Music! Weezer and Coldplay

Because I am now a blogger, I am required to a) have an opinion on music and, b) have very strict indy rock tastes. Which is why I’m reviewing two little known acts. Recently two of my favorite bands put out new CDs. And by favorite bands, I mean one that actually is one of my favorites and one that I will admit is a favorite only to myself as I scrape the bottom of a gallon of ice cream and sob uncontrollably (seriously, does anyone else have this reaction to ‘Fix You’ or is it just me?). I’m talking here about Weezer and Coldplay. Now, when they both released their singles a few weeks ago, I was quite taken with “Pork and Beans” but not so much “Violet Hills.” Did I have the same reactions to the respective CDs? Well, then, just read on!

Weezer - The Red Album: First, can I just ask whats up with Rivers Cuomo’s mustache? And why are so many other singers doing it too? And by “so many others,” I’m talking mainly to Brandon Flowers. Are yall intentionally trying to creep everyone out? I know you are pushing 40, Rivers, but come on! And Brandon, you simply have no excuse.

Anyway.

Most Weezer fans view the albums like this: they love The Blue Album, think Pinkerton was handed down from God a la The Ten Commandments, bash The Green Album around their hipster douche friends but listen to it secretly with the curtains drawn, and proclaim to have heard nothing after that except “the one with The Muppets.” When you start your career on so many high notes, you can never really catch up and so people have written off their later stuff. I personally love just about everything they have put out. They never take themselves to seriously (and never did, despite what some think…Pinkerton is pretty stupid/fun), are catchy as hell, and are never boring.

The Red Album is a bit boring. Actually, it’s mostly boring. It starts off on a high note, with three songs that sound just as fun and catchy as anything they have ever put out. “The Greatest Man Who Ever Lived” is an epic that reminded me of those long songs on American Idiot by Green Day, except more fun. But from track 4 on, the songs just loose their energy. They’re not necessarily bad, they just come off as uninteresting. It should be noted as well that most of the back half of the CD was written by members of Weezer not named “Rivers.” If this has something to do with it, I don’t know. I’m going to reserve final judgment on this one for a little while. When it works, it works. When it doesn’t work, it doesn’t work. Now is that quotable or what?

Coldplay - Viva La Vida or Death and All His Friends: You know how I know I’m gay? I actually really like this new CD. I’ve gone back and forth with Coldplay. I loved, LOVED Rush of Blood to the Head and listened to it probably more than I should have. Which explains why my sophomore year of college involved a lot of poetry writing and nature walks. And I liked X&Y, but it became clear to me that they were just doing the same things over and over again. Now, I know it’s fashionable to not like Coldplay, and I am so not one of those people. I just got kinda sick of them.

When I heard the new single, “Violet Hills,” I could see that they were trying to do something else, but it sounded just like Coldplay not trying to sound like Coldplay. It grew on me after a while, but I’m kinda getting tired of it again. The other single, “Viva la Vida,” oh boy. That is one catchy little ditty. I know this one is destined for overplay (to this day I fucking resent the fact that stars are yellow and think about it every time I see one, even though they are SO CLEARLY WHITE!) and it’s used in an iTunes commercial and what not, but it is by far one of the best things they have done. It’s just so damn catchy. And from this song, you can glean some of the Latin influences that are all over the album.

And how is the rest of the CD? It took me a few listens to really warm up to it. Yes, it sounds different, but not that much. It reminds me a lot of Parachutes, with more dissonant chords and the like. But the best parts are where Coldplay sound like Coldplay, with the same four chords and the wailing and soaring choruses and all that. By about the third listen, I really started to like it. As in, I’m still listening right now. This can only mean that in the ensuing weeks I’ll play it to death and then renounce the band until their next album Muero el Muerte or Why the Fuck Did Gwyneth Leave Me? (my Spanish might be rusty…)

Glow in the Dark Update

Remember when I said that Rihanna singing M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes” was my favorite part of the Glow in the Dark concert in Austin? Well, one of our friends in the “nosebleeds” recorded it! It doesn’t sound as great here as it did live (whatever does?) but it gives you the idea. It’s not the whole song, but the best part…

Rihanna’s version: 

And the original: 

And, I didn’t know this until too late, but M.I.A. played tonight at La Zona Rosa. It was sold out before I even had a chance to think! The concert last night was so good, I don’t know if I could have handled this one! 

Austin Glows in the Dark: The Kanye/Rihanna/N.E.R.D./Lupe Fiasco Concert

I don’t really like concerts all that much, mainly because I’m cheap. It takes someone very special for me to fork over the money to watch a person sing. The lineup listed above is the exact sort of thing that will make me part with my money. The INSTANT I heard about it I knew that I was going and I have been anticipating it for months now.

The show lived up to those months of waiting. It was awesome.

Now, I could stop there because that’s all you really need to know, and the show was just about what you would expect from these performers, but I am the long winded type so I’m going to go into minute, excruciating detail on every single thing. The seats were amazing, provided by my awesome inside source at the Erwin Center. Not floor level but just a little bit up, raised above the people sitting below so that our seats were better than theirs. There’s really not a bad seat in the Erwin Center cause its not that big, but these were great. I don’t think the show was sold out, but there seemed to be plenty of people there if the lines for the bathroom/beer were any indication.

Anyway, the music!

