serene’s posterous

from Mel Torment (link)

Morrissey is back in the US touring for his b-sides compilation Swords.  He is going to be performing in Oakland tonight.  Earlier this year he had canceled his tour date at Oakland at the last minute. 

I do want to go to the concert tonight, but I still can't quite justify paying about $100 per person (including all the ticketmaster charges) for good seats plus the long drive (poor Eu-Jin!).  And since I haven't bought Swords, I won't be familar with half the songs on the setlist (judging from the photo of the setlist from the concert in Portland).  I did check out what tickets were available last night and by pure random luck I had the chance to purchase seats that were within 10 rows from the front of the stage and smack in the center.  Silly Ticketmaster with its devious ways of releasing seats...

We were lucky enough to see James perform in SF back in October last year.  They didn't perform this unreleased song during their tour in the US, but the song was apparently back on their setlist for their performances in Europe this summer.  Their official website http://www.wearejames.com/ is offering the mp3 for free if you join the mailing list.

Tim says: “The song is about a boxing match. A genre of one unless you count Simon and Garfunkel’s ‘The Boxer’. I am interested in the paradoxical sense of peace that can arrive at the moment when you feel you have lost everything.”

It has a great, catchy tune so here's looking forward to their new record...

I had always wanted to see Morrissey live.  When I found out that he's going to be performing at Paramount Theatre, Oakland, on Apr 18, as a last minute addition to his tour, I was quite excited.  It is going to be close enough to drive to! Tickets came on sale on Mar 27 at 12.00pm PDT.  I went onto the ticketmaster website in the afternoon on Mar 27- maybe 4pm - to check what seats were available.

It was pretty ridiculous.  The tickets were about $85 + $12 convenience charge, or alternatively $47 + $10 for really sucky seats way back in the balcony.  I would almost be willing to pay for the tickets, but all the pit tickets, and first 20 or so rows of seats in the orchestra area were gone.  I can't really justify paying about $100 for far back and to the side of the orchestra area (it seems most of the center seats, even those far back are gone).  And it would be $200 for the both of us, because I would want Eu-Jin to go too. 

It seems somewhat fishy, particularly when I noticed tickets for sale on stubhub.com for $200-250 each for the first few rows center orchestra seats.  And I noticed someone complaining in the forums that the best seats he could get at noon on the 27th were in row O of the orchestra.  Oh well, maybe next time...and I liked the new album too.

I guess this song by Travis (off The Man Who album) is appropriate in light of the rainy weather.  I haven't followed the career of Travis in a while (since I bought 12 Memories maybe 5 years ago), but they had recently released a new album, Ode To J. Smith, which is apparently louder than their previous albums.  I have not listened to the album other than the one song that can be downloaded free from amazon, so I can't really comment on the album.

I had gone to a double-billed concert with Travis and Coldplay in 2001, back when Coldplay just had their first few hits.  I was far from the thick of the action at the mosh pit in front of the stage, but back then I thought that Travis was significantly than Coldplay live.  Their music was better and they had established a good rapport with the crowd.  Chris Martin, with his newly shaved head, was shy, almost nervous in the crowd.  How things have changed....Coldplay is now one of the biggest bands in the world, while Travis trudges along in relative obscurity.

There's a lot more stuff on Netflix instant these days. I was
watching Morrissey - Who Put the M in Manchester - live concert from
2004 a few nights ago. Since it appears there is more extras on the
DVD, I may put it in my queue at some point so that I may enjoy the
full DVD. Fans are pretty crazy at the show, trying their best to
reach their hero. And it seems that Morrissey really enjoyed the
response of the crowd.

This is one of my favorite songs by The Smiths, "There is a Light That
Never Goes Out", performed at the encore of this concert.

Can you spot Eu-Jin and me at the James concert?

Photo taken from Larry's Photo Blog. By Larry Gott, the lead guitarist of James.

Seeing James for the first time live.

Oh they are amazing live. 2 full hours! A good mix of old and new
songs. Although the sound was a little subpar - sometimes you can't
hear him or the instruments clearly - it was one of the best concerts I
have been to. I was maybe 4-5 rows of sweaty people from the stage.
Close enough to see the sweat on Tim Booth...but not quite close
enough to grab his hands or jump onto the stage.

Highlights I think were Sometimes where the audience sung along for a
long time ("Sometimes, when I look deep in your eyes, I swear I can
see your soul..."), and the crowd favorite, Laid (Tim had pulled some
excited audience members onto the stage). I think practically
everyone there knew the lyrics of the song. The new songs from the
Hey Ma album were well received too. I just wished they had played
Just Like Fred Astaire from the Millionaires album. They had played
it a few times earlier in the tour, but it's not on the setlist this time.

The setlist was: She's A Star, Oh My Heart, Ring The Bells, Waterfall,
Come Home, Hey Ma, Bubbles, Say Something, Dream Thrum,
I Wanna Go Home, Out To Get You, Upside, Whiteboy,
Born Of Frustration, Sit Down, Sound.

Encore: Top Of The World, Sometimes, Laid

     

We went to the SYTYCD tour last night. As expected, the place was
full of screaming teenage girls. It was quite amazing to see those
dances. Even though we were about 30 rows from the front of the
stage, it is quite different than watching the same dances on TV or
youtube. The crazy height that Joshua can obtain on his split+jump,
Katee's excellent technique, the smoldering eyes of Mark etc. were all
highlights.

I particularly liked Joshua and Katee's bollywood and Hometown Glory
(that assisted running bit!) dances, and the Five Guys named Moe group
dance. There were a lot of pieces featuring Joshua and Katee, but I
wished they had shown us more new dances.

Here's the setlist.

On the minus side, I can't understand why these concerts are so loud.
I am not sure what those sound engineers were thinking. The music and
speech were clipping frequently, and the volume was unbearable.
Coupled with the screaming from the audience, it was probably a
dangerous work environment! My ears are still not pleased this morning.

Here's the Hometown Glory piece from the TV show. I thought it looked
a lot better and seemed more emotional live.

For a long time, I had been a fan of Suede and the frontman Brett
Anderson. Suede was never too popular in the US, probably because
they were just too British and too fey. Perhaps Americans prefer
their rock stars to be alpha males and super masculine. Suede
disbanded in 2003.

I went to 2 of their concerts many years ago, second of which I
managed to squeeze up to the 3rd or so row in the mosh pit. That was
a fantastic outdoors concert. The performance was electric and they
sounded very good live (far better than the previous concert I
attended). Brett Anderson also has a very charismatic style in both
the glam rock bits and the slow ballad parts. He used to like
swinging his microphone (no wireless mics for him!), which seems
somewhat dangerous to his bandmates.

Recently he has become more mellow. Sadly, he doesn't do the swinging
mic thing anymore.
http://www.thisislondon.co.uk/music/gig-23359629-details/gigReview.do?reviewId=23417647
I guess even rock stars must grow up. This is his first solo single
from about a year ago.