I'd been looking forward to this show for a few
months. The last this-listy event I've been to in
these parts was Pan(a)Sonic and Trans Am, and that was
a coupla years ago. It's quite wild, actually, how
much love the south central US is getting on this
tour: four dates in Texas and Louisana! If the crowd
last night was any indication, North Texas is mad
hungry for more music like this to come through the
area: the place was packed, and everybody was totally
into it. So yeah, Thrill Jockey's promoters know
what's up, maybe some others will take the plunge and
see what D/FW has to offer
(ahemwarpsquarepusherplaid).
Um, okay. My gf and I got there at about halfway into
Vert's set and went upstairs to get drinks and watch
him from the terrace they've got up there. Vert's a
skinny Moby looking dude that makes bleeps with his
laptop and a little white keyboard, and as we watched
from afar and sipped our drinks we were treated to one
of the best sets of the evening. Dude coaxed some
amazingly rich, warm tones out of his tiny machine,
stuff that wouldn't be out of place on MoM's
Insturmentals album. I don't remember any specific
high or low points of the set, it was all sorta
ambiguous, but that's probably what the guy's going
for. Mellow wall-of-sound type shit. One of the really
cool things about Vert's performance was his level of
involvement with his sound. Yeah, it was just a dude
and like two pieces of gear, but we could tell by the
way he was moving around and twiddling his kit that
he's passionate about his art, and that was just as
lovely to see as his music was to hear.
Nobekazu Takemura came on probably ten minutes later
with a couple of those slick new iBooks and some other
stuff. I can't really say much about his set since we
were at the merch table blowing our cash on MoM shirts
and Vert's album (review forthcoming). What I heard
sounded okay though, so I went ahead and grabbed a
copy of Scope, which sounds a lot like Oval and
nothing like the material he played at the show. They
lady selling MoM's stuff was their drummer's wife, a
super nice lady (I guess she sorta had to be, since
she's promoting her hubby's band) who gave us some
free Idiology stickers and told us about a band she
and her husband are starting called Natimatti ("born
crazy" in Italian), so that might be a name to look
out for in the future.
Mouse on Mars came on a couple minutes later and
totally ripped it up. They started with an awesome
straight up rawk n roll number (like almost death
metal shit!) that got everybody's attention, and went
straight into Actionist Respoke. I'm sorry I can't
produce a track listing, but I did catch Twift
Shoeblade, Doit (which jams live), and track 8 off
Idiology (can't remember the name, sorry). At the end
of the set they brought Vert back onstage and played a
super trippy version of "Presence". You know how the
last couple minutes of that track on the LP are so
densely layered and richly produced that you could sit
and pick stuff out of it for days and still hear
something new every time? It was like that, times ten,
plus keyboard squiggles and diddles from Vert. Tres
fuckin cool. MoM really stole the show that evening;
but new fans that buy their material based on the
strength of their slammin live performance might be
disappointed to find that their LPs are a little more
cerebral.
Okay, then there was like a forty-five minute wait for
Tortoise. I dunno, I dig their records and all, but
they seemed so damn stuffy and full of themselves that
night that my fan level has dropped a notch or two. I
don?t think anybody could have outplayed MoM, but shit
man, these guys looked like robots. Technically, their
performance was brilliant. The five men on stage (a
few of them heavily tattooed, which sorta surprised
me) rotated instruments about every other song or so,
which was impressive. The sound was crystal clear, the
mallet work was beautiful (they played Djed in its
entirety, and Three Day Interval at the encore), but
goddamn did they look bored. Jeff Parker was sitting
on the damn floor or something the entire time, so you
could hear this great guitar work but couldn?t see who
the fuck was doing it, which was irritating. The
tracks they played didn?t really deviate at all from
the LP versions either, which I think is very
important for a good live performance.
Okay, conclusion: Vert = Great, Nobekazu Takemura =
Good, Mouse on Mars = Mind blowingly pants wettingly
great, Tortoise = Whatever. If this bill comes through
your town, by all means check it out.
Thanks for listening :)
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