewer. And what a great cast: Besides Johnny Depp and Christina Ricci, you've got Albus Dumbledore, Uncle Vernon Dursley, Emperor Palpatine, Saruman, Ed Rooney, and Mr. Bruce "More Cowbell" Dickinson himself making appearances. Some of the acting seems a little stilted, but that just serves to add to the sensation of everything in the movie being slightly off. I’ve never been disappointed when Depp and Burton get together, and this is one of my favorites.

Elbow Room

Man, I am slipping. One of my favorite Brit bands, Elbow, has had a new disc available on iTunes since September 27th, and I just discovered it today. Granted, the physical CDs won't be released in the U.S. until October 18th, so technically, I haven't really missed the release date, but the fact that I didn't even know they had something new in the pipeline worries me. Am I slipping in my old age? Luckily, I was clued in today by two things: an ad in the latest Paste magazine, and a glowing review from Frank at Chromewaves. Since he and I seem to have similar taste in music, I downloaded Leaders of the Free World right away. I haven't gotten through much yet, so the jury's still out on whether Frank's effusive praise was warranted, but so far so good. One thing I agree with right away: the Peter Gabriel influence is front and center on this disc, especially on the third track, "Picky Bugger." With a little reworking of the backing instrumentation, it would fit right in on a number of Gabriel solo albums.

Frank's Radiohead comparison also prompted me to do something I've been thinking about for a while: complete my Radiohead collection, which meant finally purchasing Kid A, Amnesiac, and the live disc, I Might Be Wrong. All three discs have some good songs, but mostly listening reminded me why I was so happy to hear Radiohead's compass point swing back towards a more traditional rock sound on Hail to the Thief. I still maintain that had Radiohead combined Kid A and Amnesiac, they could have produced one great album and had some solid B-sides left over.

Golazo! and Godzilla! (or what might as well be a scene from one of his movies)

The Kid has done it again. Freddy Adu (left) may not be the most prolific goal scorer in MLS (or even on his own team), but when he scores, he does it right. This is hands-down the best individual goal I’ve seen in MLS play since Clint Mathis dribbled 75 yards through five defenders back in 2000. Watch the move Freddy makes to free himself at the beginning of the sequence. You don’t teach that, folks.

So apparently it’s common knowledge among Washington Post staffers that the Everglades has a python problem, but it came as news to me. Check out the results when a Burmese python and an alligator duke it out for swamp supremacy. Thanks to Todd for the link.

The Washingtonian

Spent the weekend across the river from DC at my cousin Brian's wedding and visiting my friends Matt and Katie and their 10 month old son, Conor. It made me a little homesick to be back in the DC area. It really is beautiful at this time of year. Warm, but without the summer humidity. Great walking weather, and rather nice for a wedding as well, especially since the reception was held at a library along the banks of the Potomac.

But enough about all that. On to more important things. Like the fact that I got to watch my first NFL game in hi-def this weekend (and even better, the Redskins managed to pull their usual late-game choke but still won the game in OT). After just a few hours of HDTV, I've decided I gots to get me one of those things. You could see every blade of grass on the field, and the color was so real, I might as well have been sitting in FedEx Field. Fantastic.