Dresden Dolls, Weezer.
I’ve just spent (almost) a week back in Edinburgh doing festivally things and visit-family-and-friends things and too-damn-much-driving things. I had a great time, but I’m ready for a holiday to recover from my holiday now. Anyway, there will be more reviews when I can focus my eyes properly again.
Amanda Palmer (Dresden Dolls) - The Exchange, Edinburgh: This was originally meant to be a Dresden Dolls gig, but just before the tour Brian, the drummer, finally imploded from an insane show schedule and the tour was cancelled. Thankfully, Amanda decided to do the Scotland dates as solo shows. (Her report about the shows is here
It was a great show! It might even have been better than the last time that I saw them (the sound was certainly a lot better, just because of the venue.) I still listen to the albums frequently, and haven’t started to get tired of them yet. The songs are just so wonderfully intricate, and it takes real skill to pull them off so well live. She was joined by a few local performers for ‘Coin Operated Boy’ and what was possibly the Best Encore Ever. (A sing along number about life after the apocalypse with only a monkey and an all-girls choir for company.)
Great stuff, and at the end of the show they announced that they were doing a set at the Spiegletent later in the night, So, we all trekked over there for a 2am set in a much cooler venue. We hung around for a while afterwards, but gave up after seeing that she was already surrounded by much cooler people than us.
Lapsus Linguae - The Exchange: One of the support acts. I’ve no idea how to describe them at all. Their last song was pretty good, but the rest of them sounded like every band member had written their own song to the same drumbeat and decided to play them all at the same time. Their website also commits cardinal pop-up-related sins.
Weezer - Hammersmith Apollo: Continuing the trend of seeing bands whose last albums weren’t so great. I really enjoyed this, geek rock of the highest order and they had a really good stage presence: Everyone singing lead, lots of instrument swapping, and an encore done from the balcony.
Nine Black Alps - Hammersmith Apollo: The support act for Weezer. I keep hearing about this lot, but haven’t heard any of their recorded stuff. Live, they were just more generic rock/punk/indie mush. There really wasn’t any definition to any of it, and they didn’t do anything interesting on stage either. The problem I always have with band like this is that they just miss the point of all the bands that obviously influenced them. The like of Nirvana, The Minutemen, The Replacements etc, all understood that there’s a huge difference between playing loud and playing hard. For this type of show to work properly virtually everything on the stage should finish the show having been beaten like a red-headed step-child.
The Kooks played at this show too, but I got to the venue after they’d finished, so I’ve no idea what they’re like. I guess they play guitars and stuff?
May 13th, 2006 at 11:25 pm
[...] Fanboy-ism Last night I went off to see the Dresden Dolls again (for the 3rd - or technically 4th - time.) The quick summary is that they were fantastic. Again. They [...]