Luckily, before I had a chance to forget, I befriended Matt of Names of Foreign Towns the Homemade Slides not-exactly-fame. I noticed two things fairly early on: he had near-impeccable musical taste, and he was also a fan of this ‘Weakerthans’ band. I decided to download their first album, Fallow. And that’s where all this began.

Fallow is, in some ways, Samson’s graduation from being in a hardcore punk band.  While the opener and a few other tracks are quiet, folksy and nervous, most of the songs have familiar-sounding, hummable pop-punk riffs. There’s about equal quantities of both, but hardly any of the fusion that one would associate with the band’s sound – The Last Last One and Leash show the start of it, but it’s still kind of under-developed. It’s all good, and I still love Fallow, but the strongest tracks are the soft title track and None of the Above, and the pop-punk Wellington’s Wednesdays and Confessions of a Futon-Revolutionist.

While it may not have the near-perfection of its younger siblings, John K Samson’s brilliant songwriting still stands out on Fallow. He has a talent for the melancholy that, combined with his incredible eye for detail, underlying sense of hope and heartbreaking honesty, is comparable to the writing of Kurt Vonnegut. Sort of, anyway. I think they upset me and bowl me over in the same way, for some of the same reasons. Oh, and people persistently describe both as ‘witty’ as if it is one of their primary qualities. While both Samson and Vonnegut both possess wit, I would never think “I’ll go re-read Slaughterhouse -Five – it’s hilarious!” or “Oh, Reconstruction Site is such a lolfest!”

Anyway.

Fallow is probably more limited in lyrical range than any of the other albums, and is probably the most downbeat (aside from maybe Reunion Tour, but we’ll get to that later.) The mood basically ranges from ‘reflective’ to ‘despairing’; the album gets away with it on how well-executed it all is. Leash is often difficult to listen to, the mood captured in the opening lines:

“Had one of those days when you want to try heroin

Drunk-driving, some form of soft suicide”

None of the Above features some of the strongest imagery in any of Samson’s lyrics: one of the things he’s absolutely brilliant at is conveying a sense of place, and None of the Above comes across almost as a silent movie, with this playing as the soundtrack. (If you’re interested, there’s a brilliant in-depth look at it here, along with some of their other songs – though I don’t agree with all the analyses, they’re worth reading.) Wellington’s Wednesdays is a slice of a story that ought to be ordinary but, bursting with energy, is exciting to listen to nonetheless. Confessions of a Futon-Revolutionist is probably the album’s most upbeat track, about life being difficult but that bit less with someone else there, people being prone to doing stupid things, and the importance of having hope. It also contains the line “enlist the cat in the impending class war” and is therefore awesome. Fallow is both the final standout track on the album, and the final track on the album, rolling out softly and reflecting on regrets and staying where you are.

In comparison with its successors, Fallow is probably the least strong of the Weakerthans’ albums, and yet, on hearing it for the first time, it still managed to make me think: “This is special. This music is important.” I still look at it fondly for having started all of this.

I would start writing about Left and Leaving here, but it’d go on for too long and you’d all get bored of  hearing about the Weakerthans. So I’ll break this post off here, and start afresh.

(disclaimer: this post will be more personal than I usually intend them to be. Some situations demand it.)

When I actually listened to LT, MR, it was a revelation. It is a very important album to me; and why shouldn’t it, when, as I listened to it, (and read the accompanying essays,) the way I saw the world changed, I became clearer on what I believed and unafraid to stand by it? While there were various other influences (including common sense) that drew me towards anarcho-communism, I won’t attempt to deny that Propagandhi helped, simply because of the way these short, angry songs and accompanying paragraphs of explanation made it easier to feel like my ideals are not irrational. The most important moment on Less Talk, More Rock for me is the final thirty seconds of Resisting Tyrannical Government:

And yes, I recognise the irony: the system I oppose affords me the luxury of biting the hand that feeds. That’s exactly why privelidged fucks like me should feel obliged to whine and kick and scream –

Yeah, until everyone has everything they need.

