Now What?

I finally exhausted that massive pile of tickets for concerts. It was a long, exhausting, and satisfying ride and although I was showing up to many concerts completely out of energy, the experience was far more than worth it.

9-22-08 Raconteurs, Greek Theatre

I loved the Greek, the feeling of being out in the middle of the wilderness even though you're right by Los Feliz and not far from LA. Being surrounded by trees and showing up to a concert right as the sun is setting made me nostalgic for all those bowl concerts. Every seat is pretty decent and the sound was just perfect. I also loved making the long walk up the hill to the venue all the way from Los Feliz Blvd.

As for the show, the Raconteurs were very entertaining. Jack White is a freaking giant. Between the wilderness-feeling setting of the Greek and the Raconteurs heartlandish songs, I felt so far from home and I was loving it.

10-2-08 My Bloody Valentine, Santa Monica Civic Auditorium

The venue in itself just screamed that it was something out of the late 50's that would begrudingly continue to exist and stubbornly refuse to age well. It has quite a history to it and some legendary concerts have existed there, but my god does it look old. But hey at least it was very close to home. The shoegaze that was about to take place transcended this old place anyway.

The security at the doors was very insistant in making sure everyone had a pair of free earplugs. I thought it was a nice gesture but later on I'd learn why they did this.

I was very excited to see Spacemen 3 open up. I'd seen Spiritualized perform before Nick Cave several weeks ago, which is nearly the same band. I was not expecting to hear Transparent Radiation, I absolutely love that song and its spacey, simplistic, distorted riffs and I hadn't given it a listen in years.

When My Bloody Valentine hit the stage they blew us all away with I Only Said from Loveless, with the volume cranked waaaay up and a great light show and massive art-house projection to accompany the music. It was quite an amazing spectacle, everyone's seats were shaking from the sound nearly the entire time, and the massive crowd on the floor below just stood below in a tranquil stupor, entranced by the distortion pedals and effects switches and peaceful dissonance being thrown their way.

The huge projector really added to the whole experience, it was a great finishing touch on this masterpiece of a concert. When they finally were wrapping up their set, there was a 15 to 20 minute pause before the finale where the audience was just blasted with a tsunami of sound. I'd read some reports that it hit nearly 128 decibels, it sounded like several jetfighters ready to take off. Without the earplugs so insistently handed out on the way in, I wonder if this really could have been the end of my concertgoing and music listening?

The entire time, the huge screen in the front was playing some beautiful projection that made this whole thing seem like the journey beyond the infinite from 2001: A Space Odyssey, and by the time we reached the end the band just played about 30 seconds more of the end of the song as if nothing happened.