Lollapalooza: Day 2 Highlights

So many bands, so little time – it was the best type of endurance test!  Here are Eleven’s Lolla Day 2 highlights:

(more…)

This entry was written by Jonathan Fritz, posted on August 16, 2010 at 6:57 pm, filed under Live and tagged , , , , , , , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Forecastle: Day Three

Our third day started off on a detour into the greater city area—it would be important, of course, for us to sample some local flavor (as well as catch the World Cup Finale).  Yelp led us to the Zeppelin Café, where we sampled Pretzel Bread and Beer Cheese, and to our surprise, picked up some remnants of a local St. Louis icon.

With the cup awarded, we made our way back to catch Forecastle’s Grand Finale.  Any of the triumvirate of She & Him, Spoon, and The Flaming Lips are big enough to headline a festival day on their own (some of them already are); catching them back-to-back would surely be a treat.

Up first was She & Him, who dazzled the crowd with their usual pop-fueled fare.  M. Ward showed the crowd that there’s plenty you can do with a beer bottle when you’re not drinking from it.

In the layover time that followed, we decided to check out Forecastle’s elusive North Stage, nestled among the trees and overlooking the water.  We caught the Ravenna Colt, an indie band who we found to be a terrific pairing for an hour of lazing about in the grass.

Who knew that between Ravenna Colt and Spoon, we’d run into Avatar?

As 10:00 approached, design disaster struck again.  Billed at the Sustainable Living Roadshow was a showing of the Flaming Lips’ documentary, Christmas on Mars—yet nobody anywhere seemed to have any idea as to where the viewing might actually take place.  Eleven took advantage of the mass confusion and nestled in close to the stage for the Flaming Lips’ set that would close the day.

We were rewarded for our proximity and timeliness with the opportunity to observe the Lips’ and their stage crew prepare their elaborate set prior to the show (as well as the chance to banter with security guards in between bouts of their confiscating drug paraphernalia from our surrounding concert goers).  Wayne Coyne’s intermittent presence on stage is made universally clear by the instant chorus of cheers or sea of silence from the crowd—one recalls a running Loony Toons gag in which Bugs and Daffy’s alternating appearance on stage results in corresponding applause and crickets.

When the stage is set, the Flaming Lips arrive to ever-expected, but consistently awe-inspiring fanfare.  Coyne’s control of the crowd is awesome—it takes but a simple “come on, motherfuckers, come on” at any point to restore the entire crowd to frenzied status.   The Lips play through a set of staples from across their library—from “Jelly” to “Pompeii Am Götterdämmerung”—and close with surefire crowd pleaser, “Do You Realize??”

On our walk back to the car, we came across a small potted flower, knocked to the ground near a cardboard sign reading “Free (to a good home).”  Relatedly, the Eleven Office now has a new pet plant.  Let us know if you think of a good name.

This entry was written by Eleven Magazine, posted on July 12, 2010 at 12:51 pm, filed under Live and tagged , , , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.

Spoon – Transference

The first minute of Transference sounds like a false start. Not since 1995’s Telephono has Spoon sounded so anxious. A skeletal organ leaks onto a drum twitch in “Before Destruction,” and then it all withers away, brushed aside on the eve of some contorted chorus. Britt Daniel is then left mumbling and crunching casually on a lo-fi acoustic, and he sounds like he’s not quite sure what to do next. These uncharacteristically unkempt moments riddle the whole of Transference.  (more…)

This entry was written by Kent Szlauderbach, posted on March 24, 2010 at 8:42 am, filed under New Music and tagged , , . Leave a comment or view the discussion at the permalink.