(There Can Be Miracles) When You Believe

This must have been straight bananas to see in person. Ahh could you imagine??

Fantasy

Mariah live with ODB. Ahh her voice was so special. And ODB is scary.

Coachella: Wish I were there

WISHICOULDGOwishicouldgoWISHICOULDGO

Maybe Osheaga (Montreal) 2010? Errrrr but I'll be in training then so ... derno.

"The 5th edition of the Osheaga Music and Arts Festival will kick off with Osheaga in the City from July 28th to July 30th and move to the beautiful Parc Jean-Drapeau for the July 31st-August 1st weekend!"

Vampire Weekend--NYMag

Reading the Vulture on NYMag this morning, I came across their post about Vampire Weekend.

Absolutely hilarious.

Vulture Contest: Win Tickets to an Exclusive Vampire Weekend Performance

...by writing a haiku about Vampire Weekend! See the post here.

Merry Christmas, in a different way...

I will post about my home made sugar cookies and things later.
More important to share is the awesome gift my dad got me: "Mothership" by Led Zeppelin, which includes 2 discs of music and 1 DVD of concert footage.


At one point, Jimmy Page starts playing his guitar with a violin bow.

So effing good.


What is and what should never be



If I say to you tomorrow,
Take my hand child come with me,
It's to a castle I will take you,
Where what's to be they say will be.

Catch the wind see us spin,
Sail away leave the day,
Way up high in the sky.
But the wind won't blow,
You really shouldn't go,
It only goes to show.
That you will be mine,
By taking our time.

And if you say to me tomorrow,
Oh what fun it all would be,
Then what's to stop us pretty baby,
But what is and what should never be.

Catch the wind see us spin,
Sail away leave the day,
Way up high in the sky.

But the wind won't blow,
You really shouldn't go,
It only goes to show.
That you will be mine,
By taking our time.

So if you wake up with the sunrise,
And all your dreams are still as new,
And happiness is what you need so bad,
Girl the answer lies with you.

Catch the wind see us spin,
Sail away leave the day,
Way up high in the sky.
But the wind won't blow,
You really shouldn't go,
It only goes to show.
That you will be mine,
By taking our time.

Everybody I know seems to know me well,
But does anybody know I'm gonna move like hell?

Passion Pit/Phoenix/Spoon in Boston, Dec. 4th

I saw Passion Pit, Phoenix and Spoon in Boston on Dec. 4th at the Orpheum Theater. Great bands and a very enthusiastic (but not obnoxious like the Grizzly Bear concert I went to at the Orpheum earlier this fall) audience made the concert amazing. Here are my thoughts:




--Passion Pit was good, but it will be interesting to see how they will develop as a band. Obviously because they are from Cambridge, the crowd went wild for them, but I find their music to be rather repetitive, with choruses easily interchangeable for each falsetto-ridden electro pop ballad.





--Phoenix was also great and shares the qualities of Passion Pit, though Phoenix is more established and experienced (what a funny find it was to see I purchased their song "everything is everything" like six years ago). I find many of their songs extremely similar, all sing-a-long-y, upbeat and, well, pop. Their only song that isn't so fast-paced is "Fences," which they didn't play (probably to keep up the momentum of the concert).



--Spoon: this is where the momentum decreased, since most of the audience was there to see Phoenix. I was disappointed to see a few women leave the concert, but then I didn't care because I love Spoon too much. They had a pretty great set, including "The Ghost of You Lingers," which if you play it right after a Passion Pit song, say, "Sleepyhead," which is gaining more popularity as the new song featured in a Blackberry commercial, you will definitely get a different vibe simply due to tempo and mood. Oh, and the fact that Spoon plays real music instead of just catchy, asinine pop that for some reason I still like. So Spoon, though they are way more established and skilled, didn't go over as well as the other bands because they weren't in the same musical genre and groove as PP and Phoenix. You saw how above Spoon was the only band on the theater's sign: that's because PP and Phoenix opened for Spoon. But, boy, the atmosphere felt like the audience wanted Spoon to open for PP and Phoenix. Especially Phoenix (people started chanting for Phoenix instead of Spoon for the encore, which infuriated me).



Despite the dumb crowd, I had an amazing time with friends there and couldn't believe I was seeing those bands play! PS: I'm in love with everyone in Phoenix and Spoon. They can play music for me any time. Especially in skinny jeans.

Pixies concert

20-year reunion tour on Saturday

Saw them at the Wang in Boston

At work, I helped/rang up some family/friends of the band, who ended up getting us (me and two coworkers) comp tix! We sat basically in the front. Lots of people who knew all the words to the songs b/c they listened to them in college--aka the early 90s.

Opening band was Rain Machine. They kind of sucked, but it was endearing to hear the lead singer talk about how much he loved and respected the Pixies. Oh, and I bought nifty pins after the concert, though I felt ripped off because my friend bought stickers that came with 4 pins and cost the same. How lame. Anyway, here are the pictures!

