archGFX

current tune: prefuse73/the books - pagina dos

i don't normally take pictures at shows, but since i already had my camera out to take a picture of the jesus, i snapped a couple of death from above's semi-headlining set at intonation fest.

melanie and i rode our new bikes (pictures later) over to union park on saturday, just in time to catch four tet's set while we stood in line for will call, entry, and the ATM. not that we missed much by not standing near the stage. four tet was sort of the epitomy of why not to bother seeing electronic music performed. 1 guy with a laptop in front of a thousand people who aren't really sure how to dance to what they're hearing. reminds me of ben's story of seeing aphex twin, who came out and put his "set" on the record player, and proceeded to sit in a recliner on stage.
this is not to say four tet's set was bad; there was a lot of cool improvisation (she moves she clocked in somewhere around 15 minutes long) and forays into noise. but it's definately not something you need to stand in the sun on a 90 degree day for. tapers exist to decrease the suffering for the rest of us.
after hydrating and finding some friends, we found our way to the front for prefuse73. prefuse was exactly the opposite. yes, he had a laptop, but he also had at least one and occasionally 2 live drummers, as well as a couple other electronic colaborators so that all of them were free to dance and enjoy themselves. the set sounded fantastic, and had a lot more groove than comes across on any of his recorded material.
which is to say, there was much dancing in the crowd.
the end of (our) night was death from above 1979. It was a good show, they played about half new stuff, half stuff from "you're a woman, i'm a machine". the sound wasn't the greatest, owing to the difficulties involved with mic-ing a drummer that sings, but it definately rocked. even jesus said so.
we skipped out on tortoise, as i've seen them before, and we had to get up in the morning. i don't know if had we stayed we would have seen will oldham join them onstage*, but it wouldn't have been worth missing great america in the morning for.

*will oldham was dj-ing earlier in the day. we stopped by for 0.37 seconds, but weren't impressed enough to stay. will oldham and tortoise are coming out with a covers album together soon, which is why i thought they might team up on stage.