Hugo’s blog

The Sadies at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival on 2007-10-06

On Sunday, I went to the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival in the Golden Gate Park in San Francisco to watch The Sadies play. I unfortunately missed a good chuck of their show due to a major traffic jam, but I really dig them. Ever since I saw them opening for The Tragically hip back in March, I’ve liked this band and I was glad to see them.

I saw a number of other bands as well, though I paid less attention to them.

The Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival is pretty cool: good music (even if not all of it is what I would usually listen to), nice venue, well organized, free. I’ll be going again next year.

Genesis at HP Pavilion on 2007-10-09

Every time I saw an old band get back together, I have been tempted to go see them. I feel like it’s like going to see an old painting in a museum, being able to witness some musical history live. Though sometimes the rendition of songs may have faded a little, or the band isn’t quite the same. Anyway, I always stopped myself from doing it when I saw the price of tickets: I’m always wondering how much they do reunions to have fun and make fans happy versus making insane amounts of money, and the latter seems to be the main motivation. Fans are older, they have more money, hence they can pay hundreds of dollars (plus proportional TicketBastards fees) to relive a piece of their childhood.

Genesis‘s reunion is no different, but for some reason I was interested enough to make the jump. A significant jump for me, as I hate large venues, and of course they don’t play in small places. So I bought some outrageously expensive, only after joining the fan club ($35 more) to ensure that I could have access to pre-sales in order to have my outrageously expensive ticket not suck too much in this huge venue.

So how was it? It was actually pretty good. Phil Collins is an excellent showman and makes your forget that you’re in a large venue far away from him. Their performance was good, mixing some recent songs with some old material for 3 hours:

• Behind The Lines / Duke’s End
• Turn It On Again
• No Son Of Mine
• Land Of Confusion
• In The Cage / The Cinema Show / Duke’s Travels
• Afterglow
• Hold On My Heart
• Home By The Sea / Second Home By The Sea
• Follow You Follow Me
• Firth Of Fifth / I Know What I Like
• Mama
• Ripples
• Throwing It All Away
• Domino
• Drum Duet
• Los Endos
• Tonight Tonight Tonight
• Invisible Touch

• I Can’t Dance
• The Carpet Crawlers

One thing which struck me is how much Tony Banks never smiles. You really wonder how he feels being on stage.

Anyway, I had a good time. I’m glad I went, but I think that I’m not going to go to a reunion tour show or a large venue anytime soon.

I almost forgot to mention that the best part of this whole experience was actually my neighbor: he was obviously a dedicated Genesis fan, early post-Peter Gabriel period. Every time a song he liked came up, he was becoming completetly ecstatic, grabbing the rail in front of us and vibrating from head to toe, playing air drums with Phil Collins. Fun!

The Tragically Hip at The Warfield on 2007-10-10

I saw The Tragically Hip only a few months ago, but it was such a great experience that I had to go again when I saw that they were playing again in San Francisco. And it was awesome, even better than the great performance at the Fillmore.

The Warfield is a smaller venue, and at the very front of the pit. Gord Downie was on fire, and show they played was amazing, with a great version of Hundredth Meridien for which Gord came on the rail right in front of me. This allowed me to take great pictures with the crappy camera in my Treo. Some bands give guitar picks to the crowd, Gord Downie gives his cloth tissues covered in sweat, and he gave his microphone to the girl in front of me. He likes to play with microphones.

The set list was great, and a little unconventional (e.g. Put It Off that they had not played live since 1997 according to HipBase):

• The Lonely End Of The Rink
• Grace, Too
• My Music At Work
• Gus: The Polar Bear From Central Park
• Family Band
• Ahead By A Century
• Gift Shop
• In View
• Poets
• Pretend
• Fireworks
• At The Hundredth Meridien
• Escape Is At Hand For The Travellin’ Man
• Fiddler’s Green
• Yer Not The Ocean
• Locked In The Trunk Of A Car
• Fire In The Hole

• Put It Off
• Mr. Soul (Neil Young cover)
• New Orleans Is Sinking

Update: here’s the video of Put It Off at the Warfield:

I have a short video (I removed the sound because it was horrible):

I’m looking forward to my next Hip concert!

I got into the Smashing Pumpkins in 2000 (thanks to my friend Gerald), just in time to see (figuratively speaking) the band split. I then followed what Billy Corgan was doing, and actually missed a concert in Paris of Zwan which got canceled wore or less at the last minute. I basically thought that I was cursed, until Corgan announced that he was planning on putting the Smashing Pumpkins back together, and when I saw a few months ago that they were going to tour and play for 10 nights at the Fillmore in San Francisco.