PS they started off by showing "Un chien andalou" by Dali and Bunuel. Kick-ass presentation: they cycled through four screens, showing the film at different points and emphasizing the scenes they wanted. Everyone shrieked at the eye-shaving part, of course. Like the nerd I am, I kept yelling to my friends over the loud volume, OMG I'VE SEEN THIS MOVIE SO MANY TIMES AND LOVE IT AND NOW LOVE THE PIXIES!

Oh, and they came back for two encores, ending with "Where is my mind?" They sounded just as good as when they were younger, if not better.

Here are the pictures, finally!




Rain Machine was crazy! The lead singer had a fro and beard and clear giant glasses! And the girl on keyboard was soooo hipster, with her awkward bangs, bandana, Cosby sweater and red pants. Yikes! At one point they started screaming/singing "Fuck" and the nice woman who I'd helped that day at Rugby looked at me and we both started cracking up at the absurdity.

Then the Pixies came on. Yesss

Grizzly Bear + Beach House

Getting off the Park St. stop, I heard the men who normally sell tix for Sox games hollering "Tix for the Bears! Bears Tix!" While laughing at their nickname for Grizzly Bear, one of those bands that really shouldn't be abbrev'd, I noticed that I was walking with some of the most hipster-y hipsters ever. A sea of flannel, skinny pants, fake glasses and Cosby sweaters suffocated me almost as much as the stench of cigs, PBR and angsty white kids. I forget that I listen to hipster music sometimes.

Anyway, the concert was fine--Beach House opened for GB, which was okay, I guess? Lots of deep woman voice going on there, like Cat Power in its haunting delicacy but with points taken away for just sounding like a hangover. If you were to have a cocktail party for people with indie music taste on a fall eve, this would work.

GB was pretty good--they played their big hits, had pretty neat transitions and fine audience interaction. I like GB. When their album "Veckatimest" came out, I listened to it a couple of times and gave it a thumbs up (see "Cheerleader" and "Southern Point" for some real GB) but it proved difficult to sit through their concert. Perhaps it was the annoying drunk high schoolers who tried to commandeer my friend's seat that took away from the experience. I don't know.

Good intro songs to GB are "Two Weeks" and "While You Wait For The Others"--upbeat rhythm (though the lyrics aren't quite) and digestible vocals and instrumentals. After two hours of contemporaneously deliberate and fragile vocals that echoed out of the theater down Boylston, I had had enough.

Review: GB sounds better live, but isn't the best show in town. Next on my list: Passion Pit, Of Montreal, Crystal Castles and Radiohead. Yethhhhh

http://www.grizzly-bear.net/

And a slightly absurd music video:

This past weekend

1. Filligar Friday at Arlene's Grocery
2. Coldplay (and the Black Keys and Lykke Li) Sunday at All Points West

And everything else in between running around the city! What a perfect music lineup, couldn't be luckier. This summer has been just serendipitous in terms of music. It's all... how you say.... surreal.

Wilco Concert

Pictures to come.

Concert was absolutely amazing. I was underwhelmed by Conor Oberst & Co.'s opening act (only song I knew was Four Wings, which I did like). They were probably on several substances, which explained why some of the instruments on stage were somewhat out of tune. Unless they were being "unique" by playing that way, which I doubt.

Wilco was magnificent: stage presence, musical skill and all-around sound was electrifying. They are the example of a band that is meant to be heard live--if you aren't a huge Wilco fan, you will be after going to a concert. Not only did I love Jeff Tweedy, but all the other band members were masters of their instruments.

Despite the pouring rain that cut the performance short, it was a great show. They even came out in the pouring rain to do an encore, which was magical because we were all absolutely soaked. God-like.

We encountered Conor Oberst and his band mates outside of their tour bus by the parking garage and took a couple of pictures. At the time they must've been tripping or something because they could barely speak, but I didn't care. A photo with a famous musician is good news to me.

After that, we got ourselves (thanks to my sneaky friend) into the backstage afterparty and got to talk to all the band members, Conor Oberst and the majority of Wilco save for Nels and Jeff Tweedy. I was star-struck the whole time, even though I realized that these guys are just regular guys who have a ton of musical talent; they dress pretty normally and everything. They have friends and family. They drink Miller Lite (okay, that was just the Conor Oberst group). All in all, an amazing time and this will not be my last time at a concert/sneaking around.

Three other bands I must see before I die: Radiohead, Of Montreal and Spoon.

It will happen.

Wilco

Going to the concert tomorrow night in Lowell, MA

Wilco
Opening: Conor Oberst


Conor Oberst? Really? Yikes...

I haven't listened to Wilco's latest albums, but I hear they are sub-par. Fave, like many people, is Yankee Hotel Foxtrot. What do y'all think?