All Points West
Grizzly Bear is fucking great live. Girl Talk is the worst thing ever to happen to music . Underworld is absurdly, incomparably fun (oh god!. Radiohead is the greatest live band on earth.
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I’ll agree with everything John said about yesterday except the Grizzly Bear part. Not that they aren’t good, I just didn’t particularly enjoy it in a mid-day outdoor setting. Underworld was phenomenal. Girl talk is horrible. Horrible, horrible, horrible. O.K. all the people who say “DOOOOOOD YOU HAVE TO SEE IT LIVE!!!” I’ve seen it live It’s still a shit sandwich.
Radiohead was amazing. I’ve detailed my feelings on them before. On their first tour when I saw them they were engaging and active and performed wonderfully. When I saw them 2 times after that they were doing the whole “Ohh….we’re such put upon artistes. We can’t be bothered to actually be entertaining.” Yesterday they split the difference. Much more spontaneous than I thought they could be, and much more engagin, although I tend to like a little more aknowledgement of the audience than they give off. But that was my only gripe. It was an In Rainbows heavy set but I actually preferred that to a Kid A or Amnesiac heavy set since I’ve grown to really appreciate In Rainbows.
Fun day overall.
Some blurry and goofy pictures from the day: http://www.flickr.com/photos/22126810@N03/sets/72157606631014869/
I think that girl talk show might have been the whitest moment in american history. I pretty much agree with your guys summations of the show, though.
Did you guys get attacked by the giant balloon shrimps?
Was that during girl talk? We stayed far enough away to not have to actually interact with anyone involved in that debacle or any of the stupid props, but close enough to still fully grasp just how awful it is, and the utter depths to which ironic hipsterism has sunk.
I dont think it was associated with any one performance, i ran into them while headed over to underworld after stopping in at the day glo nightmare that was CSS.
Also did you guys happen to notice that someone dropped an atomic bomb on newark?
Oh yeah. I saw those things from a distance early on but didn’t see anything up close. Whoa. That second picture is freaky. I didn’t notice that.
Kev, you honestly missed the two best parts of the entire Radiohead set: Paranoid Android and Everything in it’s Right Place. And not just because the songs and performances were out of this world amazing, but because they did shit with their visual set up that absolutely blew my mind.
We saw/heard Paranoid Android. We didn’t leave the festival when we walked out of the area we were in with you, we just moved towards a more open area to the back a little. Which was actually not only a better view and better sound But away from the large douchebag contingent that was surrounding us. Looking at the set list, we left the fest right before Everything in It’s Right Place.
How long did it take you to get back to your car waiting until the end?
Oh! Anna said you left after the first song of the first encore. I definitely wanted to leave during Just, but I stuck it out cause they still hadn’t played Everything in it’s Right Place, which is my favorite song in the universe. And lo! They played it. I am glad.
All in all, it took us about an hour to get back to our car.
That’s when we started to slowly move, but it took us a while and we were slow. The cops at the light rail keeping things orderly definitely helped the flow of things, that’s for sure. If they didn’t have them there, you know that all the a-holes who were pushing their way around to get closer midway through the set were going to be the ones who decided they also didn’t need to wait in line to get on the train first.
yeah, yelling at that second set of douchebags sort of backfired, didn’t it? I wish I’d just ignored them in hopes that they’d have worked their way much further up.
Yeah, what happened with that second couple who tried to worm their way up? I know the woman behind us tried to get them to keep moving but failed miserably.
I yelled at them, they got embarrassed, they stuck around. I regretted shaming them until a few songs before the first encore when they disappeared.
Oh, I had no idea. I know the first guy was an asshole about it and kept moving, so I assumed the second 2 were as well. I saw the woman drunkenly yammering to you about something but couldn’t hear what.
Scanning blog comments about this show made me laugh. In the middle of countless posts from fawning Radiohead fans arguing over which night was better and which songs had this that or the other thing, someone posts: “Man, what the hell happened to Chris Martin’s eye? It should be illegal for a dude who looks like that to fuck Iron Man’s girlfriend.” Sometimes the internet can be ridiculously entertaining.
that is genius whether it was meant to be or not.
