Tag Archives: hollywood bowl

Death Cabs, Pornographers and Twins – a normal night out in lalaland

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To fill the gaping hole that is the weblog of my soul, I’m re-posting (aka C, V) my tipsy recollections of a pretty awesome Hollywood Bowl concert on the 5th of July, featuring: The New Pornographers, Tegan and Sara, and Death Cab for Cutie with the LA Phil.

As a biased, pretty easy-to-please fan of the 3 bands and the LA Phil, I had a great time at the Hollywood Bowl on the 5th of July.

The opening act, The New Pornographers were an excellent start to the night. With quite a lot of airplay from KCRW in recent weeks, their sound was familiar and the odd moment of recognition from my co-attendees was amusing to watch. @kcirtapu in particular commented on the strong similarity to one of our favourite acts: Belle and Sebastian. A fair description, I would say, as both bands have hints of folk melodies and 60s influences in their songs. As a live band, they were proficient, a good warm-up and mildly chatty, sticking to only a couple of quips (to paraphrase: “comments were made about our name, but come on, death cab? for cutie?”). I only mention chattiness for comparison to the next act: Tegan and Sara, who have (to quote my own tweet) no internal verbal filters.

If not for their fabulous voices and on-the-money lyrical commentary, Tegan and Sara should be chat show hosts of the late-night variety. But fortunately, they appear to really enjoy making music and engaging with their audience. They would have won the “Best Live Act of the Night” if there was one. They are a pair I would love to see again, preferably in a small venue with a longer set. As an aside, another thing I love about Tegan and Sara is the inability to put them in any musical category. To call them indie/alt/experimental/eclectic is like calling toro* food.

The same difficulty in categorising applies to Death Cab For Cutie, who, at various points in their career, have been tagged as grunge, emo, indie (which no longer applies post-Atlantic Records deal), punk and every other variation of rock… No small feat for a 4-person band, but hardly surprising after 12 years of hard work. That history was apparent at the Hollywood Bowl, with a set-list spanning from President of What to the sadly optimistic (or optimistically sad**) I Will Possess Your Heart.

As a live act, DCFC are pretty energetic and absolutely riveting***. They were pretty tight in the first half of their set, with a small tuning problem slightly marring our enjoyment of The Sound of Settling. I was hoping for some Chris Walla magic, but was happy enough with the aforementionedI Will Possess Your Heart multi-axe GWS**. Ben Gibbards all-important lyrics were clearly audible (by and large; there were moments where my memory had to fill the gaps), and despite occasional muddiness, the sound as heard from section M was crisp^. A strong driving bass and really clean drumming made the whole greater than (fill in the rest of this cliche yourself).

The second half of their set with the LA Phil felt like the evening was, like this review, running out of steam. I must admit that I wasn’t sure how much the LA Phil could add to the DCFC sound, save for a few songs. Gladly, they did not disappoint, and chose mostly songs that benefited from massive orchestral backing: I will Follow You Into the Dark, Soul Meets Body being my favourite two DCFC-LA Phil collaborations of the night. There were again a few duff moments, but I’ve already forgotten them, as insignificant as they were on the night. The song that I felt had the most promise, but perhaps suffered from lack of rehearsal or sound checks, was Grapevine Fires, the most operatic and melodic track of their latest album Narrow Stairs. It could, and should, have been the most memorable song of the night, but it’s thunder was stolen by the fireworks-Transatlanticism-heart-stealing combo finale^^.

The fireworks were an appropriate end to a pretty awesome concert. With that last act of showmanship, I could forgive the short setlist^^^ and paltry attempts at audience engagement by DCFC (understandable in the 17k+ seating Bowl). And you can be sure that will be a talking point for a while (so long as someone actually managed to catch it on film/mp4).

In summary, great opening acts, professional and entertaining DCFC, small contribution by the LA Phil, and a great ending. Add it all up, and it’s more than worth the 8 hours that the whole thing took.

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Obligatory footnotes…
*Substitute your favourite “gourmet”-style food, carnivorous or vegan.
**Whichever way it goes, I still think of it as the “Guitar W*nkfest Song”.
***Although I see from the shoutouts from the night that they have been more energetic in previous engagements. But hey, I only went to one concert…
^Which makes me think the sound is optimised for the “super seats” in G/H. Who knows how it sounds in the expensive seats… Not me with my limited budget…
^^I’d link to a youtube video, but have yet to find one sans screaming audience. Yes, they screamed/cheered for every firework…
^^^:

Death Cab for Cutie Setlist Hollywood Bowl, Los Angeles, CA 2009

And as a wee bonus for you faithful skimmers of this weblog, on the bus home, @kcirtapu had a startling insight that had escaped all of us DCFC/PSB fans:
Ben Gibbard is none other than Neil Tennant in disguise1.

1 Honestly… How could I have missed that after this collaboration: The Postal Service?

R.E.M. at the Bowl

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R.E.M. played at the Hollywood Bowl this Thursday past. Fresh off the plane from the East Coast, P and I headed along with our ghetto “recycled” plastic bottles of wine. Yes, we resorted to pouring a bottle of wine into some “Honest Tea” drink bottles (irony intended) because this was a “lease event”, which meant no glass would be allowed, nor alcohol of any sort. Normally, the bottle of wine is what keeps us going from 2 hours before the concert all the way to the end of the 6 hour trip for us (the H’Bowl shuttle leaves SaMo 2h before; be on it or be stuck in traffic through the whole concert). I mixed up a lavender, honey and gin cocktail in another Honest Tea bottle because we have turned into right lushes from our week of lunchtime cocktails in D.C. that extended into late night drinking.

