350 words on Live
After a day of taking advantage of Dan’s Windows computer to do some web design stuff (you know, once IE/Win isn’t just an abstract mystery but something you can play with, it considerably easier to handle) we were in to see another gig. It consisted of three bands making noise in a basement beneath a restaurant. The venue was actually quite cool – really tiny with people sitting on the floor. But unfortunately the music wasn’t.
The first guy just played a single circa twenty minute song which started with some bits of harmonica playing that were kept echoing through the system throughout even when he started adding rather – erm – ‘abstract’ distorted guitar noises on top of it which were echoed as well. In total it sounded like something that’s much more enjoyable to play, meditate and consume drugs to than it is for listening to. And while it was unclear what the benefit of that was, we were happy to see that the guy actually tuned his guitar before taking us on that ‘journey’.
Next up was another guy who basically sat on the floor in front of a tape machine (proper reels!). I have to admit I have very little respect for people who bring machines on stage that handle 80% of the music making. I just fail to see the point of that. It didn’t help that the guy hadn’t cued the tape up to the right place before starting – and I couldn’t help thinking that simply using a CD player (which he seemed to do later on anyway) would’ve made things much easier.
Finally the main attraction, an American duo in a similar setup, came on stage. More playing music from tape and bending a body around the guitar more than actually playing it. People who like it will surely note that I’m missing the point… but I just didn’t like it too much and thought it was boring and not having a clear direction.
And I shouldn’t even start writing about the audience, numerous members of which were hippiesquely bearded and overweight…