Titus Andronicus opened up, and were great and just so deeply Jersey, in their sweaty, disheveled embracement of loserdom and in their striving from something better. The lead singer and guitarist Patrick Stickles was shorter than he looks in his videos, and has shaved his big beard. But he still carried the Michael Shannon browline and intensity in his face and he was charming, even as he asked that a bucket be brought to the stage because he'd drank an energy drink than was not agreeing with him and he thought he might vomit. He didn't, thankfully, but he belched loudly into the microphone and then played a new song about having an eating disorder. It was a long song with lots of dramatic changes. Almost an epic, I guess, or, like, a mini rock-opera about having an eating disorder. As strange as this sounds, it was really good. Then he played some great songs from last year's The Monitor album, like, "A More Perfect Union" and "The Battle of Hampton Roads." He tries very hard, this talented 26-year-old from my home state, and I don't mean that to sound like a criticism. He tries hard and he does good. And I really like him a lot. New Jersey sucks, but it's sort of the best at sucking. And so becomes something beautiful like that. Did you see the movie Win Win that came out last year? You should.

Then Fucked Up came out to the stage, which, as you can see from the video, was in the center of the room. People go crazy for this band. I can see why—I love their records, and seeing them play live explains it even more. They are ferocious and powerful, a tidal wave of sound. But warm and generous and inclusive in the way that always bridges the gap between hippie culture and punk rock culture. Which are never so very far apart anyway. The singer Damon "Pink Eye" Abraham, who is huge and bald and hirsute, took off his shirt after the first song, and let the fanatics near the stage scream out a lot of his lyrics. He also wandered around the room a lot, rocking out and slapping high fives with everyone he could reach.

The show was mostly a start-to-finish performance of the album Fucked Up released last year, David Comes to Life. I don't much like this trend in concerts, the single album in its entirety show. But I do love this particular album, so I wasn't too bummed out. The show seemed to flag a bit towards the end of the album. Which is understandable. The instrumentalists are playing so hard and fast (the drummer, Jonah Falco, is a phenomenon of speed and precision—like Dave Grohl with short hair and a button-up shirt) and Abraham is screaming and so passionately. I would have ruptured a vocal cord and crumpled in a heap after three songs. A key to this band is sharpness, the order inside this big caterwauling whirlwind they create. It must be very hard to maintain for an extended amount of time. And even when things got a little sloppier and tired, it was still great fun.

But coming out for an encore, playing a couple of older songs, ("Crusades" came out in 2006), they were back in peak form and rocked everybody's face off. It was very, very loud. My ears are still ringing today, in fact, in a way that I don't remember then ringing since seeing My Bloody Valentine and Dinasaur Jr. play in 1991. In a way that says to me, "Maybe you are too old to be seeing such loud punk rock shows. Soon you'll be dead, after all. Here, have a seat in this rocking chair. Have some lemonade." I don't go to rock shows very often anymore. But permanent hearing damage or not, I am very happy I went to this one last night.

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Jonathan recalled how he’d once received a mixtape from a girl he thought might be interested in him, only to discover that it featured “Song Against Sex,” which he took as a poor omen. Our friend Ehren gave me a song by the band on a tape as well, helping me seem much cooler than I was when the band moved from everyday obscurity to cult object, following its singer’s withdrawal from the world. We laughed to remember how Ehren, a cheerful contrarian, once vigorously argued that there was no good reason Neutral Milk Hotel couldn’t have a radio hit. “Sure, the instrumentation might be a little unfamiliar for some listeners,” I said, imitating him, “but underneath that it’s really very tuneful.”

We found a parking spot a block away from the theater. The concert started at the older-person-friendly hour of 7:30, and IDs were checked at the door. Not for beer sales; no alcohol is allowed at Baltimore’s 2640, a co-op run jointly by a Methodist church and a bookstore located in the church’s dilapidated former sanctuary. IDs were checked to ensure that every attendee was the original ticket purchaser—to eliminate scalping.

I bought a ginger ale and Jonathan and I listened to the last few songs by the opening act, a gangly, effusive young man who played the musical saw and the banjo. The stage lights kept dimming and flashing as the guys at the boards tried to figure out which switch was malfunctioning. The room was full but not crowded; fire codes, or the singer’s preference, kept the crowd manageable even though the concert had sold out in minutes. (Failing to buy a ticket, I cadged a pair from a saintly publicist.)

