Last night was an interesting night in Houston. Some guy decided that
he was not giving up his space at the front so he promptly decided to just
whip it out and piss all over the floor, which promptly splashed all
over people to much of their disgust. That event alone is enough to
inspire a scrunched up face but soon after that some girl decided she wasn't
giving up her spot and proceeded to take her empty cup and relieve herself,
maybe that would have been OK but she then decided to call it beer and offer
it to her fellow concert goers. Now this was before Karen O and Crew
even came out on stage so you know that wasn't going to be the end of it and
it wasn't as some guys standing next to me decided they were going to start
cursing and hitting each other during the last song of the night.
Yeah, the night was weird but the show was great and that is all that
matters.
Imaad Wassif
I thought there were only going to be two bands but about 8:30 PM this
extremely skinny man strolled out on stage with an acoustic guitar and
played a very nice 25 minute set. I initially missed his name because
he seemed more geared to have people call him hippie but it turns out that
his name is actually Imaad Wassif. After Imaad's set he disappeared
and then showed up later in the night and added some support to the YYYs
sound, specifically the songs from Show Your Bones.
Ex Models
I was only lightly familiar with the Ex Models' material and I knew that it
was going to be a chaotic time but I wasn't expecting to see a mix of six
minute songs accompanied by 40 second thrash mini-songs. I can't
complain though as they were pretty entertaining. Jump over to their
Myspace to hear some of their special brand
of music.
Yeah Yeah Yeahs
Due to the fact that I have seen the Tell Me What Rockers To Swallow
DVD so many times I kind of felt like I had actually seen the band play
before last night. Outside of feeling that way I was pretty enthused
to be hearing their songs live for the first time yet despite my excitement
I was worried that the show was going to be a pretty average affair. A
friend of mine had seen them in Dallas on Friday and told me that they only
played about 45 minutes and to add to that I had heard that the band was
playing a set full of songs from Show Your Bones and not much else.
I am not sure what was going on elsewhere but that is not what the crowd got
in Houston. The set was a nice mix of Fever To Tell and Show
Your Bones and while I was surprised to not hear anything from the
Bang! EP I wasn't disappointed. I very much loved that they opened
with my favorite song off their new album, Phenomena, and as expected
the highlight of the night was Maps. The YYY's were also on the
stage about an hour before taking a quick break and coming back for an
encore in which they played The Poor Song and Y Control (the
encore is not on the set list).
The thing that gets me the most is that is was very evident that the crowd
was there just to watch Karen O. Generally sold out shows like this
involve a lot pushing and crowd surfing but every time I glanced back
expecting to see a boot all I saw were thousands of eyes following the
ever-moving front woman. I think it shows how fantastic and
captivating she is and in my opinion that is hard to pull off with such a
big audience. In fact it was a little weird to actually see it done
because way back in 2003 when I saw The White Stripes I was expecting a show
full of people there just to watch Jack White but instead I felt like I was
stuck in a riot. Whenever I could take my eyes off Karen I was treated
to some nice showmanship from Nick, Brian, and Imaad. Nick doesn't
smile much and then when he pops up in front of you and blinds you with the
flash from his camera it is kind of weird but he was more energetic then I
thought he would be. Brian was all smiles the entire show and I would
be too if I was sitting back there banging away and watching a crowd full of
lunatics screaming and crying. Imaad was my favorite though because
every time he did not play a large role in a song he would just sit on the
ground and rock back in forth in a way that made me think he had escaped
from a mental facility, of course that could have been because of his orange
jump suit.
All in all I had a good time at the show and I was pleasantly surprised by
the band, especially after some of the negative things that I had heard
leading up to last night. I am not sure I will ever make the effort to
get out and see them again given that I generally steer clear of shows with
thousands of people but I just might have too so that I can experience
Maps live as many times as I can before I die or the band breaks up.
-
John Laird -
Unless
otherwise expressly stated, all text in this blog and any
related pages, including the blog's archives, is licensed by
John Laird under a
Creative Commons License.