That was something I’d been trying to articulate for years, and never found words for; hearing it summed up so perfectly was a revelation and it still holds its power a year on. The words on that album also made it easier to understand why I felt so disaffected with gender and that it was fine for me to. I don’t think it would have achieved it by itself, but combined with becoming close to some of the most brilliant people the world has to offer around the same time, when I look back to compile a soundtrack for my coming of age, I imagine Less Talk, More Rock will feature heavily.

But if it wasn’t for one thing, LT, MR would be a fairly standard punk rock album, too noisy and opinionated to offer clarity to a teenager trying to make sense of the world. Propagandhi are basically like anarcho-punk superheroes, vegan activists on FBI watchlists. Sure, it must be easy for them to sing those songs, but how can every-day, average humans possibly compare?

While the most important song to me on Less Talk, More Rock is Resisting Tyrannical Government, it’s not, in my opinion, the key song on the album. It’s not …And We Thought the Nation-States Were a Bad Idea, either, or the title track, or Refusing to Be a Man.

Those thirty seconds of epiphany on Resisting Tyrannical Government are immediately followed by Gifts.  Gifts is not a political song. It is a song brimming with melancholy, sung by a nervous-sounding man keen on metaphor, about cluelessness and loneliness and regret. And following that determined political declaration with this beautiful, personal doubt is one of the most effective moments I have ever found in music.*

By the time the song closes with “A razorblade, this broken piece of chain; a history left to rust out in the rain,” it’s certain that Propagandhi are in fact human. They are not anarchist messiah figures. They have anxieties and failures and personal relationships just like you and I. Without the brief personal insights, Less Talk, More Rock would become inaccessable, difficult to associate with.

It could be argued that Gifts (and Anchorless, which we’ll be seeing more of later) the two songs written and sung by John K Samson, are separate beasts from the rest of the album – and it would be true, but another subtlety in Gifts increases the power of the song further: in the chorus, the lead singer Chris Hannah provides backing vocals just as Samson does for him in other places on the album. By doing that, the song isn’t severed from the rest of the album. Hannah associates himself with the doubts and humanity that Samson expresses, bringing the album together perfectly.

Fun note for Propagandhi fans:

When I sought out Potemkin City Limits a while after falling in love with Less Talk, More Rock, I wasn’t aware that the writer of those songs had gone off to found the Weakerthans, and I’ve never gotten into it as much as it or Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes. I’m not sure if it’s just not as good an album, or if my disappointment marred my enjoyment of it and I still haven’t gotten over it.

At any rate, I have two theories for why I manage to love Today’s Empires. One is simply that I already knew that the band have that human side, and by the time I listened to it I was relatively familiar with the music of  the Weakerthans so I wasn’t disappointed by the absence of Samson. More importantly though, Today’s Empires moves the lyrical focus from the first to the third person. Less Talk, More Rock is very strongly saying “Look at us, this is what we believe, this is why you should too.” Its follow-up, however, starts by telling the story of an East Timorese refugee, and continues to give snapshots of the lives of others over the course of the album, preventing it from feeling preachy and self-absorbed. (And believe me, we will return to this idea in the final post of this two-parter.)

In any case, that’s what I have to say on Propagandhi. The Weakerthans half of the story picks up with the reappearance of Anchorless.

_{*and this is why we listen to albums properly sometimes rather than just ripping them into our libraries and sticking on shuffle.}

~*imaginary cut which would be there if Opera was co-operating goes here*~

It is difficult to describe the Flaming Lips’ stagecraft. The first thing you must understand, to get even the slightest idea of what it was like, is that the backing dancers were dressed as Teletubbies, and they arrived, as far as I can tell, by helicopter. There was also a terrifying gigantic butterfly that swayed from side to side in an unsettling fashion through every song it was on stage for.

Oh, and Wayne Coyne was riding the back of a werewolf two songs in.

And the whole streamers/confetti/giant balloons/Wayne Coyne in a hamster ball thing.