During the break Jonathan told me that he hadn’t really known the whole story of the singer’s disappearance from public life. “When you asked me if I wanted to come up for this, I just thought, well, that’s a band I’ve always loved, and it would be fun to see them in concert. I didn’t know about all...” He paused and waved toward the crowd, the stained-glass window at the back of the theater, the dude checking IDs. “All this. I told some guys at work, twentysomething guys, that I was coming up, and they said, ‘Oh, I love him,’ and I thought, oh good, he’s still a going concern.”

A representative of the venue stepped on stage and thanked us for coming, saying, “We don’t usually host concerts this big and exciting, but we do have other events that are small and exciting. On Friday we have a screening of The Holy Mountain.” Several audience members cheered loudly at this.

Mangum sat down and held a guitar on his lap. His newsboy cap and pageboy hair made him look a bit like Emo Phillips. He was dimly lit in an amber glow. He spoke to a few audience members, away from his microphone, so that we couldn’t hear him at all. He said “Thank you” into the mike. Then he began playing “Oh Comely,” a long, beautiful suite of loss and ache.

I hadn’t been sure what to expect from this show. I’d long had the sense that we would be seeing something special—that these appearances from Mangum, culminating in the All Tomorrow’s Parties festival in New Jersey this weekend, might be like the once-in-a-generation appearance of some endangered bird. We’d need to treat it gently if it was to survive.

Even as Mangum announced more tour dates and launched an honest-to-God website, it was still hard to imagine him as an actual, everyday performer—a singer just playing songs and selling records and whatnot. Even before his disappearance, his music seemed too odd for that, like songs beamed from some other planet; now, after a decade-plus absence, "In the Aeroplane Over the Sea" still seemed a most unlikely, personal album to have inspired such intense audience identification. Plenty were drawn to him by word of mouth and post-dated Pitchfork raves. But the music spoke to people in some forceful personal way that I couldn’t quite understand, even as I felt its pull as well.

He sang “Oh Comely” to an audience who listened in complete silence. (We’d been asked to turn our phones off before the show.) He stumbled over a lyric and my breath caught for a moment. During the song’s climax, the light grid went a little bonkers and Mangum was suddenly awash in brightness, and back wall red and blue and green. After a moment the guys on the board fixed it and the lights returned to their amber glow. In between lines, Mangum said, “Good, you turned those off.”

Then he sang “Two-Headed Boy Part 2.” There was still no sound but for his guitar, his voice, the tap of his foot. The last song on the album, “Two-Headed,” ends in its recorded version with the squeak of Mangum getting up from his chair in the recording studio and walking away. For years and years that was the last sound we’d heard from him, and was as familiar to us as the lyrics we knew by heart. At the concert, though, the song ended with a quick “Thank you.” He remained sitting. His chair was silent.

“Does anyone have any questions?” he asked the crowd. Someone wondered how he was feeling. “I feel good,” he said. “I’m glad to be here.”

After the Le Poisson Rouge show last year, I’d sympathized with people who complained about their neighbors singing along. Because really: if Jeff Mangum was only going to play one concert ever, for fuck’s sake you want to hear Jeff Mangum, not some dickbag next to you. Here in Baltimore, I’d been pleased to note, no one had made a peep. But now, Mangum sat up straight and looked into the microphone. “You guys can sing along if you like,” he said. Then he began part one of “Two-Headed Boy.”

“Sing it,” he insisted after the first verse. Behind me, my friend Jonathan joined in, so I sang along too. Everyone knew the words, of course. (Later in the concert, on faster songs, we’d sing the brass parts to accompany Mangum’s solo guitar, and stomp our feet to supply him drums.) He smiled as he sang his weird, lovely music about radio plays and pulleys and weights and the notches in your spine, and a church full of people in full throat sang too.

We’d thought Jeff Mangum was a hothouse flower, requiring special care; in a way, we thought he wanted to be. He’d been gone so long, and his return was orchestrated under such careful laboratory settings that they seemed unlikely to be replicated in real life. Surely he’d play this show, our show, and a few other shows, and then disappear back off into space or wherever he’d been. But maybe Mangum exercised all this control over these shows—the churches and charities these tickets benefit, the anti-scalper measures, the bans on photography—not because he was too sensitive to perform otherwise but because this was how he created an environment in which he didn’t have to be sensitive anymore.