A brief review of the night is here on my last.fm page and copied below for the link-lazy.

Sticking my neck out here, but I think the show-stealers were The National. Their direct, un-fancy performance was befitting of a warm-up band, and they certainly got me in the mood for a night of rock. Finishing their set with
mr november was a stroke of genius. No doubt some non-fans finally cottoned on who they had been listening to.

I had low-to-middling expectations from Modest Mouse, and wasn’t entirely surprised when they didn’t sparkle. Don’t get me wrong; I think they make great music. But I think their talent lies in crafting perfect albums that need to be listened to in their entirety. Somehow, the experimental nature of their music is lost on a live stage, especially one as large as the Hollywood Bowl.

As for the headliners, R.E.M., my mistake was in not listening to their latest album, Accelerate, before the show. My bad. It was good, but since it was all new to me, not much sunk in. Of the older songs, I really enjoyed hearing Final Straw live. And I loved their super-fast take on Bad Day, possibly my favourite R.E.M. song, although that changes depending on my mood.

As a non-music aside, one of the big downers of the evening was the number of pot-smokers in the audience. Normally, at the Bowl, the smokers do us all a favour and smoke their stinky weed outside. This time, I had the misfortune to be sat behind 4 pot-heads, whose constant lighting up made my wine unpalatable and my evening a little sour. Talking through the performances also did not endear them to me. It’ll be an awful day should I ever stoop to reporting pot smokers to the equally unpleasant security people.

That aside, I enjoyed the music. Even if I didn’t know half the set-list. In fact, that was what made it better: that R.E.M. didn’t just play their best-known hits. Consummate professionals to the last man, they keep track of what they’ve played in each venue and try not to repeat songs over the years. Blimey, that’s organised!

Russia comes to the Hollywood Bowl

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Courtesy of a German conductor.

Russia comes to the Hollywood Bowl

This weekend has been Tchaikovsky-tastic at the Hollywood Bowl: two nights of the Russe with fireworks. The evening started rousingly with T’s Cossack dance: your steroetypical populist folksy tune made classical. It set the scene for a evening of entertaining cheesiness. Now, don’t get me wrong. I lurve Tchaikovsky, and for all the same reasons that most people do: his music is very emotional and involving. But because of that, his music has been used in all too many soppy, tear-jerking, sentimental (you get the picture) movies and soap operas. The second piece of the night was his Piano Concerto No.1, which is beautiful. No doubt everyone knows the opening bars (or if you didn’t know it was Tchaikovsky, you’d still recognise the melody). And I will forever more associate with a Japanese tear-fest of a drama about a talented young woman and her struggle to become a concert pianist.

The interval was a necessary break from the emotion welling within. OK, I just needed more alcohol*.

Which brings us to the even more spectacular second half, with T’s Romeo and Juliet Fantasy Overemotion. Yes, one can have a little bit too much Tchaikovsky. Again, nothing wrong with the composition nor the orchestra. In fact, the Bowl’s changing lighting scheme came into its own with this piece, turning a dangerous red for the fight, pink for their love, and blue in tragedy. Maybe I just wasn’t in the appropriate romantic mood to truly appreciate the Fantasy overture. I was somewhat more concerned about P’s chilly hands (poor circulation, poor dear) than in just holding them. And I have to confess to having favourites when it comes to Russian composers of a certain period. Prokofiev, too, scored the Romeo and Juliet tragedy. And that has been my favourite since my cranky adolescent years, being just a little less sentimental. (Oh, who am I kidding. I love Tchaikovsky’s too. I think I was just tired.)

The 1812 overture, like the R+J F.O., is overemotional and overly testosterone-inducing. But what a crowd-pleaser it is! All the more when fireworks are timed perfectly to replace the cannons. Bringing on the red and gold-clad USC Trojan marching band was another perfectly cheesy, over-production, populist move that just fit the evening perfectly. I was thoroughly entertained despite my jaded-ness. After all the years of staid concert-going, being quiet and appreciative, trying not to fidget too much lest the neighbours shush me, last night’s concert was quite liberating. I felt able to throw off the cynical overcoat and wow at the Russian rooftop that appeared over the roof of the Bowl, and clap and cheer for every firework.

While this can never replace the true satisfaction of watching the final fireworks of the Edinburgh festival, the Hollywood Bowl certainly puts on a damn good show in spectacular surroundings. Even the moon obliged and loomed large and low for the R+J F.O. It’s not the best venue for delicate chamber music. It’s not the best acoustically for rock/pop concerts. But it’s perfect for Hollywood style grandness.

*For drinkipoos that night: a Merlot and some Polygamy Porter** from the Wasatch Brewery, both 100% from Utah. Of the two alkys, the porter was far superior (the less said about the wine the better). After initial laughs and nudges from my fellow Tchaikovskites, it was generally agreed that Wasatch produces a fine porter indeed. Unfortunately, one can’t get beer shipped just now. Which is why I’m going to Utah again in a few weeks.

**Why have just one! is their slogan.