It’s been a busy week, particularly the last two nights, whenI went to see a few concerts at venues I’d never been to before. On Tuesday night, Jeff and I ate at the Bowery (great mac and cheese) and then took the subway to the (Wilshire + Western = ) Wiltern for the Bloc Party show. I really liked their first album, and should have taken the chance to see them at the Paradise, but it was still a good show, even though we were way in the balcony and they were playing songs from their underwhelming second album. The lyrics from the first album are full of metaphor and vagueness and possibly cliche, but on the new album, they’re weirdly, clumsily specific. Would you rather rock out to lines like “If it can be broke then it can be fixed, if it can be fused then it can be split/ It’s all under control/ If it can be lost then it can be won/ if it can be touched then it can be turned/ All you need is time” or lines like “At Les Trois Garcons/ we meet at precisely 9 o’clock./ I order the foie gras/ and I eat it with complete disdain/ Bubbles rise in champagne flutes/ but when we kiss, I feel nothing” ? It’s no contest for me, but luckily, the sound at the Wiltern was such that the lead vocals were pretty much inaudible, which made the new songs sound good. We missed The Like, who opened the show, but did catch one or two of Owen Pallett‘s songs, including his last, where Kele from Bloc Party joined him for a cover of Mariah Carey’s “Fantasy.”
After the show, we took the subway back home, along with about two other people from the 2000-seat theater right across the street from the subway stop. Anywhere else but L.A., the police would have probably stopped traffic after the show to allow what would have been a steady stream of hundreds of people to cross from the venue to the subway station. Oh well. We got on a train full of Rod Stewart fans leaving the show at the Staples Center – parking must have been pricier down there.
Last night, Aimee and I went to the El Rey for the first time, just down La Brea from our apartment. It’s a nice, small venue, with an interesting layout: a sunken floor in the middle, with some standing room around the edges, limited to a rectangular area bounded by black tape, which security guards constantly reminded people to be on the correct side of. We stood on some steps at the edge of the box, so we had a good view and no one behind us. I was excited to hear Sondre Lerche and his band again; I saw them at the Troubadour last April, as they were recording “Phantom Punch,” and now they were touring in support of it. I think it’s a great album, and it was great to hear it live. After two opening acts who got progressively slower and more contemplative, it was nice to see what must be the happiest rock band in the world really getting into their music.
What is it with Sondre Lerche and Hitchcock, though? I know he’s a fan, but it’s getting out of hand. As the curtains parted and the band members began to come on stage, we heard Herrmann’s “Prelude” from Vertigo over the PA system. Add to that the Saul Bass-inspired artwork for his second album (and website, until recently) , which he explains here, and now the song “She’s Fantastic” on his new album, with mentions of Carlotta and Scottie (Vertigo) and Rebecca and ‘Max’ (Rebecca). What’s next? I look forward to a video take-off of Family Plot or something. (Read a somewhat Hitchcock-themed review of the album). The show was, of course, a lot of fun: he’s a great showman, and his songs are nearly all instant classics, which the band seemed to get almost as much joy out of playing as we did listening to them.
