tweibrecht@juno.com wrote:
quoted 1 line anyone go to that afro-celt soundsytem/transglobal underground/talvin singh>>anyone go to that afro-celt soundsytem/transglobal underground/talvin singh
xtravaganza in central park on sunday? id b interested in your
impressions...<<
I was there, and enjoyed Afro-Celt Sound System more than Transglobal
Undergound / Natacha Atlas, which surprised me as I had had basically the
opposite reaction to their albums.
ACSS was more interesting visually, as they had more musicians (7 vs. 4), who
moved around and interacted with each other quite a bit (their bagpipe[?]
player was the only one who remained seated - apparently out of necessity).
Because they were the opening band, ACSS's gear was set-up farther downstage
than TU's was, and this made it a little easier for them to connect with the
audience - TU seemed pretty far away. TU did a little bit of running around
the stage, and Natacha Atlas did a bit of belly-dancing, but about their
biggest event in the visual department was that Atlas wore four (!) different
outfits during the show.
I'm not sure if others will concur, but it seemed to me that a larger
proportion of ACSS's music was played live compared to TU's. I think it's
usually more interesting to be able to *watch* the music being played, as
opposed to just hearing it.
ACSS's set started slowly, picked up steam a bit, then hit a rather turgid
section near the middle. They must have realized this because they announced
that things would pick up from then to the end, and they did, a bit, but
there was no real shape to the energy even then as things went up and down.
It was also sometimes difficult to draw distinctions between numbers,
because the sounds were so similar. Almost every phrase played by the
bagpiper was a restatement of a single melody, although if this is due to
some limitation in the instrument I don't know. (On the plus side, when
listening to their CD the pipes start grating on me and I turn it off, which
didn't happen to me at the gig.)
Still, when they were good the music was danceable and melodic and
interesting to watch, and some of the slower numbers were fairly spacey.
However, they should ditch the song they wrote about people dieing in war -
not because of the subject matter, but because it was boring: it had no
particular melody, didn't progress into anything and then stopped dead.
For me Transglobal Underground's basic problem was that each of their songs
hit a nice groove, and then managed to repeat it to death with no internal
development at all. This may be okay for a venue where the entire object is
to keep everyone dancing, but this is a *concert* in Central Park on a Sunday
afternoon in 90 degree heat and humidity - not conditions especially
conducive to all out group dancing. (Only a small percentage of the audience
seemed bent on dancing no matter what - although most folks were at least
bopping or keeping time. Must be hard for a dance band to deal with a house
like that.) If TU is gonna do a lot of concerts, they might consider finding
some way to be flexible in their arrangements, and not be preset to one
length.
Speaking of arrangements, my other problem with TU was that their
arrangements were all essentially the same, especially the middle sections
where they go: groove - pause for restatement of sampled vocal - pick up the
beat square on time and continue groove until next pause. It got to be very
predictable, in a not very interesting way.
Still, carping aside, I'm glad I went.
Ed Fitzgerald
P.S. I didn't stick around for Talvin Singh's set after TU. He starting
spinning before the show, at 2:00ish, but had some kind of problem with the
equipment and gave up. What I heard of that aborted set and what he was
playing as I left the concert area didn't strike me as overly fascinating,
and I passed up another chance to pick up _Anokh_ today.