I just saw (live band/act)

[stuck]

Pissed Jeans.

Good god, this show was great. Please see them if you like anything in the hardcore spectrum. Equal parts hilarious and furious, with none of the stupidity or hubris the scene tends to nurture.

this is from the actual show, decent sound, good representation of the vibe

http://instagram.com/p/vDM7nBQEA4/

this is from the same tour, bad sound but there was a lot of this hilarity going on too:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Dtc45nnXmw

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q0qDrjDbf8g

god I love them

[Madrigal]

Gonna watch a jazz band today. Every fiber of my miserable being is begging to stay home. That's how much I wanna go out tonight. But this chick turns into some kind of fire-breathing dragon when I say no to her, and she scares me. So whatever, update tomorrow.

[Works]

The New Pornographers. Actually saw them maybe a month ago. They played a good show, but it was mostly cuts from their new record so harder to jam out. They have a ridiculous number of people on stage playing.

[jigglypuff]

(does standup count?) aamer rahman. caught his set in LA last night as part of his "the truth hurts" tour.

i've wanted to go to one of his shows ever since the one time i was out for two weeks with the flu & the only thing keeping me alive/sane was watching "fear of a brown planet" clips. i told myself if he ever does a US tour i'm going. he does this left wing "gotta laugh to keep from crying" comedy that's pretty up my alley. i had a great time, but his content/style isn't for everyone.

[gator]

Northern Ballet, front-row at the Linbury. Recommended.

Loved sitting so close. You can see absolutely everything.

[stuck]

Garrick Ohlsson play the Rach 3 at the Hollywood bowl.

I'm torn. On one hand, he played the piece almost technically perfectly: I counted 8 wrong notes in the whole thing. Compared with the great recordings by Horowitz and the dazzling Argerich 1982 version, that's a miracle. Ohlsson's chords were perfectly balanced, and I could hear details in the execution of which I had not previously been aware. The soft points were sublime- the restatement of the theme in the first movement was taken down to an almost inaudible pp. The second movement was gorgeous.

However, by the same token, he took almost all the ego out of a piece which has historically been a vehicle for the egos of pianists. The aforementioned Horowitz and Argerich performances involved those pianists pushing their techniques to the breaking point, to where the fortissimos made mistakes almost inevitable. It's a romantic piece after all, and I want fireworks. Ohlsson made it seem easy.

All of this made it an odd concert. It's strange to hear someone making the Rach 3 sound easy.

[Sappho]

^ Ohlsson strikes me as one of the people who've simply been in the business for too long. To me it seems he's been playing pieces the same way for at least twenty years.

The younger generation of pianists definitely takes the biscuit in comparison – in particular when you want big Russian pathos. Lang Lang does it excellently in all of Rachmaninov's concertos.

[mthomps]

Saw Zach Brown Band earlier this month. The dudes can play. I was pissed they didn't play there big ballad. I was impressed half their set was covers that sounded as good or better than the originals.

[Limes]

Just got back from seeing the piano guys at Red hat amphitheater, we were entertained. They seemed like genuinely nice people. I didn't hold their faith (LDS) and Jesus talk against them at all. I even clapped when he gave some praise to jesus spiel to the audience. Whatever, people are welcome to their faith, if it makes them happy, I just don't want to be required to conform to it. I think it's nice and humble to thank a third party than to "big up" yourself, like a narcissist.

They did not perform the Star Wars bit, which was a bummer, they just went to a giant video screen on that bit. They got a bunch of local high school kids to play with them on stage, which was cool.
The African dude would have been nice to sing "peponi", but they played along to a backing track of him on video.
We were really lucky it didn't piss down with rain (it tried a few times) and that we just got the first break of the year in the oppressive heat, with a crazy low 72F outside.

Beethoven's five secrets was really good live - great sound system, full range of sound (I'm a bit of a car audiophile) - good solid bass that hit you in the chest, though we were just one row back from the front and right in-front of a speaker bank.

[last_caress]

High on Fire. I swear I fucking saw Larry David there headbanging at the edge of the pit. Even my friend thought it was him. I was thinking of going "what's up you bald piece of shit?" but I reconsidered.

Show was pretty good. Matt Pike is getting really fat. I probably would too eating junk and tons of beer on the road. No Matamp that I could see, just a couple of Soldanos and a cherryburst Les Paul. I took a few pics including an attempt at the back of Larry David's head but it didn't come out. Maybe I'll put them up later.