Except, surreal as all of this seemed, there was the sense that all of this is perfectly normal and to be expected in Flaming Lips Land. Not to the extent it feels mundane, though – before playing Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt One, Coyne recounted hearing a crowd singing it back to him with a genuine sense of emotion and warmth towards his fans.

You could say their commitment to playing old material that most of the audience (including myself) weren’t going to be familiar with along with the popular songs was part of that; She Don’t Use Jelly definitely felt like a moment for fans, but one that the band’s heart was in. What comes across incredibly strongly in Coyne’s stage banter, the exuberant stageshows and the music that is distinctly theirs is a knowledge that what they do makes people happy, and it makes them happy too.  And that’s something that feels incredibly beautiful. At one point, he tells us that music doesn’t change the world, people who smile and make others smile do, optimists, people with hope and people who do good things. When he said that, I hoped that he knew he was all of these things.

With the brilliant finale of Do You Realize??, he gave an introduction stating how amazing it was to know that there’d be people in the crowd feeling genuinely upset, and that their music could make a difference to that. So I guess they do know. I’m glad they know. I’m glad I was there. I’m glad their music is there.

I got the tickets very spontaneously, recieving a text from a friend about four days before the concert to ask if I wanted to see Antony and the Johnsons. Obviously the response was “FUCK YES whenwhenwhen” and I was even more surprised by the response.  I had seen that the concert was on (thanks to last.fm) but it was too late and I had since forgotten the date, deciding not to dwell on missing a chance to definitely see Antony sing live.

(Last year, his amazing disco side-project Hercules and Love Affair played Evolution, then Newcastle/Gateshead’s nearly-free festival [this year it was five times the price and seemed to have a decidedly not-worth-it lineup, but anyway] so I headed along thinking “omg, I’m going to hear Antony Hegarty sing live, best day evar~” and was duly… surprised to find that he wasn’t playing the tour. His replacement was certainly competent, but the crowd was probably smaller than Defiance, Ohio and the enthusiasm in the audience was in decidedly homeopathic concentration in comparison. It was about three-quarters  people who’d come because it was £3, standing around thinking “Eh, why’s this band all trannies?” and a quarter of us wondering why one particular trannie was conspicuously absent from the stage, while we were being desperately encouraged begged to dance by the band.* It was one of the most dispiriting live music experiences I have had, being as it was followed by Crystal Castles, who I don’t like, and then I got a stomachache and went home. Does it Offend You, Yeah? were good though.)

Antony and the Johnsons themselves were preceded by the most decidedly… interesting opening act I have seen. The lights dropped to nothing but for a spotlight on an empty patch, menacing ambient music started to play, and a shape started edging onto the stage in a raggedy wedding dress. Now, I was sat at the very back of the hall, so for all I knew this was Antony himself. It certainly didn’t conflict too much with what I was expecting from him – expectations that were so very, very wrong – and this was why, after about five minutes of this figure’s performance art-dance routine that I became slightly worried about when the rest of the Johnsons would appear and they would start playing. The figure left the stage (look, I have no idea what physical sex this person was or what they chose to identify as and Hall One is really large enough that I could not pick up many clues from the back of it.) but the soundtrack continued, returning painted silver in platform shoes and a corset, holding two long white objects, swinging and flapping them in some sort of surreal skeletal fan dance. There’s one more performance – to In the Hall of the Mountain King, and the stage is empty again.

It’s not long, though, before the band enter, and straight away get to playing. (dear god, I failed the keeping that short target. I’m over six hundred words in and he’s only just appeared.) For this first song, the Johnsons are lit but the piano remains in darkness. Regardless, it’s obvious that Antony is there, because of that voice. My god, that voice. I guess this is why I was expecting the post to be short, because there’s really not much you can say about it. It’s clean, vulnerable when needed but always strong, a voice that conveys every emotion he needs to. He’s often compared to Nina Simone, but it’s not helpful – he is Antony, and has Antony’s voice. Nina Simone is Nina Simone, and has her voice. What they have in common is that they have heart-stopping, unique voices that generations will appreciate – already proven in Simone’s case and likely judging from the spread of ages in the audience tonight.