Suddenly Mangum wasn’t a fragile creature behind glass. He was a singer playing a show for people who liked his music. He seemed pretty happy. He was a going concern.

Dan Kois keeps a long view on The Razzies and enjoys things.

Photograph by pfctdayelise.

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Bon Iver fans are a unique group of people. There was the girl switching off taking hits of a joint and covering up her coughing with bites of carrot and humus. There was the group of “bro” friends who are clearly only friends during the summer months. They spoke about the definition of “rompers” and placed bets on how many people in the crowd had iPhones. There were also the three brace-faced teenage girls accompanied by a "cool mom." Summer camp memories were shared between loud giggles.

Our ongoing beard epidemic was well represented. The most popular style is now the version that Jack sports on Lost when exclaiming that the survivors “have to go back” (for reference). Others were seen with basic scruff and some brave men even wore very long beards.

Bon Iver’s fans share a fascination with the band’s grizzly frontman that’s near Bieber-esque. Everyone “woo’ed” like they were seeing a teen idol when Vernon hit the stage; one girl screamed “I love you Justin” after the first song.

Most of the crowd though was made up with couples. All of the June/July flings have turned into serious August romances, just now hitting their peaks before the “back-to-reality” September breakups. A boyfriend was seen fanning pot smoke out of his girlfriend's face as they mouthed the words to “Calgary”—one of the night’s highlights.

Justin Vernon plays in front of an eight-piece band which is I guess the only way for him to play his multi-instrument music live without any cheap tricks. The crowd’s favorite was either the percussionist/beatboxer/horn player who looked like Reggie Watts, or maybe Michael Lewis, the bass player, who someone behind me said looked “exactly like Jack Black.”

“Beth Rest," the Bruce Hornsby-inspired jam from the new album, was particularly enhanced by the full band. It went from mellow thing to arena rock anthem of almost Van Halen or Def Leopard proportions. In any event, lighters were put up in the air.

At night’s end Bon Iver came out for a second encore. The audience was at its peak happiness after a rousing first encore of “Skinny Love”, “Who Is It” (A Bjork cover), and “The Wolves (Act I & II).” The full band took the stage again and tore into a version of “For Emma.”

As the song started, a hard cool wind came in and blew over the crowd. I turned around to look at everyone and they were smiling, because it felt like some neat trick, like Justin himself had caused the wind to blow. The moon was up high behind them and it was an awesome moon.

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How do I recall that detail?

Soon after, a friend gave me a recording of said show. My 21-year-old enthusiasm is audible for the entire three hours of the recording. We’re talking about a 22,000-person stadium, and while you do hear a low sustained pitch of thousands of people screaming in the background, ringing out clearly above it all is my lone, nasal shriek. Maybe it's 'cause of how close we were to the stage.

In the pantheon of live recordings, this wasn’t a super notable concert—it’s not like you hear "Shoreline 6/27/01" played on the radio. But there are other, more well-known live recordings (some of them to the exclusion of the studio versions) that do feature memorable screamers, whistlers and squealers. Probably the most famous one is the guy who shouted "Judas" at Bob Dylan’s now legendary Manchester concert in 1966; a reporter at The Independent tracked him down a while back. (Finding him was harder than you might think.)

A notable concert screamer is the aural equivalent of the random person we end up staring at in a crowd scene, like the bystanders in the Zapruder film. At some point we have an urge to scrutinize these people who’ve become known to a wider world by pure happenstance of being there—and making a bit of noise.

In the case of the live event, these folks are worthy of some praise. There’s an element of "behave yourself" at live events, especially, though not only, if you know they’re being recorded. The success of the event depends on the audience's cooperation; not only can a lone wacko ruin the experience for other concertgoers, but a determined one can preempt whatever creative thing a performer is trying to do. Still, the concert-screamer upends the "behave" dynamic, keeping things from getting too lemming-like. Even if they do sometimes piss off others, they add a nice sense of anarchy and randomness to the evening. That's why their squeals (as long as they're not sustained for the entire show) are cool on recordings—they remind you that the moment was real, and that real moments in time are not perfect.

The concert screamer is a proxy—able to express the thing that you, too, might have wanted to if you had been there or, if you were there, didn’t have the guts to. So here, for your random listening pleasure, are just a few of the notable concert screamers on record:


Bob Marley, "No Woman No Cry"—Live at the Lyceum, London, 1975

A well placed whistle during a musical interlude, heard from 4:45-4:50.