I managed to get tickets from TicketMaster. Once I had a pair of tickets, I actually tried to buy tickets for a second show, but they were all sold out. Tickets must have been all sold within a couple of minutes, so I felt lucky I managed to get some. It actually was a special kind of concert, as people were waiting in line in front of The Fillmore hours before the show.

I actually almost didn’t get in: the tickets were Will Call tickets, so I needed my credit card to get them the day of the show. Unfortunately, my credit card was replaced by the credit card company a few weeks ago because it might have been compomised. At this point, I followed instructions from them destroying my card, only to realize the following day that I needed it to get my tickets. I then spent 30 minutes extracting from the trash and taping together the 50 little pieces that used to be my card (yes, I had been slightly overboard with the scissors when destroying the card), making sure that you could still read the number and see my name. So I crossed my fingers when approaching the doors, but they actually were happy to only see my ID, so I didn’t need to get into a long explanation to justify why my card in tiny pieces taped back together on a piece of paper.

The show started at 9pm sharp with a band from Portland, OR which was pretty good, but whose name I unfortunately did not catch. They played a good set for 30 minutes that did not seem like 1/2 hour (sometimes, support acts seems longer than they are, but here it was really enjoyable). One thing that I noticed though is that every support act that wants to make sure that people scream while they’re on stage tell people who’s playing next: “So the Smashing Pumpkins are here tonight!” Response from the crowd: “Yeaaaaaah!”

At 10.05pm, after the stage was prepared for the next part of the show, Billy Corgan entered the stage with an acoustic guitar and started playing some solo songs, that he referred to as “sad solo songs”. It was a gentle introduction to the show. He also said at some point: “Don’t worry, the rock ‘n’ roll party is going to begin soon”. He was soon joined by the whole band to play Today, and the show really began at this point.

They played a mix of older songs and of songs from their latest album, Zeitgeist. I find these songs really powerful on stage (United States, Tarantula, Doomsday Clock, etc.). At some point during the show, Jeff Shroeder’s amp broke down, which generated a 15 minute break. I was somewhat disapointed by the band which did not do much during this time (they joked about telling a story, but never did).

I was really impressed by the quality of the show. The sound was great. Despite my love of live shows, I often regret that the volume of certain instruments is too high and masks other ones or the singer’s voice. I felt that the sound engineers here at done a terrific job at rendering all the parts of the band. The songs and the performance of the band were really powerful, and it was really enjoyable to watch them play.

After 2h45 of intense performance (minus the 15 minutes break due to the amp), the lights came back on and people left the venue. It’s only when I got home and read a fan forum that I discovered that they actually played two more songs that we missed, which is too bad.

The playlist, courtesy of frenchy at Netphoria:

• Leaving Lament
• Rotten Apples
• Peace and Love
• 99 Floors
• No Surrender
• Today
• 1979
• United States (Jeff’s amp breaks down)
• Bleeding the Orchid
• Lucky 13
• Shame
• Hummer
• Bullet With Butterfly Wings
• God and country
• Death From Above
• By Starlight
• To Sheila (with Linda Strawberry)
• Tonight, Tonight
• Tarantula
• Starz
• Zero
• Glass and the Ghostchildren
• That’s the Way (My Love Is)
• Superchrist
• Starla
• The band leaves the stage
• Doomsday Clock
• Heavy Metal Machine
• Lights go back on
• Zeitgeist
• Muzzle

It really was an amazing show. Fortunately, there were cameras roaming around, so I can hope to see it again in DVD soon.

I have a bunch of crappy photos from the show. Great photos and videos are available from Netphoria.

I’ve been reading Isa’s blog for a while, and she is always raving about Rufus Wainwright, so since he was coming to San Francisco, I thought I’d check him out.

I basically went to the show without having ever listened to a song of him. The venue, the Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, is an interesting venue for a modern music show. Apart from being where Sean Connery meets his daughter in The Rock (I saw it on TV recently), it’s a theatre with a mix of roman and greek architecture (thanks Wikipedia).

Anyway, I went to the show without ever having listened to his music. It was a show in two parts: there was an intermission in the middle. I actually enjoyed his slow songs or when there were few instruments, while I liked less songs that were more complex. So I ended up with mixed feelings. I may need to look into his discography to figure out if the different types of songs correspond to different periods, or if it’s just his overall style.

Ten years ago, while I was living in England, I heard on the radio Placebo play Bruise Pristine at the Glastonbury festival, and I liked their sound and went to HMV buy their eponym first album. I have followed their music ever since, but with the feeling that every new album is not as good as the previous one, though the All-Music Guide seems to disagree with me. Anyway, went I saw that they were playing in a small venue in San Francisco, I thought that I just had to go. It’s pretty rare to be able to see Placebo a couple of meters away from the band in Europe (just like it was for The Tragically Hip).

