:: a.whisper.in.water ::

:: Sunday, September 19, 2004 ::

[ a bold new step in becoming yet more irritating about music ]

I'm afraid I'm in New York City, and thusly away from my concert-napkins, but to actually relay the song-by-song detail would be ponderous for all parties involved. The overall experience of hearing M83 play their instruments live was most enjoyable, though rather tainted by their tardiness; in one of the night's more absurd moments, one of the representatives from the club ("Beyond" was its name, for the outgoing and curious alike) trotted out from inside and apologized to the massing crowd of dutifully-waiting hipsters for the delay: M83 had "missed their plane to America." It definitely warranted a perpetual smirk from Lewis Sam, and me. We did, however, meet a senior from Drexel by the name of Samantha: an Econ major, somewhat normal, if decidedly pleasant company. By evening's end, she'd had a number of drinks, and merrily pointed to each of us and correctly identified us in parting, proving not only her superiority at the name game, but also her distinct lack of sobriety at that point in time. Rock on, Samantha-from-Drexel.

The opening act was one of the worst live performances I've had the displeasure of seeing, not because the music itself was disappointing, but because the mode of performance was profoundly lame. The act consisted of an extremely French-looking fellow (early balding patterns, clad in all black, save for a flamboyant neckerchief, and just plain French-looking) at a keyboard running through a Powerbook with flowers scrawled on the back. The fellow basically just played music off his computer and banged along on an organ to negligible effect: the few times he stopped his theatrical Stevie Wonder-keyboarding to twiddle knobs, the music essentially didn't change. MAYBE a peripheral ambient synth sound dropped out, maybe not; his music was filled with them.

Honestly, his music wasn't that bad. It was a bit doofy, since it was largely recycled big-beat style breaks and bass with heavy (though admittedly well-done) synthstrings, but not bereft of merit. I'd want him to produce my first post-rock/dreampop album, but I wouldn't buy his own music. Midway through his set, I had scrawled on my hand: "Dreamtronika [a genre name I invented to describe the following sound, also scrawled on my hand]: Ambient gay French FATBOY SLIM." While that handily described the song of the moment, most of the rest sounded like a spaced-out bastardization of U2's "Mofo," if that makes sense to anyone but me. Lewis and I marked ourselves as the heckler-assholes that ruin your concert-going experience by clapping along a lá Tony Basil’s “Hey Mickey” and exchanging disapproving looks about 12 feet from this guy. It’s not like he couldn’t see us; we just didn’t care. He had a lot to make up for, given how late the show started, and his completely spiritless live performance fell utterly flat, despite any quality present in the pre-recorded music he played. On his fucking defaced Powerbook, no less. The twat.

M83 themselves weren’t bad, though they didn’t escape the casual boneheaded intro-French-level remark from a few culturally-insensitive douchebags who were savvy enough to know that they were French, but dumb enough to “hon-hon-hon” about it, like the fucking chef from The Little Mermaid who sings that bizarre, quasi-romantic song to/about the dead fish he was soon to prepare, along with Sebastian, provided Sebastian wasn’t a sassy-as-sin crab from de islands, mon (which he clearly was). What a good scene.

While they played a variety of their catalogue, both familiar and previously-unheard (by me, at least) they tended to fit the general pattern of starting off songs in a somewhat flaccid fashion, then redeeming themselves with a blistering chorus. While the album showcased their abilities to layer simple-sounding synths to create a lush, Shoegaze-invoking sound (hence: my personal pet genre-name, Synthgaze), their live show mostly involved them playing a (mostly) tight rock show along with a stripped-down recording of main synth lines. Again: a bit of karaoke syndrome, but they were far too entertaining for it to matter. On an odd note, the frontman was wearing an Aerosmith T-shirt, which caught me very much off-guard: Aerosmith is an unambiguously passé washed-up collection of cock rockers; M83 is an up-and-coming innovative ensemble of Frenchmen with a good sense of blending lush ambience and heavy distorted guitars. Blew my mind, in a tiny little way.

As they took the stage, I leaned over to Lewis and called the opening shot: “Unrecorded.” Fifteen seconds later, the very same song rumbled from the club’s speakers, presenting me with yet another opportunity to smile a knowing smile and wonder whether or not I’m psychic, or simply a clever little snot. I didn’t recognize a fair amount of what they played, which is reasonable, given that I’ve only heard one of their two albums, but most of what I heard was solid. The major disappointment of the set was a poorly-arranged version of “Cyborg” that never broke into its soaring album-peak, and instead danced awkwardly around the tinny, bouncy saw organ line that does, indeed, evoke robots. However, the unsupported organ line sounded cheap and gimmicky, and was allowed to ramble for far too long at both the song’s start and its conclusion. Their take of “Gone,” however, was well-executed, if a bit odd in its live treatment. “In America” rocked hard and remorselessly, as it does on the album, only with much more guitar in the mix. A solid encore of “Noise” sent us home with ringing ears and gleeful hearts, though the highlight of the set was a searing rendition of “0078h,” with a heartwarming “Run Into Flowers” as a close second. It’s no small wonder those are the two singles from the album (Dead Cities, Red Seas, & Lost Ghosts), which I’d gladly send anyone’s way, upon request.

Then, after missing the last R5 AND the last R100 out of Philly, we caught a ride with Leah, getting us home at the tragically-late hour of 2:30. Fucking “plane to America.” However, in spite of the evening’s being mired with logistical mishaps and casual disappointments, the concert was time decidedly well-spent.

As far as life’s concerned, that’ll have to wait. It’s 4 a.m., and Jenn’s sleeping behind me, awaiting snugglage. It’s one more day of joyous New York City, then back to trying to jump-start my semester. Bleeding hell, huh?

:: Aziz 4:13 AM [+] ::
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