Sunday, July 11, 2010

Forecastle: day two in review

Day Two, being hot, sweaty, low on water, and with more velocity than day one. most of the peeps i talked to decided to come just on saturday, and just for DEVO. and i'll admit, being a hard core devo fan since before puberty, i was pretty excited too. I even got to meet DEVO frontman, Mark Mothersbagh, before the show. he was very direct, didn't smile, and sat very stoically with a fake mustache that he never acknowledged. but he was very open to meeting the press, and answering all the questions (even though Devo's tour manager stated that he would not answer any questions that were not submitted ahead of time, and would not answer any stupid or silly questions.
the show hit the ground running with songs from their new "music for the masses" in their new silver and blue suits (the suits and new album were all test audience approved at 82% satisfaction). after a few songs they entered into they're "DEVOlution" phase and starting working backwards, donning their 1980's apparel and playing they're 80's radio hits like "whip it" before again devolving into they're 1970's tyvek suits and their (in this humble writer's opinion) best era of song writing, before tearing their suits to bits and devolving once again into they're early 70's art damaged conceptual stage, complete with Mothersbaugh's alter ego " Booji Boy". the whole band played with vigor (unlike another 'reunion band' that hit the stage soon after) and played like it was the best day of their lives, and the crowd felt the same.. well that was until the very last second of the show when mothersbaugh yelped "good night LEXINGTON!" to an immediate silent mob. it was the worst ending to this, the best show of the festival.
up next on the main stage was the worst show of the fest (of what i saw) a group that had so much hype, BASSNECTAR. as soon as Devo walked off stage the biggest crowd of the whole weekend stormed the stage awaiting a DJ and a borage of 808 beats and distorted synth explosions. of the 4 or 5 songs i could stand to listen to, all were covers, or rather remixes, of songs i used to like. from the Beastie Boys to the pixies, he slaughtered every one as if you gave the dust brothers a disc of your favorite dance party tracks and they sped them up and jizzed all over them. i will never understand the admiration of someone who steals other people's hard work and destroys them.
the last show of the night was the newly reformed SMASHING PUMPKINS, who played every song exactly as if they were just playing the CD, except between most songs Billy Corgan spewed out self indulgent crap to himself, or maybe the crowd. he seemed to be so happy to be in front of his band again after all this time, it was hard to tell if they felt the same way or were just waiting for the check to clear. but Billy had fun, even without playing 1979, the only song i was hoping to hear.
and that, was DAY TWO!
LUCERO'S"fist full of tears" (LAST SONG OF THE NIGHT/THE BEST SET ENDING OF FORECASTLE)
everybody loves (loved) DEVO!

1 comment:

Sir Spellsalot said...

Grammar, spelling, capitalization and punctuation go a long way.

Try it!