Exactly. If it was someone being serious, then it’s mind blowingly hysterical. If it’s someone just being a smart ass then it’s still pretty goddamn funny and all sorts of clever, especially amidst the context of the thread it was on.
Found a video of the amazing version of The Gloaming they’ve been doing live. I really hope they release a version of it, cause it’s one of my favorite tracks on Hail to the Thief and it’s even better with the crazy choruses and outtro.
That was definitely one of the best moments of the night.
Yeah, I’ve always loved the way they do that track live.
Anyone go to the second or third nights of the fest? The radiohead show on the second night was equally excellent and a distinctly different set. Half stuff they always play (I.E. Idioteque, Everything in its right place, etc.) but the other half was completely different and each song still had its own unique light show, fucking awesome. A lot of bends stuff too.
Oh and Rodrigo Y Gabriella on Sunday – Unfuckingbelievable. Easily the second best act for me of the whole weekend.
Steve, did you catch Animal Collective? I really wanted to see them, I wanted to attend Dawn and Ryan’s wedding more.
I heard Saturday was a bit slower. I should go look fo rthe setlists.
From what I’ve read the Saturday Radiohead was more uptempo. I’ve also read that Animal Collective was pretty bad, even from people who like them. They also just don’t seem like much of a daytime, outdoor band at all.
Yeah i did catch a good portion of them, and it was a little disappointing. It just never seemed like they clicked and as a result was super erratic. I saw them a few years ago at Coachella and it was the same sort of thing.
I find that to be sort of weird too, because I think a sizable portion of what they record should be able to be reproduced live. Meh i dunno, it just didn’t do it for me.
Here’s the saturday radiohead set:
Radiohead – APW Night Two Setist (8/9/08):
01. Reckoner
02. 15 Step
03. The National Anthem
04. Kid A
05. All I Need
06. Nude
07. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
08. Where I End And You Begin
09. The Gloaming
10. Faust Arp
11. No Surprises
12. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
13. The Bends
14. Bangers and Mash
15. Everything In Its Right Place
16. Exit Music (For A Film)
17. Bodysnatchers
Encore 1
18. Pyramid Song
19. Videotape
20. Airbag
21. Fake Plastic Trees
22. There There
Encore 2
23. House of Cards
24. Planet Telex
25. Idioteque
Found the setlists and some great photos from both nights here:
http://www.brooklynvegan.com/archives/2008/08/radiohead_all_p_1.html
All said and done, I’m very glad to have seen them Friday night, if not solely because it means fewer/better songs from The Bends. Sure, they got Fake Plastic Trees and I had to sit through fucking Just, but at least I didn’t have to listen to Planet Telex and we got Street Spirit.
Oh the Roots were also pretty good, by which I mean they put on a good show. They basically performed Things Fall Apart in its entirety which was awesome, but I really dig their last two albums so it was slightly disappointing as well.
I’m strongly considering getting craistlist tickets for tomorrow’s show at the tweeter center. They’re going at face value.
Shit, man. Play the gloaming video again. Listen at 2:44 and think: fuck. They just played this to a bunch of hippies there to check out Franti and Girl Talk. Those four measure just vlew 4,000 minds.
So Animal Collective, no good? Too bad, if so.
I just can’t see Animal Collective being that good outside during a sunny day. The same way I felt about Grizzly Bear. Both are good bands that I like, it’s just not a daytime, outdoor thing. The flip side to that is that I’m not a super fan of New Pornographers or Mates of State but both their sets were perfect for that setting because they’re more upbeat, catchy pop that had people moving and reacting a little more.
not in the two times I’ve seen them paris. but ive only ever seen them in the setting kevin describes.
This is only related to this thread in that it’s radiohead at a festival, but this is the first I’ve seen this clip/performance and it’s one of my favorite songs and I needed to put it somewhere so I decided here worked:
My god, man. Best live band on the fucking planet.