We Are the 80s
July 13, 2006. Madonna at Wachovia Center, Philadelphia.
A few years back I saw Madonna and found the whole thing to be a bit hollow. But this tour was getting great reviews, and I'd enjoyed the brief sneak-peek at Coachella.
First off, this is no concert. This is a show. Like a Broadway revue. There's no room anywhere for spontaneity, everything is choreographed within an inch of it's life.
The first part of the show had an equestrian theme. Madonna rode a mechanical horse. She rode her dancers. All the while, gruesome videos were playing showing horses falling down. The music was good, but the videos were vengeful- I pictured Madonna planning on showing that horse that threw her earlier who the fucking boss was. It was like horse snuff films.
The second part was the social conscience part - a little ham-handed, and the cross part to "Live to Tell" was not so controversial.
Finally, the disco part. Lucky Star! Hung Up! Really, it ended high. (Even though since the show, I've decided I prefer Get Together to Hung Up.)
Madonna felt, I believe, as warm as she possibly could to the audience. There was a little interaction.
My biggest disappointment - the crowd was full of really really really really aging lesbians. I didn't really see that coming. Can Madonna no longer throw a circuit party? I'm thinking not.
Read Rebecca Traister's awesome article about one of the NY shows.
David Lee Roth, Ram's Head Live, July 16
Now, David Lee knows how to throw a circuit party! I'm convinced of this! Just not at Ram's Head Live.
My youth was filled with love of DLR. Dig if you will the picture of a teenage girl named Jamie, a name that was never found in displays of pencils or jewelry or "This is So-and-So's Room" signs in the late '70s. Imagine that the first place, other than the bionic woman, who used that name in pop culture is Van Halen, and imagine that you mooned over that song, and DLR for many years to come. Imagine that you loved men with chest hair, and DLR showed his off by wearing sparkly vests and no shirts and posing provocatively. Well, welcome to my teen years.
Still, I was incredibly apprehensive to go to this show. It was at a smallish (less than 2,000 seats) club. DLR's act had worn beyond thin in the last few years. His painfully unfunny stints on Howard Stern. His even more painfully unfunny attempt to follow in Stern's footsteps in the radio world. Could he still kick? Would he try?
Well, he kicked and succeeded. He could still sing. He looks pretty damn good in tight pants and sparkly vests for a man of his age.
But the hairy chest! It is gone!
Throughout the last few years, I've been convinced beyond a shadow of a doubt that DLR is gay. He's never been linked to anyone for any length of time. Random groupies. If you get right down to it, he's pretty flaming. But the manscaping! Oh, God the manscaping! That beautiful chest hair, waxed away. That was the last piece of evidence I could possibly need. DLR is gay.
The show itself was nothing but hits. He had a hacky backing band who had spent lots of time locked in their bedrooms learning Eddie Van Halen riffs. The crowd of aging dirty-butts loved him. No one seemed to notice or care how gay he is. He makes that cheesy grin constantly. He mugs WAAAAAAAAAAY too much. Joey D. thinks that he mugs so much and so cheesily because he is used to playing larger venues, and he can't dial his expressions down to a smaller room. I think he's out of his mind and unbelievably cheesy.
But Jamie's Crying? It still totally rocked.
One more word on indie rock
Have you heard the new Snow Patrol song, Chasing Cars? Does it sound just like something from Sebadoh's Bubble and Scrape or is it just me? Like a little like Soul and Fire?
The Music I'm too old for
Fall Out Boy. Love 'em. Know I'm old enough to be the mother of 90% of their target audience but love 'em.
Ridiculously gay dance music. Love it. Want to go to Ibiza and dance my ass off with all the other 19 year olds.
So I'd always thought that my taste in music would never mature. But recently I discovered that there is a type of music I feel too old for.
Indie rock.
I discovered this during Broken Social Scene at Merriwether Post last week. I'm not a fan of them at all, and really not of headliner Belle and Sebastian either, but I'd gotten the tickets for my friend Jeffrey for his birthday, and because I thought I could entice my husband, who had inexplicably decided he loved them after hearing "Funny Little Frog" on an airplane headset. (I couldn't entice him.)
I looked around at the crowd, and made the observation: "There is no one here who hasn't been, or isn't going, to college." The crowd just looked so similar. With hipster clothes on that showed a disdain for fashion, just a little bit of disdain, but still were very studied. Everyone was very quiet and polite, for the most part. And danced like the whitest little studious types around.
Broken Social Scene had sounded OK when I heard their cd, but live they were so fucking serious. And smug. And bearded. Bearded like Jeff Daniels in "The Squid and the Whale." An unstudied, studied beard. And they had this chick singer who Could. Not. Sing. Her voice was so thin and delicate. Just like the crowd watching them.
I actually rather liked Belle and Sebastian, who had a much fuller sound in person than I would have thought. I might have thought a large venue would just swallow them up, but they had great energy and they do write some delightful songs.
But my epiphany stands. When confronted with free mp3's from Okkervil River or Wolf Parade, I don't even contemplate clicking on them. I'll go to Fall Out Boy's Myspace page, or download new tracks from Underworld. But college rock. I think I've finally realized I'm not in college anymore.
Maybe I was never that into it in the first place. I do hold "Slantend and Enchanted" as on of the Top 10 records ever. But I almost never play any other Pavement cds, and don't even own any Steven Malkmus or Silver Jews or any other descendets. I like '90s era Columbus, Ohio rock (Gaunt, New Bomb Turks, Thomas Jefferson Slave Apts., Scrawl, ) but more because I grew up with these people. Without the social connections, I doubt I'd ever think of them either.
I'm also dying for TV on the Radio's "Return from Cookie Mountain" but not (yet) enough to pay import prices for it. Unlike those Everything but the Girl and Birthday Party imports that I bought with pride in the '80s when I made about 1/8 the money I do now. Or the Ellen Allien or Miss Kittin import mixes I bought, or the mash-up cds I bought when they were still only popular across the pond.
Yes, I believe it to be true. I'm officially over indie rock. I want my music to just be about having fun, and not about being the smartest, or the hippest, in the room. I'm over ironically being unironic.
Philadelphia shows
Echo & the bunnymen, June 29
So Interpol=Joy Division. She wants Revenge=Bauhaus. The Editors=Echo and the bunnymen. All of these bands sound like a mix of the 80s with one heavy influence. But, as Mr. highlifer said, they should all just hang it up because none of them are going to put on as great of a show as Echo did 27 years after their founding.
Ian McCullough looked as foxy as ever. Perhaps this is because the stage stayed mostly dark all night. but more likely because he has some serious stage presence. You can't take your eyes off of him even if he's in silhouette.
More importantly, he hasn't forgotten why he's still touring. Even though what I've heard of the new songs makes them sound better than anything since Ocean Rain (really! and what was the last band you could say THAT about?) he hasn't forgotten why he's touring big clubs to begin with - because of 25 years of hits. The setlist was packed with them. Each one sounded amazing. I'm particularly enamored with Over the Wall, always one of my favorites. And The Killing Moon. Surprisingly, Bring on the Dancing Horses, never one of my favorites, has been the one that's stuck in my head still almost a week later.
Seriously, if you think you might want to see this, go. Don't let anyone mock you. This isn't a reunion tour, this is someone who really could bring in new fans if new fans would give it a chance. And I'm not saying that as an old person. And I can't wait to see the Editors again in a few weeks.
I also saw the Boredoms. let's just say their name fits them.
