Doves, dancers, and dogs

May 22nd, 2005 · No Comments

This weekend was one of our last in Boston, even though we don’t move for another two-plus months – that’s what happens when you decide to get married, move, quit your job, and go to school, all in a six-week period. Friday night, I met Josh outside Avalon for the Doves show. The last time I saw them, at the Paradise in 2001 on the “Last Broadcast” tour, I was really disappointed; in fact, I had trouble believing the same band that had made the album showed up that night. I can’t even remember what was so bad, but it was a really unimpressive experience. Some little band call the Strokes opened for them, and with their individually and collectively great hair and their brief, manic songs, they were the best thing about that evening.

worst_band_ever.jpgOn Friday, we got in at around 6:45, right when the first band started their set. Now, I knew Mercury Rev were opening, and I’d definitely heard of them, so the worse the opening band got, the less I believed they could actually be a band I’d ever heard of. Indeed they were, though, and it became more and more mysterious how anyone could have taken them seriously. I honestly think they were the worst band I’ve ever heard live in a large, legitimate setting. Overwrought, un-subtle, and unfortunately irony-free, their songs were all based around the lead singer’s painfully small range, and featured bombastic drum fills, droning guitar solos, and absolutely no direction. When he wasn’t flapping his arms or blessing the crowd, the lead singer kept making this ridiculous sort of “shazam” motion every time the drummer would hit a particularly emphatic beat, and I imagined the drummer at home after the show, muttering to his girlfriend how he hates being ‘conducted’ by the guy but can’t say anything or he’d lose his job. It was really a farce, especially when you added in the inspirational quotes about “wisdom” and “truth” that were projected behind them, along with hackneyed images of a fetus and the earth and the cycle of life. I’d be curious to know if they’re paying for the right to use clips from Cocteau’s La belle et la b?te, Deren’s Meshes of the Afternoon, and some of the other films I spotted.

Anyway, onto Doves: they were much, much better this time around, and captured the big, anthemic sound of their records pretty well. They’re a band I don’t really know that much about; I don’t know the name of every song (though I recognized every song they played), I don’t know they name of every band member, and I don’t know a lot about them. It’s refreshing for me to be able to enjoy them as I do, just as music, without all of the other baggage. They played a good set of tunes from both albums, but they were fairly banter-free. It’s always ncie to see a show where each member of the band sings a legitimate lead vocal on a song, and even more so where the lead singer sned up behind the drums in the encore. Jimi Goodwin (ok, so I do know the lead singer’s name) wasn’t too fond of Boston drivers, and didn’t buy the excuse that it’s just busy and everyone’s in a hurry. “You can’t drive, stop taking drugs. Really, you can’t drive, but you’re lovely people. Goodnight.”

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Saturday was spent preparing for my talk at the 7th International Photobooth Convention in St. Louis next week, on the subject of Photobooths in Film. Glad to have my new computer, which arrived this week, for that. Saturday night, I caught Gold Diggers of 1933 at the archive, which was a wonderfully entertaining film, the first of many I plan to see in the series over the next two weeks.

Today, we headed up to North Andover to The Museum of Printing for the “Hot Type, Cool Books” fair, which coincided with the Sheep-Shearing Festival as well. We perused the amazing collection of letterpress, linotype, and desktop publishing machines from the last 150 years, and enjoyed some live demonstrations.

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Outside, we were also impressed by the demonstration of sheep-herding put on by a farmer and his amazingly well-trained border collies. They were getting those sheep to stop on a dime… I love these little New England weekends.

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Tags: Cambridge · Film · Music