When we arrived, I noticed that I was taller than most people, which reminded me of a No Doubt show that I went to years ago. Basically, I seemed older than pretty much anybody else.

The support act was Evaline. They certainly had a lot of energy on stage. The drummer was impressive, and the singer loved to jump everywhere, especially on top of his keyboard. I’m impressed by how much weight a keyboard stand is apparently able to handle. Anyway, their music was not bad, but I guess that it was not quite my cup of tea.

Then Placebo came on stage. They mainly played songs from Meds, but also played older songs such as Without You I’m Nothing, and even songs from the first album such as Bionic or I Know.

However, I can’t say that I have been impressed by their performance. Yes, Brian Molko was sweaty, but it was not so different from listening to the CDs at home. Basically, they didn’t move very much on stage. I had the feeling that Stefan Olsdal was thinking: OK, during this song, why don’t I tryi to be on the front right of the stage for a change? And there was hardly any communication with the audience other than a How the fuck are you San Francisco?

So I’m a little disappointed by this show, and considering that my interest in Placebo is from 10 years ago, and that most people around me might have been in their early twenties, maybe you should stop listening to Placebo when you reach 30.

I have a bunch of photos on Flickr. I also have a couple of videos that I’ll put online as soon as I figure out how to download an 8.1MB video from it when 8MB is the limit for files sent via Bluetooth or get Missing Sync’s media conduit to work.

One thing that I really like about having lived in several different countries is that I have been exposed to a lot of different music, and that great artists that everybody knows in certain places are sometimes completely unknown in others. This has allowed me to see Ani DiFranco in a venue of at most 200 people in Paris, Ben Harper in a small club in Cambridge, etc.

Yesterday night, I was introduced to the Fillmore, which fits about 1000 people I’d say, to see The Tragically Hip, which is a massively popular Canadian rock band… in Canada. Gerald had taken me to one of their shows years ago. Since then, I’ve been listening to The Hip.

It was pretty much the same crowd: I was surrounded by Canadians. Some came all the way from Calgary in order to see The Hip play in such a small venue.

The support act was great. The Sadies put up a great show. They somewhat reminded me of Tarnation, but with a “rockier” sound, if that says anything to somebody else. They’re themselves Canadian, and who knows when I’ll have a chance to see them again, but I’m definitely going to get some of their CDs.

Then The Hip did a great performance. As I often realize, I appreciate a concert much better when I’m close (I remember not fully appreciating PJ Harvey at the Zénith in Paris, while I loved the bootleg I got of the show). Here I was at the second row, and I was able to witness the energy that Gord Downie puts into the show.

He basically doesn’t hold back. His shirt was soaking wet after the second song. He broke a guitar string during the second song, jumped all over the place for 1h45, gave away guitar picks, broken strings, towels, his microphone stand (yes, you read well). It basically was one of the best shows I had seen in a while.

The setlist is available in the HipBase forum. I have some photos on Flickr. And I tried to take a video of Blow at High Dough as you can see below:

I edited out the audio, as it was horrible, and you could not even recognize a melody. The result, without the sound isn’t great. You can watch the whole song on YouTube from another concert.

After a great performance, we were given when we exited the venue a pretty big poster for the concert, made of very thick paper. All I can say is that The Hip gives you plenty for your money, and even more. Don’t miss them.

Vendredi soir, je suis allé à l’Européen voir Ariane Moffatt et BABX. L’Européen est vraiment une salle très plaisante et intime. J’y avais déjà vu Ani DiFranco il y a 3 ans presque jour pour jour, et j’avais été enchanté de l’expérience.

J’ai été vraiment impressioné par Ariane Moffatt. D’une part, je trouve sa musique très plaisante. D’autre part, il semble que cette fille sait tout faire, et tout faire bien : chanter, jouer du piano, de la guitare, de la batterie. Je dois avouer que j’ai été bluffé par sa performance à la batterie. Sa prestation s’est terminée par La Bonne Étoile avec Mathieu Chédid, une version d’une bonne dizaine de minutes à en avoir des frissons. C’était amusant que voir M dans une si petite salle.

La deuxième partie du concert avec BABX était également très bien. J’ai adoré la plupart de leurs chansons, et eu plus de mal avec d’autres, comme On s’amuse. J’ai trouvé la musique de ce groupe très rafraichissante et diversifiée, oscillant entre le jazz et le rock.

Bref, deux artistes que je recommande chaudement.

Des photos sont disponibles sur le blog de Temoicka.

While reading what other people thought of the concerts of dEUS this week in Paris, I discovered, thanks to Isabelle, a fabulous series of photos from the night I saw them.

