Mar 15 2007
The Pleasant, The Better Live Than On CD & The Dude From The Clash!
Last night I was lucky enough to have my first ever (somewhat informal) photo assignment for a non-DCist media outlet (actually it was probably my second if you count this), that being photographing The Good, The Bad & The Queen at the 9:30 Club. The show was sold out, but as far as I could tell, there were a lot less people there than there were at the (insanely packed) Scissor Sisters show the week before.
As for the performance, it was...pleasant. Not amazing, not boring, mostly middle of the road. The music isn't exactly upbeat and merry. That said, the band sounds much better live than on record, but with this lineup, you'd kind of expect that. The album, to me, sounds like a band playing a bunch of Gorillaz b-sides. Not much energy or hooks to be found, just Damon whinging about whatever he's on about. Live, the backing vocals take more shape, the sound fills out nicely and you honestly can't help but get into a little groove while you're watching Paul Simonon bound all across the stage. Man, he was great. He was full of gusto and looked like he was waiting to bust into "Death or Glory" or something like that at any second. You could tell he's enjoying being back on stage. Not so for Simon Tong. He mostly stood there, looking down at his guitar the whole time. I was waiting for him to wow me, but then I remembered that was always Nick McCabe's job. Damon was/is Damon. I want to like him, but I just can't. I do give him credit though. He gave me two good shots during the first song, staring right at me in-between verses. His gaze was all like "Get your fucking photo now and leave me alone," but props for doing that. I got a decent shot the first time but my second one was too blurry to use. Also, he was ducking behind his piano every once in a while to hit his bowl and he has droopy eyes in most of the photos I took of him. Just saying.
Sadly, we didn't get their cover of "Guns of Brixton" at the end of the encore, instead we got some less-than-stellar b-side sung by some random dude named Eslam. Not the best ending to the show, but other than that, not bad overall. I still think Damon's a ponce though. There, I said it.
But hey, don't take my word for it. Thanks to the magic of the internerd, you can listen to the show and decide for yourself. You can either stream it or download it from NPR. Joel was there taking photos and they packaged his photos into a cool slideshow you can watch, so check that out too. My photos of the night are here. Some of them should be up on Read Express fairly soon. I'll update the post when that happens.
**UPDATE** - Here it is. Click through and read it, Mike wrote a GREAT review.
No rest for the wicked. I have to DVR the Duke game tonight since D.C. United are taking on Mexican power Chivas at RFK.
Posted by Kyle in Concert Reviews | Permalink