It’s easy to be distracted (possessed?) by Hegarty’s voice, but it would be unfair not to acknowledge the Johnsons themselves here. They’re all highly skilled (I found myself noticing how effective the cello and saxophone were, in particular) and know exactly how to use their instruments – and occasionally, their voices. They don’t attempt to compete with Antony’s vocals, but they don’t just play understudies either. The musicians work perfectly, complementing and contrasting him as he sings.

I had not expected Antony to be a talker. He seemed shy and reserved enough, what with being invisible for the first song, and I had imagined him to just appear, play his songs, introduce the rest, and disappear with a ‘thanks’. Not so. He opens up to the audience, engaging in genuinely witty banter with us (at one point, he is asked to remove his clothes; he responds with “Are you sure you’re at the right concert?”) and a surprising amount of local knowledge. His speaking voice is almost as pleasing as his singing one, incidentally – almost BBC English but with a warmth, and an edge of something else. Another surprisingly endearing habit was the way that he didn’t rise from the piano stool, even when he didn’t need to play, but throughout just about every song, he was dancing with the top half of his body, from gentle swaying to real shaking and finger-snapping. It made a pleasing contrast; while his music had the audience completely transfixed, he always had a reminder that he was human after all.

One of the things that this concert got me thinking is the way that truly amazing music can create a space, a mentality based around a feeling. Even recorded, Antony and the Johnsons create a sense of calm and relaxation; in the dark of Hall One the artists standing out in bright colours seemed to be part of some beautiful, alien world, one away from my current stresses. (The analogy that springs to mind was one of my own personal Bunny Planet, actually.) In the same way, Evan Greer is a musical hug and cup of tea, the Clash an old friend willing to listen to my rants and Streetlight Manifesto and Freezepop ones who you always smile to see; the Weakerthans are one of the days when it feels good to walk in the rain and cry there too, whether for joy or sadness. Sometimes, music is an escape from the real world for me, sometimes an enhancer. This was a night that severed me from reality for however brief a time, but on normal days music can be used to make the sun come out on a grey day, or vice versa if necessary. Or it can just emphasise the situation on the occasions where you feel as if you could almost be in a movie, with a particular band or song acting as a soundtrack.

…so, tl;dr: music is fucking awesome. I hope it never goes away.

*note: Newcastle is possibly the most crap place to get audiences to dance. Even when the audience is familiar with the band you’re hard-pressed to find anyone moving their feet more than about five rows from the stage. David Byrne was an anomaly.

Firstly, there’s Kat. Kat is, like me, a writer. She is also my oldest online friend, the only one I’ve met up with in real life, and one of my favourite people in the world. I’ll try not to get too misty-eyed, but she’s brilliantly funny, caring, sensible and mature but also absurd when the situation requires it (and believe me, there are few situations that don’t benefit from Kat’s absurdity.) She also keeps a blog, puportedly to write about writing and literature, but it’s a little more wide-ranging. I suppose she writes about things that inspire her, and one of those things is music. Yesterday she wrote a beautiful post about her favourite band, Foo Fighters. Regardless of how you feel about the band, it basically touches on everything that makes music so important, and that is a damned hard thing to do.

And secondly, there’s Matt, who I have known for a fraction of the time I have Kat, but managed to hit it off with exceptionally well. Once again, he’s very funny and has a good worldview – like all of the people I find myself looking up to, he knows the importance of being happy. He also has excellent taste in music, which is a pretty good thing considering that he’s a musician. He writes, sings and plays various instruments in a band called Names of Foreign Towns, who have just put up a couple of demo recordings on Myspazz. It seems a pretty sweet endeavor so far and I wish him and his friends luck in it.

