Fangirls On The Road, Day One : OK Go at the TLA, Philly, 3/6/09

Hello, all (those of you that are reading this, anyway). Again, sorry for the lack of serious posts - I've been superlazy as of late about actually sitting down and listening/paying attention to stuff.

Anyway, don't really expect any "serious" updates for the next week or so, either. My friend Rachel and I are currently embarking on what she likes to call a "fangirly roadtrip extravaganza!" and I'm just calling "we're following OK Go around on their tour for a week." Yessir, we are.


Your guides, Katy and Rachel.

So for the next seven days or so, expect updates from up and down the east coast as we follow those former-treadmill kids as they get their bums back onstage with some new songs (finally).

Day One : Philly

Let's meet our players.




Oppenheimer

Oppenheimer are from Ireland, or so I've heard (and their accent pretty much confirms that). I've actually wanted to write about these dudes for a while, as I saw them open for TMBG at the TLA over a year ago and was really taken by their set, but obviously that didn't happen. I will do that eventually, once I get to hear them a few times and pick up their record. Suffice to say that they were adorable onstage, with poppy, short songs (which is good, as I generally have the attention span of a gnat), filled with robot-voiced synthesizers and broken drum sticks and an airhorn solo. (Yes, an airhorn solo.) I'm excited to see these guys several times over; I think the crowd, mainly made up of pubescent girls, appreciated them.


Longwave

I've met various members of Longwave at varying points in time, but have never actually seen the band live. They were short guitarist Shannon, because, as frontman Steve put it, "He's going to be a daddy any second now." Aww. Friend Keith joined them on guitar as well. A much slower, more rock-oriented set than the one before, I'm not sure it caught on quite as well with the teenies and fangirls, but Steve is wicked adorable and I sort of just want to hug him a lot for that.







OK Go

I've written about OK Go several times before, about how I was super-into them a few years ago and now, not so much, partly because, I dunno', I maybe grew up a bit, partly 'cause I was a little bored. Ya' know, the usual. A band you love doesn't do anything new for a while, and you start to move on to greener pastures.

I think I'm sort of in love with them again. It was patently the opening night of the tour, with mistakes like frontman Damian fucking up the lyrics to his own songs and one Andy Ross breaking the gavel to his tubular bells. There were also a whole bunch of new instruments and gimmicks, such as the aforementioned bells, a large bass drum, handbells (poorest technique ever, but I was in handbell choir in college, so I appreciated it), and a double-necked guitar. And it was sort of difficult to determine where in the set we were - is this the middle? The end? The fake end? The encore? What's going on next? They were trying everything out, so. Understandable.

All of that aside, the new cache of songs sounds phenomenal. Somebody's been listening to Prince a lot, I can tell you that. But more than that, they are somehow much more...emotional. Damian, God bless him, seems to have turned down the "sexy rockstar" thing a bit in favour of a more humanised version of himself, something which, judging by the solo love song he played (and pleaded with his bandmates to keep on the record), seems to have a lot to do with being married for going on three years now. And that's refreshing and interesting to see. Bringing in a whole new set of odd instruments can seem gimmicky and then just pretentious if not done right (indeed, I said to Rachel, "If none of this works out, I'm gonna' laugh." Sorry, lads.), but they did play them right, in the right amounts, for the right songs at the right times. That takes planning and thinking.

Also, I'm definitely past the "droool" phase, but man, if that "I want you so bad I can't breathe" song didn't make me fucking weak in the knees.

So am I excited? Yes. Very. It's a step in a very good direction for them, and I'm eager to see how the rest of this test run goes. Fingers crossed for them.


More pictures are here.

It's like I'm a sophomore again : OK Go announces March '09 east coast tour.

The Paradise, Boston, 1/06

Indulge my past fangirl sensibilities, please. OK Go has just gone and announced a handful of east coast tour dates for next March, which probably means a (series of) full-fledged tour(s) is also at hand sometime in the near future. And because they've been making a new record, that means they'll be playing new material as well, which is a relief, because their sets started sounding like CDs to me and that's never good.

Dates as follows:

6 March 2009 - Theatre of the Living Arts - Philadelphia, PA
7 March 2009 - Recher Theatre - Towson, MD
8 March 2009 - Music Hall of Williamsburg - Brooklyn, NY
10 March 209 - Toad's Place - New Haven, CT
11 March 2009 - Pearl St. (upstairs, I'm assuming) - Northampton, MA
12 March 2009 - Paradise - Boston, MA

But I really just want to squee on about how they're playing Pearl St. again. I'm not at Smith anymore, but hell if I won't be there.

Here's a video of them playing some new stuff:

You're older than you've ever been, and now you're even older: They Might Be Giants at the TLA, Philly, 24/11/07

My 22nd/golden birthday wasn't particularly fabulous.

Well, my birthday itself fell on Thanksgiving, for the first time since I turned 16, and T-day itself was fine. You know, the same crazy family get-together sort of thing where you all yell at each other over plane tickets and the expiration date on a jar of salsa. Good to know all is normal and well and that the planet is still spinning on its axis.

But through an unlucky set of circumstances, the partying-that-was-to-be on Friday night didn't happen because, well. Apparently nobody could/wanted to take me out for my birthday. Hmph.

Luckily, my friend Rachel and her husband were super-sweet and decided that not going out for my birthday was silly, and so took me to see They Might Be Giants on Saturday night, for which I am eternally grateful.

I'm not super-familiar with They Might Be Giants' discography. I only have four of their songs on my iTunes, three of which because they have been, at one time or another, covered by OK Go, and the other because, well, who doesn't like "Istanbul"? Luckily, TMBG is not one of those bands where you have to know every word to every song to have a good time.

The night was filled with all the antics that you might expect from John and John and their band (and the Hornblow kids in general): stagehands in uniform, dancing, confetti, foam fingers, accordion, horn, bass drum, witty banter ("TELL ME, DO YOU LOVE THE FUZZ BASS??" "Most of you probably think of Michigan as just a mitten, but in fact, there are thousands and thousands of miles that they forgot to call Canada!"), and funny lyrics, as well as some good old improv-jamming that stayed rockin' without ever wandering into that weird prog rock territory (*shiver*). Every musician up on that stage deserved to be up there. And it was nice to finally go to a show where the average audience member wasn't 16. (Also worth noting was that the night's set was divided in two, with a twenty-minute intermission. Which was curious and unexplained, but welcome, since it gave Rachel and me the opportunity to squeeze closer to the stage.)

The most super-thrilling show I've ever been to? No, not really. (In fact, it somehow managed to be rocking and danceable while maintaining a thoroughly laid-back feel.) But a very good time was had by all, I can assure you.

My decent pictures:








This is the dance for the TLA song that TMBG composed especially for that concert. See what I mean about uniforms and dancing? Rachel and I were ready to yell out, "Mike Kent! Are you there?!"






This is not a good picture, but it is a picture of Neil. Neil is the sound guy, and John called him out on talking to him via their silly headphone things and ruining his train of thought, so for the next song, he had Neil play the sleigh bells. Later on, John was directing people when to play, and during a silence, someone yelled out, "NEIL!" and Neil played his sleigh bells.




"Praise the Drum God! He's ripping his shit for you!"


More (and bigger sizes) here, if you care.


And here's a video of the TLA song for your enjoyment:



More videos can be found here.