Concert Review: Gogol Bordello in Boston on 4-29-10

This past Wednesday I had the enormous pleasure of seeing Gogol Bordello at the House of Blues in Boston. While I came late and missed the opening acts of Jesse Malin and The St. Marks Social and DeVotchKa, it was worth the ticket price just to catch the main act.

By the time I made it to the venue (a really great space, by the way) Gogol was already into their song second of the night, Wonderlust King, and the energy was building. The energy was high all night. People were dancing, moshing, crowd surfing and singing all night. I myself took part in all of this (never crowd surfing myself but lending a helping hand).

The band played a good mix of songs, concentrating on their latest albums, including material from their latest album, Trans-Continental Hustle. The only album they neglected was their first, Voi-La Intruder (although "Start Wearing Purple" can be considered a Voi-La song). All the songs were played wonderfully and every number was a crowd favorite. Eugene Hütz was a wild man all night, paying great attention to the audience, dancing, encouraging participation and spraying his drinks into the audience. The crowd was like a mad ocean of sweat and bodies, caught up in alcohol-fueled abandon, driven on by gypsy punk madness.

Perhaps the best part of the night was the encore. The band stepped off the stage for a breather,

and after a few minutes Hütz returned to the stage to begin an acoustic version of "Alcohol" and was joined later by violinist Sergey Ryabstev and accordionist Yuri Lemeshev. Then the rest of the band came to play their usual closer, "Baro Faro". However, the song that usually makes for a super-long jam session, took on a different nature as the band broke out into a medley, playing bits of a whole bunch of different songs they hadn't played yet, including "My Strange Uncles from Abroad" and "When the Trickster Stars A-Poking."

Unfortunately, though the show was dynamite overall, I was disappointed that dancer Pamela Racine was not there to perform. The duty of playing the marching drum was passed onto MC and percussionist Pedro Erazo. Racine's absence was still felt since it meant that there would be no marching drum crowd surfing. Still, it was a great show. Party!

Concert Review: The Flaming Lips in Boston, MA on 8-30-09

The Flaming Lips have a reputation for having pretty wacky concerts and I had great expectations going into the show this past Sunday. I was not disappointed. On the way to the show I rode on a bus filled with people who were obviously Flaming Lips fans. At the show I saw a man dressed as an Ewok, wearing a Oklahoma state flag, and another guy dressed as Beaker from the Muppets. I could tell it was going to be a good night

The venue was the Bank of America Pavilion. Located on the water, it was essentially a giant tent with open sides. The weather was beautiful and every now and then a breeze would waft through. Though the Pavilion is across the water from Logan Airport there was no noise from the airplanes taking off or landing. The Pavilion was spacious but not too big. Even the farthest seats had a decent view of the stage.

The opening bands were Star Death and White Dwarfs (headed by Wayne Coyne's nephew) and Explosions in the Sky. Overall, I felt that the opening band's sets went on too long, in comparison to the headliner's set which seemed kind of short. Explosions in the Sky really wore on my patience. They played instrumental guitar songs, transitioning back-and-forth from crunchy, hard-hitting rock to drawn-out ambient musings. While the sounds were often beautiful it seemed like the band was over-indulging themselves in their delay-and-reverb-heavy noodlings.

But soon after the opening acts the crowd began to get fired up as Wayne Coyne walked around the stage as the crew began setting up. He waved at the crowd, pausing every now and then to inspect this or that. Then the show started.

The giant half-circle screen lit up showing a naked woman dancing (there would be many images of dancing women, clothed and unclothed, throughout the night). The woman on her screen laid back and the camera zoomed in on her vagina (which was some sort of psychedelic rainbow void). The screen opened up and out came the band members as Wayne Coyne was kneeling in a deflated the plastic bubble. Now, you know you're in for a good show when the band comes out of a giant, electronic, psychedelic vagina (because chances are you're at a Flaming Lips show). Coyne's bubble was inflated and he walked out onto the ground. 

The concert had the kind of energy that only a Flaming Lips show can have. Confetti and balloons rained down as smoke machines blasted. Coyne spent a lot of his time on stage throwing balloons out into the crowd and shooting streamers into the air. There were dancers on each side of the stage. Stage right had guys in animal costumes and stage left had girls in skimpy space costumes. Eventually the guys were joined by a giant butterfly with a crown and a catfish wearing a captain's hat. The lights and visuals were amazing.