“In ’79 a female leader had such an abject case of penis envy, she agreed to house the biggest nuclear phalluses in the world on home shores, at the height of the Cold War, not only making us a target but a closer one to aim for, and yet every argument on gender politics since, has included her name as an example of our ‘progress’, but people are missing the point – she got to where she did because she hates womanhood with all her heart.”

This is an example of a fucking awesome first verse.

They were followed by Madeline, a singer-songwriter from Athens, Georgia with beautiful, delicate lyrics and a truly incredible voice: wild but clean, soft but by no means weak, a voice that snaked around the room and powerful enough to bring tears to my eyes (and a few of the other audience members, I noticed). And you could dance to some of her songs. She’s pretty goddamn amazing.

Now. Defiance, Ohio.  They kicked off with Petty Problems from The Great Depression, the second of their three albums. Pretty much as soon as the music started, the audience started moving. There’s something about being a couple of feet from them, the pure energy radiating out from their music, that makes it impossible to stand still. Bikes and Bridges came next, much to the delight of a pair of punks who may possibly have been slightly drunk next to me (incidentally, it was the loveliest audience, not that I was exactly expecting it to be a bunch of prats or anything; folk punk clearly just attracts a community of friendly, enthusiastic people and I hope I count as such.) but for me the first real “I can’t believe I am here and this is happening” moment was The Things We Won’t Let Settle But Let Set – as soon as the bizarrely adorable multi-instrumentalist-but-mostly-drummer, Theo, swapped to the piano I was hoping for it to be that song, and lo, it was. I did indeed sing my heart out, and I evidently do know those words by heart now. Hell, I seem to know the words to most of their songs by heart now. I spent the night dancing, yelling, feeling completely connected to the band in front of me. Every song felt perfect, but aside from The Things We Won’t Let Settle…, other standouts were I Don’t Want Solidarity if it Means Holding Hands with You, which felt exactly like the breath of fresh air it asks for; I’m Just Going to Leave Now, which got the sort of response from the audience that basically indicated that everyone there knew of the bad days being sung about, and that the band had got the feeling down perfectly; (I had been ill and curled up feeling sorry for myself, listening to Jawbreaker for most of the previous week, incidentally, though I have felt much worse.) and Oh, Susquehanna!, the penultimate song of the night. The feeling that fills you being in a packed room, red in the face and dripping with sweat, one of many voices in the room joining in with “I wonder, what do they do with the bodies?”, unable to stay still or even on the ground, is a very special one and not one I’m entirely sure I could describe. It was a pity that they had to wrap up by around 10 in order for everyone who needed a bus or train home could get one, but really it was something that couldn’t have felt long enough.

There’s a lot of things that can be said about the internet’s impact on music, but the one I feel needs mentioning here is how lucky I am to be alive at a time when the music of a fantastic but obscure band in the US can reach me in a not-terribly-exciting corner of the UK, and that they can make it worthwhile to come over to said not-terribly-exciting corner of the UK to play a completely breathtaking live show. After they wrapped up, I approached the nearest band member (bassist/vocalist Ryan) and thanked him as coherently as I could. I got a handshake, which I think makes me even more lucky. Here’s to many more nights like it.

• I keep meaning to review Maximo Park’s latest album, Quicken the Heart. I’ll just say I don’t use this blog for whining about music I don’t like, if you’re wondering.
• There may be plans to experiment with an audio post. You know, where I play songs then talk about them.  Like they did on that old-fashioned radio thing back in the day. I’m not sure where this stands copyright-wise but quite honestly as long as I only have three readers that’ll be okay; once it balloons to ten I’ll be having run-ins with the RIAA.
• Will be seeing Defiance, Ohio live on the 23rd May, should be something to write home about. Or write to the internet about. Which is sort of where I live.
• Rock Ness, mid-June. Once again, the Flaming Lips, Super Furry Animals and King Blues will definitely be worth a post.
• And yes, I do plan to get hold of a copy of Supporting Caste someday.

