With Lambchop, Calexico, Wheat and Freakwater; opening for Yo La Tengo and The Flaming Lips.
City Slang records party. Review by Brendan:
so....... i will type quick freakwater opened and had trouble with their sound from the start which was the sound guys fault. they were still really good though. wheat played next and were also pretty good but thats when you first started to notice that the lighting just sucked, the lights didnt go with the music and often they were just so bright you felt like you were in a warehouse calexico came on next and played probably the only succesful show o of the evening including an entire mariachi band into their performance they were followed by lambchop who were just kind of laughing at the sound guys because the sound was so terrible. their trumpet player had a little fit but they still put on a good show. then...the moment we have all been waiting for bts takes the stage. about the third song into the six song set jim lost all souund through his amp. dug gave him a new cable to plug in with but it didnt seem that that was the real problem. there was a lot of talking back and forth and the crowd started to get a little restless. dug launched into car because yxou dont really need jims guitar there (and it is an instant crowd pleaser) great. now jims back and they play and dug announces that the 6th song will be the last because of the sound problems and because the show was running behind. that sucked but it would later turn out to be the smartest thing that anyone did all night halfway through the last song, nowhere nothing fuckup jims guitar quit and he walked offstage but came back during dugs guitar solo to pack up his stuff. goodnite bts then...disaster struck. the crowd was alreadq restless when yo la tengo took the stage becasueit took so long btw acts. people were popping balloons with cigaretteswhich made a loud noise that when theqy actually started playing was almost drowning out the music. they had been playing ylt through the speakers in btw acts which was also odd when ira stepped up to the mike during the 2nd song he was promptly electocuted and he backed away in shock he looked a tgeorgia with his back to the crowd, played a couple more secs and then walked offstage saying to the sound guy "cant you fucking do anything right" the band follows then it is an endless procession oif watching roadies electrocute themselves with the mike until fiunally ylt comes back ira says"im sorry if i was any whiter i would be ghost. i wont be able to play guitar and sing at the same timeso we are going to work around it" oh, but the guitar didnt work either and ira (with every right to) blew a fit and started cursing at the sound man the crowd chanted fuck fuck fuck and ira said "i guess we wont play any instruments then" they break into you can have it all (sans coreographed dance moves) during which ira looked like he was going to cry then georgia sits down at her drums (which people had been throwing change at all nite) and ira orders her back up they plaq the summer, apologiye by saying they dont want to die for their music and walk off. that was at 220 am the show started at 8 it was then that a young man came up screaming from the back of the audience at georgia (who was diassembling her drums) sheister or sheiser or whatever shithead is in german and grabs a lighting tree and tries to dump it over and smash it the lights are saved by a nash katoish looking groupie, and a small riot ensues between the kid, his friends and the security it is at this point that most people decide to leave it then takes over an hour for the flaming lips to come on with wayne apologiyin over and over agaiin for sound problems the only word here is tedious at 320am the last thing you are in the mood for is for someoine to start setting up video screen, etc. balloons, hand puppets and fake blood just dont cut it thgen i will admit that wayne did a good job bringing the crowd back into it with his gong-bashing but at that point there was less than a quarter of the crowd left i left after 4 songs and i realized i had only stayed to see what would go wrong next. sad isnt it