Posted: Tue.,
Apr. 17, 2012 04:44:45 AM MST
I thought I was
going to be crushed at the David Guetta show.
And I wasn’t even
in the tent.
Happened to me once
before, decades back, at a Chambers Brothers show in Boston Common. My feet left
the ground, I was being held up by bodies, somehow I squirmed my way to the
right and was ejected from the scrum.
And I’ve never
forgotten it.
On Saturday I saw
too many bands giving good performances of mediocre material, and one band with
great material that was so long in the tooth it was creepy, and an acoustic act
that was as out of place as a Muslim at a Bar Mitzvah. But on my way to the
Sahara tent I encountered Kasabian. They
reaffirmed my optimism. They were good.
You can tell when
an act has that little something extra.
But minutes before
Kasabian left the stage, the swarm started to move. That’s what it was, like
endless gnats moving to the Sahara
tent.
I moved too, but
got so frightened of being caught in the mass of bodies that I stayed outside
the tent, where I was still being bumped into and twirled like a top. Guetta
eventually featured Usher, but by that time I was gone. The patrons kept
streaming in, I wanted out.
And then there was
that Canadian singer, with a bunch of extra players on stage. She was
charismatic, merging with her guitar, but once again, the material was
disappointing.
And then I saw Bon
Iver.
To say this guy and
his band were great would be an understatement, they were
TRANSCENDENT!
Incredibly
well-rehearsed.
But most
importantly, they sounded completely different from every other act on the bill.
They were a party of one. I couldn’t take my eyes off
them.
In a sea of
mediocrity, excellence stands out.
Oh, what the hell,
let me start naming names.
Grace Potter and
the Nocturnals. If she doesn’t get your willy moving, you’re gay (not that
there’s anything wrong with that!) The sound was impeccable, the solos were
good, and the material was so damn mediocre that she could close nobody,
applause was minimal. And when AWOLNATION started up on the main stage, I gave
up. That’s one of the problems at Coachella, sound bleed. It’s a war of who can
turn up their amps louder. And if you think this is appealing, you’re
deaf.
How about
tUnE-yArDs? Great on paper, decent on YouTube and so out there live that almost
no one clapped. We were all shaking our heads. I couldn’t find one person she
impressed.
The aforementioned
AWOLNATION was loud and that’s it. The less said the
better.
Kaiser Chiefs were
in the wrong location, maybe the wrong era. In the bright California sunshine,
their music didn’t penetrate. I loved hearing "I Predict A Riot", but the
audience was near somnambulant.
Noel Gallagher’s
High Flying Birds…
Who gives a
shit.
Smart guy, good
guitar player, sub-mediocre voice. The more you listen, the more you miss Liam.
I know Liam’s insane, but that doesn’t mean he’s not
necessary.
Buzzcocks?
Noise.
And with so much
more noise coming from every other stage, the cacophony made me want to move on,
which I did.
Laura
Marling?
Why don’t you whip
out your guitar at the baseball game? She was so out of place, so overwhelmed by
sound bleed as to be irrelevant.
Squeeze?
Positively creepy.
I’d hate to be an over-the-hill rock band. People remember your hits, want to
hear nothing new and you play to an ever-dwindling audience, unable to give up
because you were someone once. It hurts, I know. I loved hearing "Tempted", but
the first part of the show was material I never need to hear again, and if you
think they were good, you still believe your grandma is a
hottie.
Shins?
I’ll admit they
were decent, but I never got in front of the stage. You’ve got to eat sometime,
and go to the car for more clothes.
Feist?
I wanted to love
her. Up close and personal her complexion was less than perfect, she can really
wail on the guitar, she closed me, she’s a rock star, but the longer I stood
there the more the material washed off of me. She had everything but the
hits.
And I’d like to
explain what made Kasabian so damn good, but you know music, it’s like
pornography, you know greatness when you see it.
And I didn’t think
David Guetta was great. But there was no denying he had the audience in the palm
of his hand.
As for the
headliner, Radiohead… They made a crucial mistake. Trying to be unique, they
refused to use the giant video screens on each side of the stage. Instead, we
were subjected to their own tiny floating screens over the stage. Very cool.
Excellent in theatres. But if you’re playing to tens of thousands, it just
doesn’t translate. The problem with Radiohead? You just couldn’t see
them!
And they were so
boring at first, they lost fifteen or twenty percent of their audience, they
just drifted off to Kaskade.
As did
I.
The Sahara tent was full. There were incredible pink effects.
There was an energy absent from the Radiohead show.
Oh, I went back to
see Thom Yorke, et al. They played a few numbers I was familiar with. But
really, they’re a band for fans only. If you’re not one, you’re not gonna be
closed.
Which brings us
back to Bon Iver…
Talk about
overhyped! Every hipster in America is testifying about
him.
Furthermore, the
press fawns.
But he was
everything we’re looking for, completely special without trying too
hard.
He looks like a guy
from your math class. His chest is not ripped and his hair is getting thin. But
boy could he wring ethereal effects from his
guitar.
And there was brass
and backup vocals and the end result was an aural tapestry you couldn’t help but
weave yourself into. What Justin Vernon was selling you can’t get at the movies,
you can’t read in a book, it’s the essence of
music.
Sure, he’s got a
nontraditional voice. But so does Neil Young.
And Neil’s a good
comparison. Because both he and Mr. Vernon go their own way, obey their own
muse, are unaffected by both trends and media
feedback.
Once upon a time,
in the era of classic rock, the superstars sounded nothing
alike.
But today,
everybody fits into a slot. You rarely hear something new. And if you do, it’s
not infectious.
But Bon Iver
was.
And I realize Bon
Iver is not EDM ("electronic dance music" for the uninitiated). But if you want
to survive the deejay onslaught, that’s what you’ve got to be, different,
unique, special.
Forget the TV
competition shows. That’s like watching Little
League.
Forget Top Forty
radio. That’s old men doing it without emotion for the bucks. Breaking rules is
anathema.
If you’re not
willing to risk everything, without complaint, if you’re not willing to go your
own way, you’re just not gonna make it, not in today’s
market.
Come on Grace
Potter, write one irresistible song! We don’t want to sleep with airheads, not
more than once!
Feist…stop being so
precious!
Noel Gallagher…
Either form a band with Axl Rose or get back together with your brother,
otherwise we just don’t care.
We live in an era
where all that matters is excellence. And this is especially true at a festival
like Coachella. When put next to great, good just fades away, we’re not
interested.
If you can’t blow
people away, if you’re not the cat’s meow, you’re better off avoiding the
festival, you’re just gonna look small and
irrelevant.
But if you can
wring a magic sound from your instrument, if you can make us believe this moment
is all that matters, if you can make the rest of the world fall away, getting us
to concentrate only on you…
Then we’re all
ears.
Article off www.celebrityaccess.com