The band played materially spanning much of their catalogue, from Transmissions from the Satellite Heart to material from their upcoming album Embryonic. Their last albums, Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots and At War With the Mystics were the best-represented. They debutted "See The Leaves", one of their new songs which they had not played live before and some other material that I'm not allowed to talk about.

The crowd's excitement level was high and Coyne definitely fed off of it. He teased the crowd through slow, stripped down versions of "Fight Test" and "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots, Pt. 1". The music would stop between phrases and he would wave his arms to try and keep the cheering going and insisted the crowd do karate chops for "Yoshimi". For most of the songs he either encouraged audience participation or encourage the crowd to sing a long and go nuts. 

One of the highlights of the show was when a giant balloon filled with confetti popped on Coyne during "The Yeah Yeah Yeah Song" causing him to say "fuck" instead of singing the lyrics. Another high point in the show was when Coyne held up a bugle to the microphone while "Taps" played behind him, before the band burst into "The W.A.N.D."

For the encore the band came out on stage and led everyone in singing "Happy Birthday" for a girl named Lindsay towards the front of the crowd (making "She Don't Use Jelly" only the second-best sing-along of the night). Finally, they wrapped up the show with "Do You Realize??", a cathartic end (a wonderful breeze came in just at the climax of the song) to a fun-filled night. The only way the night could've been better is if I had a seat closer to the stage, in range of the confetti and balloons.

Concert Review: Radiohead in Mansfield, MA on 8-13-08

This past week I had the rare pleasure of attending a Radiohead concert, a pleasure I decided I must have before I left for college. I had also purchased tickets for the Friday of All Points West in New Jersey, but unfortunately it took place on the day before I left for vacation with my family. So I settled for the Wednesday show in Massachusetts, which meant that I'd have to interrupt a family vacation anyway but who cares?

Before the concert I pre-gamed by watching Radiohead's Live At The Astoria DVD. Shot in '94, this DVD shows a young Radiohead: Phil had hair, Colin, and Thom's hair was still blond but had come a long way from his early-90's look. The show finds the band at their rockin'-est, thrashing (Thom literally kicks the shit out of his guitar), jumping, and jamming on staples from Pablo Honey, and debuting new songs ("new song, sorry") that would appear on The Bends in '95.

The Mansfield venue, although there was a lot of traffic getting their, although my brother and I easily out-maneuvered two particular douchebloggers and cut through the thick mass of concert-goers. The Comcast Center (formally the Tweeter Center) was a good-sized open-air amphitheater with a large lawn in back. My brother and I were stuck on the lawn, farthest from the stage without being out of visual range. My enjoyment of the concert was hindered by the distance and, to a certain extent, the presence of my brother, who does not like Radiohead. However, it would turn out to be quite funny, as we bonded over our mutual scorn of hippy-college kids and indie hipsters, and debated Radiohead vs. Kanye West.

The opening band, Grizzly Bear, was decent at best, but they served their purpose by making me we want to hear Radiohead more than before. An hour and a half after Grizzly Bear left the stage, Radiohead came on, opening with my favorite song from In Rainbows, Reckoner. The band exhibited great energy throughout the show and had an impressive presentation through the use of video screens and tube lights. The show was dominated by songs from Kid A and In Rainbows, and the highlights from the show included National Anthem, which came on loud and strong as Jonny fiddled with his radio, interjecting snippets of talk radio, and Paranoid Android, with blazing visuals and an over-excited Colin jumping on stage during the slow bridge. The only song that I heard that I didn't like was The Gloaming, however I was able to squeeze some enjoyment out of the performance because I got to see Thom dance.

Unfortunately, I was unable to stay for the whole show, as my brother was jonesin' for some hamburgers and wanted to beat the traffic. So, we left after How To Disappear Completely and we heard the band play Thom's Cymbal Rush as we walked to the car. I heard from reliable sources that the band finished with Karma Police and Idioteque. The night stunk of cigarettes and pot, my legs fell asleep, and my brother wouldn't stop bugging me, but damn was it a great night. All hail Radiohead.