Concert Pics Archives

Ah Monday. I did nothing over the weekend. Absolutely nothing. And it was good. I spent a majority of Saturday and Sunday lounging by the pool, reading my new copies of Q and MOJO and trying not to get too sunburned. So much awesome, especially after the hectic July I had.

I did, however, get my shit together long enough to go see the Silversun Pickups last night and I am glad I did. They were pretty amazing, especially given the venue. The Black Cat's backstage really isn't designed or configured to deal with a band like that. And that's not neccesarily a knock on the room as much as an observation wondering what a band as accomplished as this was doing in such a small room with its junior PA system. I knew we were in for a good show when the SSPU's wheeled their amps onstage. They were as big as the stage was.

Let me go on record now saying this band is going to be huge huge huge in a very short amount of time. They have a big sound made for large venues. They'll be blowing away the bands they're opening for soon enough. The set they played last nigth could have easily gone over like gangbusters at the 9:30 Club. The songs are fast, LOUD and tight, propelled by their drummer, a dead ringer stylistically for Dave Grohl. He was just punishing his snare drums. The band has tons of hits; "Kissing Families," "Lazy Eye," "Dream At Tempo 119," "Well Thought Out Twinkles," etc. I was most impressed with the lead singer's voice. On record it sounds uber-processed, but he has the live pipes to back it up. Bottom line: go see this band when they come through your town. And get ready for a big rock show, even if it's on a small scale. I still stand by my Smashing Pumpkins comparison, but I mean it in a good way. Gish-era Pumpkins, before Billy disappeared up his own ass. Sorry for the craptastic pictures, the light in that room is pretty much nonexistant.

Crackers United has better pictures and a smiliar review from their recent NYC show. Check Myspace for some SSPU sounds.

"I'd rather poo in my mum's Sunday roast than have Danger Mouse produce a Portishead record." I second that emotion.

Only 105 people at the Norva last night. While that's a bad thing for the band's checkbook, it's a good thing for L Boogie and myself. I got right up front and took 158 photos. The band changed the set up a bit, dropping "Hello Sunshine", "Frequency" and "Something 4 the Weekend" but added "Golden Retriever" and played it early, which worked much better. The small crowd last night was actually much more into it than the DC crowd was on Tuesday, so the place didn't feel as empty as it actually was. The Norva was probably the nicest midsize venue I've ever been to. Think the Bowery Ballroom is it was a tad bigger and had three levels. The backstage area was twice the size of my apartment. It had five huge rooms and included a hot tub and sauna. It was easily the nicest accommodations I've ever seen at a venue.
I got some amazing pictures last night. Take a look at my pictures of the Super Furry Animals at Norva in Flickr.

Chapel Hill tonight. We'll be rolling deep with Mike Grass and Johnny English in tow. Full report (and hopefully the much talked about interview) to come.

Rufus, originally uploaded by leafblower.

My new camera is fucking bovs. I don't even know how to properly work it yet and it still takes pictures like these. The Rufus show was great. His voice always stuns me when I hear it in the live arena. Unfortunately everyone around me insisted on singing along so it was very hard to hear Rufus above it, which was a bit frustrating, but he played "Vibrate" so I was a happy camper. Pitchfork today confirmed that Rufus will be releasing the double disc Want set here in the US (which will include a Leoard Cohen cover that was simply amazing on Monday night) on November 28th, so I might have to pick that up. See the rest of my Rufus picures on Flickr. Some of them turned out great.

OK Go, on the other hand, were a bit of a disappointment. The lead singer said he was sick, so I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Here are my OK Go pictures on Flickr.

The Super Furries are in North America and kicked off their tour last night, but I can't find the set list anywhere. If you find hit, holler at me.

Moz producer Tony Visconti has a blog and a new photo of himself and the mighty Mozzer!

NME reviews Gorillaz in Manchester.

The Gaurdian on that Gorillaz gig as well as We Are Scientists.

Pitchfork throws some love at the new Harvey Danger record. Actually, the review kinda trashes the record, but they give it a 6.9. *shrug*

Wow. When he;s not busy trying to sell his book, kiss Chuck Klosterman's ass or talk up Jimmy Kimmel, the Sports Guy can still bring the heat. His thoughts on Theo Epstein might be some of the best stuff he's ever done. Definitely one of his most heartfelt columns. More please.

Knicks at Celtics tonight!

Here is my fantasy basketball team:
Gilbert Arenas / Jamal Crawford / Jalen Rose / Andrei Kirilenko / Shareef Abdur-Rahim / Richard Jefferson / Nene(who got hurt last night, *sigh*) / Lorenzen Wright / Antawn Jamison / Jameer Nelson / Mike Sweetney / Derek Fisher / Brendan Haywood

Three wizards and NO CELTICS. Oh well, that's what you get with autodraft.

Speaking of the hometown Wiz, here is my season preview on DCist.

Big stage, huh?, originally uploaded by leafblower.

Unlike Tuesday night, last night was alot of fun. Got there right before Cartel Cedars went on and went right up front to stake out a spot. They quickly came onstage, played (what I think was) a new song and followed up with "Fleets". It sounded great coming out the 930's soundsystem. The drums were absolutely banging and the keyboard flourishes sounded much more fleshed out than usual. The local boys put up a great set and looked right at home on that big stage. Hopefully this is a precursor of future 930 gigs for them. Also, they gave shouts to both bluestate and DCist, but strangely not to information leafblower dot com slash blog(kidding!), and that was much appreciated. Flickr's acting weird today so I can't link to my photos tagged with "Cedars", but just go to my photostream and check out my digital photos from last night.

In between sets, someone came up to me and asked me "Are you information leafblower?", so that was kinda wild. Ryan and his friend Marissa said they recognized me because I was using my new toy. They were both really cool and very friendly, so we made plans to go see Tom Vek at the Black Cat next month (Sunday, Nov 6th!!). I took about 13 photos with the fisheye, so hopefully I will take the rest of the roll this weekend and get them developed early next week.

Giant Drag were after Cedars and they were so much awesome. I had read somewhere that Annie, the singer, rants and raves alot on stage and she didn't disappoint last night. She was barely coherent during most of the set. It's hard to describe, but if you go read the bio on their website, you'll get the idea.

Anyhoo, they were great. So 90's alternarock, but in a good way. Annie, who is a total cutie BTW, plays guitar and Micah (who I couldn't get a decent picture of) plays drums and the keyboards. At. the. same. time. It was hard for me to decide who to watch, the do it all drumboardist or the cute girl with the guitar. I seriously recommend going to see this band if you get the chance.

I was pretty beat by that point in the night, so I skipped Stellastarr* and went home to play with The Mister.