Simon & Garfunkel, "50 Ways to Leave Your Lover"—The Concert in Central Park, 1981

It’s not terribly loud, but I always anticipate the little yelp during the quiet moment from 1:48 – 1:49.

Eric Clapton, "Layla"—MTV Unplugged, 1992

Oh, the subversiveness of the concert screamer at an MTV Unplugged performance! Although I’m not wild about this guy’s scream at 0:57—it actually feels a little self-conscious.

Cheap Trick, "I Want You To Want Me"—Budokan, Tokyo, 1978

This squealer manages to stand out twice amid complete insanity. ‘A’ for effort, at 1:20 and1:38.


Van Morrison, "Just Like A Woman"—Pacific High Studios, San Francisco, 1971

An excellently placed and tightly executed “whoo,” heard right after a perfect apex of the song, at 3:58.


And finally, not to place myself in the ranks of the classic screamers above, but for humor and embarrassment’s sake, a few clips of Radiohead’s Shoreline performance from 6/27/01 in San Jose, CA. My shrieks can be heard at 0:11, 0:28, 1:43, 1:50, 3:38 and 5:33.

When I first heard this recording, I felt proud—like I had been immortalized in the annals of one of the best bands of all time, part of the permanent and inescapable record of the Kid A/Amnesiac tour. In some way, I still do. But more than that, I pity the hardcore fans who own the recording—and worse, the folks who shared this live experience with me. Is it possible you’re out there reading this? Is it possible you noticed? Well, sorry 'bout that.

Alex Schmidt is a reporter and producer based in Los Angeles. She files regularly for NPR, and irregularly for other places, about all manner of topics. You can follow her on twitter. She'd like to thank Jody Avirgan and Will Hattman for pointing her to some of the above concerts.

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so right now Yeah Yeah Yeahs are on Interscope Records and play venues twelve times the size of this venue when they come to new york. yesterday Todd P sent out a mass e-mail at 9:08 a.m. to announce the show, and the only way to get tickets was to pick them up at the venue last night at 6:00 p.m., and my friend said that so many people came to get tickets that more than half of the people on line to get tickets were turned away. she also said the venue has a capacity of maybe 300 people and the Yeah Yeah Yeahs put about 100 people on their guest list

so we walk around outside the venue for a minute and my friend spots Todd P and she walks over to him and asks him if we can go in and he says "well, no, you're not on the guest list" and then he looks at me and says "and even if you were, you wouldn't have a plus one" and my friend is disappointed and she says something to Todd that i can't hear and then he walks away and she turns to me and says "okay whatever, this kid i know is guarding the door in the back, maybe he'll let us sneak in"

so we walk around to the back of the venue and there is a kid in thick black glasses and long hair and a white v-neck shirt. he is sitting on a high chair next to the back entrance and my friend walks up to him and says "hey how's it going?" and he says "it's cool, just doing my shitty-ass job" and he fixes his hair a little and continues "you know, just guarding the door, bein' a dick door guy, how's it going with you?" and fixes his hair again and she tells him how it's going

from where we are standing we can see through the back door and into the crowd at the venue and we talk about Yeah Yeah Yeahs and the kid guarding the door rolls his eyes as he says something about Karen O and looks extra disdainful when he mentions that Karen O is in her dressing room, the implication i guess is that this is a random shithole venue in brooklyn, not Terminal 5 or wherever they play now, and using a dressing room is a princessey thing to do. the kid at the door says some more cynical stuff about Yeah Yeah Yeahs, i guess because Yeah Yeah Yeahs were a cool band 7 years ago which precludes them from being a cool band now

there seems to be a general understanding among the staff that i overheard talking outside the venue, and the kid at the door, that the Yeah Yeah Yeahs have come to a shithole venue in brooklyn for their tenth anniversary to reclaim their cred because now they are on Interscope and MTV and maybe miss the days when they were relevant and played venues like this every night. there is also sort of a mutual understanding among the staff that this cred-reclamation is transparent, and the kid at the door does not want to be a part of it but a job is a job. the kid at the door fixes his hair again