I would really like to how he manages to get such great pictures at shows. It probably involves a deep knowledge of photography, a lot of talent, and expensive equipment.

As a comparison, my own photos of live music shows are actually not even comparable. Though I did make some progress if you compare my laughable first attempt at capturing a live show in concert venues 6 years ago to more recent attempts (e.g. L2W or Jean-Louis Aubert).

Robert Gil’s photos are really amazing.

On Tuesday, I went to see dEUS at Le Cabaret Sauvage.

It was my first time at the Cabaret Sauvage. It is a great venue: small, and cool looking. It feels really special.

The show itself was great. I was somewhat disappointed when I went to see their private concert at the Grand Rex back in November, but I think that I understand better why. While the Grand Rex is not a very large venue, when only 100 people are in it, it’s hard to really get into the songs. Also, the show wasn’t very long, so it did not feel complete.

Anyway, at the Cabaret Sauvage, the venue was packed, the concert lasted 2 hours, the setlist was not truncated, and it was great. I assume that the band had as much of a good time as the audience did, as they came back on stage for 2 songs after their first encore, while the instruments were unplugged, the amps turned off, and the lights turned back on. It was pretty funny to see Tom Barman saying Merde ! Merde ! repeatedly as he was failing to tune his guitar when he came back.

The new guy on the guitar, Mauro Pawlowski, is growing on me. Yes, he is not very demonstrative on stage, but he plays well, and his way to deal with song requests while Tom Barman was tuning his guitar was pretty funny, answering each request with a straight face saying Yes, That one too, etc.

A couple of times, I saw Tom Barman somewhat upset with Stéphane Misseghers on the drums, as if he had not done the right thing. It was a little weird.

The one negative point of the evening was that the bass coming from the speakers was way too loud. It hurt some songs in my opinion, by covering over instruments in quiet moments and saturating.

Here’s the setlist, from mickygogo:

bad timing
stop start nature
nightshopping
instant street
fell on the floor man
real sugar
worst case scenario
sun rah
turnpike
nothing really ends
put the freaks up front
little arithmetics
what we talk about
roses
suds soda

pocket revolution
iydgwyw

via
magic hour

Hier soir, Laurent de Wilde était au New Morning pour deux concerts. Tout d’abord une partie acoustique avec le Laurent de Wilde Trio, puis une partie électro avec Laurent de Wilde Organics.

J’ai beaucoup aimé Laurent de Wilde Trio. Laurent de Wilde au piano, Darryl Hall à la contrebasse, et Laurent Robin à la batterie ont notamment joué des morceaux d’électro-jazz de manière acoustique, et je dois dire que j’ai été emballė. Comme le dit Laurent de Wilde sur son blog, ils préparent un album pour fin avril qui promet.

J’ai notamment beaucoup aimé leurs improvisations sur Quiet, Not Quite. Cela m’a rappelé un peu la façon dont dEUS, dans un style complètement différent, arrive à bousculer une mélodie dans une chanson qu’on aurait pu croire prévisible (comme Let’s Get Lost ou Little Arithmetics).
La deuxième partie de soirée a été beaucoup plus remuante avec Laurent de Wilde Organics. J’avoue avoir moins apprécié la partie électro, le tempo étant parfois un peu trop rapide à mon goût. Ceci dit, je suis encore un néophite en la matière, et mon oreille va surement évolué. Julien m’a également fait remarqué qu’un concert d’électro assis n’est pas vraiment idéal.

En tout cas, un très bon moment. Et en bonus, les musiciens avaient demandé aux spectateurs de ne pas fumer. Un concert sans cigarettes, le rêve !

J’ai pris quelques photos du concert.

Pour une fois, une entrée en français.

Je suis allé voir Cali à l’Olympia mercredi soir.

Il y a un peu plus d’un an, j’avais vu Cali au Bataclan, heureux comme un gamin sur scène, allant dans la foule, et je me suis dit : dès qu’il sera une star, ca sera fini tout ça.

Un an et demi plus tard, dans une salle plus grande, sur des béquilles parce qu’il s’était bousillé le ménisque, Bruno Caliciuri était toujours là avec un plaisir visible, toujours ébahi et joyeux par la communion avec le public, sautant sur une jambe partout pendant 2h30, et se faisant porter par la foule dans toute la salle, jusque tout en haut du balcon, sans passer par les escaliers.

Les versions live de ses chansons sont superbes, et l’ambiance qu’il met dans la salle est magnifique. Bref, un concert de Cali, c’est vraiment génial, et on a vraiment l’impression de vivre une aventure avec le groupe plutot que de simplement regarder des musiciens jouer de la bonne musique.

On a également eu droit à trois invités surprise : Steve Wickham, Daniel Darc et Mathieu Chedid. Bref, une excellente soirée.