Lupe Fiasco - We got there slightly late and missed the beginning of Lupe’s show. I’ve listened to both of his CDs, and I thought they were a little boring. From what I saw of his set, he was energetic and skateboarded a lot, but I missed most of it standing in line for beer and at the ATM, where two girls were looking at the screen like it was freaking rocket science. Literally, they were just standing there doing nothing. It was while these two bitches were contemplating astrophysics and wasting everybody’s time that Lupe played one of the two songs I liked, “Go Go Gadget Flow.” It sounded good from the hallway I guess. Anyway, we got our beer and sat back down just in time for “Superstar,” which is a great song and I’m sure the only one anybody really knew (the arena was kinda empty at this point). Lupe skated off, leaving us anticipating bigger and better things.

N.E.R.D.- I didn’t know as much about them as the other acts before the show, but it was quite the performance. The band consists of, from what I could tell, Pharrell, two drummers, and various other people on stage not named Pharrell who just sort of dance around. But, man, two drummers! That’s cool. Pharrell got the crowd pumped up and excited (too many, “I can’t hear you”s for my taste, but whatever) and the set was really good. There’s not much more to say. Much to the disappointment of the ladies in the audience, he did not take off his shirt as seems to be his shtick.

Rihanna - This is where the whole “glow in the dark” part of the “Glow in the Dark” tour really took off. Rihanna, in a skin-tight black one piece with neon seams all over it, danced around with light-sabers, cages (?) on wheels, and, yes, umbrellas. Now, I’m mixed on Rihanna as a musician (don’t get me wrong, I love her as a person). When the songs are good, they’re really good (like “SOS” and “Umbrella”). But when they’re bad, they are really bad. And she sang two of her worst: “Unfaithful” and “Hate That I Love You.” And she completely skipped “Shut Up and Drive” (”gonna’ ride that scooter to a limousine”). However, she made up for it by being so gosh-darn cute and putting on a good show and providing what I thought was the highlight of the evening by singing a little bit of M.I.A.’s “Paper Planes.” It all happened so fast that I had no idea what was going on. In the end, all I wanted to do was BANG BANG BANG BANG and give her more money to play more songs because it was good.

Kanye West - The real reason I wasn’t able to sleep for months. I’ll say right off the bat that I wish it were more of a straight concert than a play with a storyline or whatever it was he was doing. But this is Kanye, my favorite asshole in the world, and he wouldn’t have it any other way. Besides, the set was cool as were the plumes of fire and the movie screen behind him and the live band and everything. But he never wore his light-up suit, which was a bit of a disappointment. The story, as far as I could put it together, was that Kanye was stranded on a planet and had to make his way back home or something and along the way he needed to bring creativity to the universe because he’s the brightest star, don’t you see. In and out of this he sings his songs that have maybe something to do with the story. For example, the first song was “Good Morning.” When the ship lifts off, he sings “Space Ship.” When it crashes, he sings “Through the Wire,” which I think is about his real-life car crash but I’m not sure. When he wants to have sex with the ship’s computer, he sings “Gold Digger.” The story didn’t make a whole lot of sense, and kinda drug in the second act. But the music, as expected, was “kick ass” (to borrow a phrase from a local musician who shall remain nameless for the moment). Towards the end, he (and by he I mean the character) got discouraged and the whole crowd had to sing Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” to him to provide Kanye with the extra strength to make it home. And he did. And there were fireworks and Chris Martin vocal samples and it was great. Kanye really is one of my favorite musicians in the world, and it was great to get the chance to see him live. The “Hey Mama” part was sad, but “Stronger” and “Homecoming” and “Touch the Sky” ended it on a high note.

So there’s the actual concert review. I feel as if I should break this thing into several posts because it’s so long, but I don’t feel like doing anymore real work at work, so here’s some Odds and Ends from the show:

- Don’t be fooled into thinking that the LBJ Library is close to the Frank Erwin Center and therefore a good place to park. It’s not. Just a warning. And I think its actually further when it’s 11:30 at night and you’ve just been dancing for like three hours straight.

- I saw maybe two “celebrities.” The first was Vince Young, who occupied one of the sky boxes behind us. People seemed more excited to see him than any of the acts there. Didn’t you people go to football games? And why was he dressed like M.C. Hammer? The second celebrity was Scott Porter, maybe. He plays Jason Street on Friday Night Lights, which is pretty much the best show ever and I’m well aware that I’m the only person who watches it. He’s going to be in the new Speed Racer movie for what it’s worth. Anyway I’m pretty sure it was him. As MPrint said, there was a 99.9% chance that it was him, which are the odds of a pregnancy test, which are pretty accurate. So the two former quarterbacks from two of my favorite football teams were there! Yay!

- I was not impressed by the person sitting next to me. He kept telling me to scoot over, which I couldn’t because it was A FUCKING CONCERT and there were OTHER PEOPLE THERE that were not named him and their worlds DID NOT REVOLVE AROUND HIM even though he probably had his own gravitational field. So I’m nice, I try not to bump into him, but the few times he gets up, he is bumping all over me, and not in that fun sexy sort of way. And he had more room to scoot down on his side than we did. What a fat dick. And he smelled like a fart.

- They were giving away little Kanye books after the show. I did not get one. I don’t know how I feel about this. I did get a litter bag. It said “Litter is For Cats.” Hipster douches!

- I have compiled a scientific pie chart that provides a demographic breakdown of the concert-goers last night:

All I’m sayin’ is that it will probably be more diverse at the Kenny Chesney concert tonight.

- Staying out ’till about 1:00 on a scho–I mean work–night ain’t what it used to be. College Me: “I have a test tomorrow morning but who cares! Kanye and Taco Cabana!” Current Me: “I’m going to get heartburn if I eat this late.”

So there’s my thoughts on the concert. A good time was had by all!