So yeah, I’m still alive. Ironically for those of you who get the reference, doing science is exactly what’s keeping me from just posting bits and pieces: modular exams coming up, revision flying around. Still, Biology’s down and I’m on holiday for a bit, so hopefully I’ll get one or two of these written in the next fortnight.

In the meantime, listen to Wouldn’t it be Nice by the Beach Boys, and People by the Andrew Jackson Jihad.

- Hele

I’m still not quite organised enough to manage either of these, so as a sort of “I aten’t dead” to you all,  I present a shortish post about a fantastic Leeds-based band: the Dauntless Elite.

The Dauntless Elite are fairly obscure, so I’ll try and give you some background. Amongst other things, they are the first act signed to the wonderful label Plan-It X Records, home of Ghost Mice, Andrew Jackson Jihad, (once upon a time) Against Me! and Defiance, Ohio amongst many other good things. I realise that the list of artists I have just provided may seem slightly misleading, as all of the ones I mentioned fall under the glorious umbrella of folk punk, or “the best genre ever.” The Dauntless Elite may not be folk punk, but they are a damned fine band. They play fast exciting raw-edged punk with lots of palm-muting and energy seeping out of the seams of their songs, and I am quite determined to see them live someday.

The experience of listening to Graft was a multi-layered one. The first time, I heard fairly standard, loud punk music and nothing particularly special. Now, maybe it was the fact that I knew there had to be more to an album with song titles like “Gina U R a Bastard Liar,” “I am Ninja… My Life is Lonely and Difficult” and “I Can Move if Funk is Happening,” but I had come upon one of those albums, an album that you want to listen to again just to check that you didn’t miss anything – and hey, I had! Second time round I realised that they have a great ear for (collective ear? they have great ears for?) pop-punk riffs, which are something I have a great weakness for. Much in the same way that you work through the primer stages of a videogame towards the more challenging, fleshy main section, once you’re done realising how catchy and hummable their songs are, one can begin to appreciate the lyrics, more and more with each listen.

The lyrics are delivered in fascinatingly growly harmonies just rough enough to give the impression that these are exciting people who are here to take you to a new place, but close enough to singing that it doesn’t harm the ears. I would say it’s a vocal style I quite approve of, possibly because I’m compensating for not being able to manage a manly burr myself what with being female, or possibly just because when someone sings with passion and conviction, I can generally get into it. Being able to use the voice like that, regardless of how imperfect it sounds, is one of the most powerful things about music, and even more so when the voice is being used to deliver messages as worthwhile as the lyrics on this album. Probably my favourite line on the album is the one that bookends I am Ninja, My Life is Lonely and Difficult:

“We move in inward-facing circles, singing inbred worn-out songs/Til we lose all sign of context with our backs turned for so long.”

Look, try and argue with that one. There’s other moments of genius, too; the refrain of opener Running Battle “Time waits for no-one, you better keep on – ohhh, time is the enemy” is difficult to listen to while walking without breaking into a, uhm, run and pretending you’re in the opening credits of the indie movie of your life; Our Own Legends, Shilling and You’re a Funny Guy… I’ll Kill You Last! are other favourites.

Here. Check out their music. Now.

The show I was at most recently was a retrospective of his work with Brian Eno, who, needless to say, is a Legendary Producer, and produced three of Talking Heads’ albums – Remain in Light, More Songs about Buildings and Food, and Fear of Music. All of these albums are good.  He also collaborated with Byrne on two albums – 1981′s My Life in the Bush of Ghosts, which was hugely influential for being one of the first major uses of sampling and being brilliant, and 2008′s Everything that Happens Will Happen Today. A little of my views on that one later. Back to the show.

Byrne and his troupe – one drumkit, one set of African drums; three soul singers;  a synth/keyboardist; a bassist/singer; and three dancers – were all dressed entirely in white, at first making me think of nurses, then cricketers, then just that it was the best way to make them stand out. His hair, as white as his clothing, sticks up in a sort of cockatiel quiff that seemed perfectly suited to him as he made his awkward introduction to us. He was witty and likeable, didn’t talk for too long and managed to appear nervous, despite surely having done this sort of thing thousands of times: exactly the picture of him that has made him the poster boy for geeky kids everywhere.