a girl who is alone walks up to us, thinking that where we are standing is the entrance, and the kid guarding the door looks at her and says, really loud and clearly, "THE DOOR IS AROUND THE CORNER AT THE FRONT OF THE VENUE. GO AROUND TO THE FRONT OF THE BUILDING AND GO IN THE DOOR" and she stands there looking dumbfounded at his hostility and then embarrassed and walks away and the kid at the door fixes his hair again and mentions that he likes being a dick, ironically i guess, and adjusts his glasses. my friend tells me and the kid guarding the door about the art show that she is setting up and i ask if she likes the show and she says "it's okay — at the opening, there's a girl who's gonna read some "fuck you, dad" thing and then jump into a giant plushie, so that should be fun" and she smiles a little

then a woman comes up to us and says "you guys have to leave, we can't really have people BOTHERING people around here" and gestures towards the kid guarding the door who we are bothering, so me and my friend leave and we spot Todd P again and my friend asks Todd if we can go in again and Todd says "no" again and my friend looks really upset and storms off and walks down the block and i am standing there by myself getting drizzled on and thinking about how there's no way i'm gonna be able to write about this Yeah Yeah Yeahs show now that i can't get into it, and then Todd calls out to her and she walks back to him and they work out some agreement i guess, and then my friend beckons to me, and i walk over to her and Todd P leads us around the building to a side of it where no one is standing

and he takes out a set of keys and opens a big door and leads us inside, and we stand in a hallway and he gives us instructions about how to surreptitiously enter the venue. he looks at us sternly and says something almost exactly like, "okay the fact that they already saw me not letting you in outside is bad, so if they see you inside they're gonna think something is up and i am going to get in trouble with the venue, which is not something i want. so you need to ACT NONCHALANT. don't talk to anybody when you first walk in, just walk into the crowd and ACT NONCHALANT, okay?" and we both nod and i whisper "thank you" and he pulls open a door and we walk out into the crowd of the Todd P Yeah Yeah Yeahs tenth anniversary show

we look around at the crowd, which is mostly nervous high school kids, girls wearing t-shirts and backpacks, and thirtysomethings, and my friend notes that this is "a pretty dork-studded event" and then she whispers "except that one of the girls from vivian girls is standing next to us"

soon Yeah Yeah Yeahs get on stage and Karen O is draped in a fabric that looks like it is covered in enlarged barcodes and she is wearing a gas mask and she holds the microphone up like a torch and pulls the mask off and brings the microphone down to her mouth and yelps into it, and then she grabs a bottle of Poland Spring and drinks some and cocks her head back and then spits the water up into the air, which is the same thing i watched her do on stage at a festival at Jones Beach in 2003 and the other two times i've seen them too, and i can only assume she's done it several hundred or thousand other times too

and knowing that Karen O will spit water up into the air regardless of her mood disarms the thrill of its spontaneity. i think it is supposed to seem like Karen O spits water up into the air because she just FEELS LIKE IT because she's just that badass, and staying adequately hydrated is not a concern to a punk art star of her stature, but if she does it every night it is part of an act, which feels disingenuous given the ostensibly spontaneous free-spirited rebelliousness of spitting water up into the air

then they play their first song which is called Rich and was written at a time when she had no money and now, ten years and millions of records and tons of festivals and TV appearances and commercial song licenses they actually are rich and i wonder if the band ever discusses that or thinks about giving it a disclaimer on stage, although i don't know how they'd do that, or if the irony is lost on them? probably not. this really is "rich"

they play a few more songs and Karen controls the crowd: gyrating, yelping, pointing, uttering. after a few minutes my heart is melted to the calculatedness of this whole thing because she is magnetic, and i remember why she is iconic and they are great in the first place. she has stripped her robe off to reveal a tight black dress and fishnets. brian chase, the drummer, sits at the back of the stage and looks like he got pulled out of a band that is not from new york, like maybe Guster, because he is smiling really hard and wearing loose clothing. nick zinner never smiles and sometimes he turns his back to the audience and fixes his hair between songs, and when he turns to face us and play guitar you can see a vein going up his arm from the wrist all the way to the shoulder, it looks like his skin is too tight on him

they play a few more songs and then Kyp Malone from TV on the Radio hurries past me and into the middle of the crowd, wearing a jacket and carrying a gym bag and a record i can't identify, and bumps my arm. then forty-five seconds later he runs back out of the crowd, stashes his gym bag and record and jacket somewhere, and runs back into the crowd. Karen O dedicates the next song to Todd P, LCD Soundsystem, Metropolitan Avenue and some other stuff that i can't make out and then they play Maps