He opened with Strange Overtones (which is without a doubt the strongest track from Everything that Happens…), a beautiful, warm,  rendition of a beautiful, warm song. Byrne and his band are all insanely talented musicians, and it helps that the Sage is a venue designed to make musicians sound as good as possible, whatever sort of music they may be playing. Okay, I haven’t seen a crust punk show advertised there, but the acoustics are fine-tuned specially before each performance, and it pays off.

Heaven seemed to fill the air in the hall; the bass vibrations managed that horribly cliche-sounding feeling that they are actually shaking your heart. But it still sounded like Heaven, from the Talking Heads album Fear of Music. The most exciting parts of the performance, for me (though sadly few in number) were the songs from My Life in the Bush of Ghosts.  I always think of My Life… as a distant, somewhat unsettling album, to be listened to through headphones on winter nights. It’s also quite definitely an electronic music album, but the only aspect of that genre visible on the stage was the synth. Brian Eno is a producer who can transform musicians – so how would the songs sound deproduced? Heart-stopping. For Help Me Somebody, Byrne bellowed the samples (taken from a radio preacher) himself while the backing musicians provided a fantastic funk-disco soundtrack for the words. This performance was not for curling up on a winter night, it was for getting up and dancing.

Sadly, no-one actually did until the ending of Crosseyed and Painless, where a few audience members couldn’t stay seated, and were requested to sit again. This was followed by what was probably my favourite performance of the night, Once in a Lifetime. I remember that when he sang it all those years ago, he put on silly voices and such for the “same as it ever was” parts. Here, there was nothing but sincerity, and a smooth, constant flow to the song, a real feeling of “letting the water hold me down”.  For this, about half the audience rose, and it was followed with Life During Wartime, for which just about everyone did. The performance probably got this reaction because it was closer to the Stop Making Sense rendition than the original on Fear of Music.  It is one of the best songs to dance to.

In the end, brilliantly, three encores were gotten out of the concert. Along with Heaven, Take Me to the River was the moment when the feeling that the music filled every single space in the hall; Air was one of the other songs that underwent a massive funk transformation; the performers returned for Burning Down the House with added tutu for no apparent reason other than that it was awesome, and kept them on to close with Everything that Happpens.

Now, Everything that Happens.  I have to say that after hearing such a stripped-down rendition of it, the album version was a little… disappointing. (I only picked up my copy of Everything that Happens Will Happen Today at the concert) Actually, not so much Everything that Happens, now that I listen to it again. One Fine Day was the one that, live, was just beautiful, raw and clean. The recorded version sounds… it sounds produced. It feels really odd suggesting that Brian Eno could actually detract from the quality of a recording, especially when I think of Brian Eno + David Byrne as a combination that works like peanut butter + chocolate or such. (As you may not be familiar with my eating habits, I view this combination as a great thing.) I certainly wouldn’t suggest that the live Help Me Somebody was superior to the My Life… version, because it obviously wouldn’t have been as exciting without the contrast, and because My Life in the Bush of Ghosts is probably in my top 100 albums of all time. Bear in mind that I listen to a lot of music, so that’s pretty high-ranking.

But, I don’t know about Everything that Happens Will Happen Today. Having downloaded Strange Overtones from the album site, and having been blown away by it, with One Fine Day and Everything That Happens being so great live… I was hoping for something more. It’s not a bad album, of course, but Brian Eno and David Byrne’s names together make me instantly think “Innovation! Invention! Breaking the boundaries of contemporary music!”

This album doesn’t seem to be doing that. It seems to be David Byrne and Brian Eno, just doing their thing. Considering the energy and excitement that was in the air in Hall One last night, it would be profoundly depressing to think that they’ve decided they’re now too old to invent; I would rather think of it as two old friends getting together, and enjoying themselves doing what they do best.

Same as it ever was.