Kyp Malone goes crazy for Maps, jumping up and down and shaking his head back and forth, clasping his hands together in front of his face and singing along and then outstretching his arm and putting his open palm up in the air as he yells THEY DON'T LOVE YOU LIKE I LOVE YOU. he puts his hand over his mouth, he claps in doubletime to the beat, he wipes sweat off his brow and pushes his glasses up on his nose and then touches his beard and keeps singing along. Kyp Malone doesn't have to pretend he doesn't like the hit single, he is ecstatic for Maps

then people pass out birthday candles during Black Tongue because it is Yeah Yeah Yeahs 10th birthday and my friend leans over and blows some high school kids' candles out because i think that is the punkest way to handle this. an asian teenager who is standing in front of me and dressed in drag asks me if the plastic birthday cake that is strapped to the top of his head is blocking my view and i say "no you're good" and connect my thumb and pointer finger to make an O and outstretch my other fingers and hold my hand up and smile

they play a few more, Karen O has the crowd on a leash, and then she says "it's fucked up how sweet you guys are" and holds up a birthday candle and they play their last song, which is called Heads Will Roll, and then everyone files out and i see a high school kid who is sweaty from the show and he is sitting against a wall near the entrance, and as we walk past him he takes a picture of his face with a digital camera

my friend hugs Todd P on the way out and i shake his hand and thank him and then we walk back to the subway and talk about being a successful band in new york, and how when you are not yet successful and you play at shitholes and make no money, what you want to do is make money and have millions of people love you because it is not fun to toil in obscurity forever, and then once millions of people love you and you make a lot of money it must bother you that no matter how great your band still is and how hard you try every night, the coolest kids are not the ones who are coming out anymore, because they have found new cool bands or and are maybe rolling their eyes at you

and trying to get the cool kids to come back and see you because you're playing at some random shithole in brooklyn again is like trying to get toothpaste back in the tube. but who cares because you are in wealthy and successful and in Yeah Yeah Yeahs, and in new york, wealth and fame are the ultimate last laughs, and to all the kids rolling their eyes at you, you still are "rich rich rich", you know?

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Robyn Talk

Seth: Critical consensus seems to be correct about this individual.
Mary: Well, I love her but I did not used to love her. KABLOW.
Seth: I was *wincing* a little bit, though, on the first song ("Cry When You Get Older"), because the canned-backup Robyn vocals were hard to distinguish from the live-Robyn vocals.
Mary: Right.
Seth: I was thinking–hmm, this might not be a very dynamic live musical performance. But you know what?
Mary: You're a snob?
Seth: ...
Mary: What?
Seth: Starting with "Dancing on My Own," somebody in her band decided to start digitally tweaking the backup-Robyn vocals. Which was really great and sounded *different* from the records!
Mary: YES. It was dope.
Seth: Right, cause then you could hear what Robyn was actually giving us live–which turned out to be some pretty expressive and tender singing for someone dancing that hard.
Mary: The band was great too because it was like Noah's ark where there were two of each. Two drummers? Incredible.
Seth: But go back and explain why you didn't used to love her. I want more than *kablow.*
Mary: I found her last album to be way gimmicky and too "Jeremy Scott" which for me is weird because I love gimmicks and Jeremy Scott (generally). But she rapped way too much in a corny euro fashion. AND I fucking hated her hair and the entire presentation.
Seth: So...
Mary: So I did not like the music. And I did not like the fashion.
Seth: That'll do it!
Mary: Right but this go ‘round, I heart both. To where I almost don't understand where all this newnew awesomeness is coming from.
Seth: Well, I think everyone agrees that Body Talk Pt. 1 is kind of a high point.
Mary: I am no music critic but it's not that sort of thing where a number of green factors are coming to fruition, she honestly seems like a different person to me.
Seth: You are a social critic.
Mary: I YAM.
Seth: Explain what you loved.

Explaining the Love

Mary: I love that we can actually just... SEE HER. And she's lovely. She's so much more charismatic when she's... distilled
Seth: The clothes. They're kind of work-outy, no? Like, I'd go to BodyFlow with her but...
Mary: MAHAHAHHAHA! BodyFlow.
Seth: Right?
Mary: I found her outfit last night to be kinda hilarious because it was quite buttoned-up. I didn't think it was as sportif.
Seth: You should see how the women in Beirut wear makeup to the gym.
Mary: That is up my alley.
Seth: Right.
Mary: Robyn was "body-con" in the sense that it was a tight fitting black mini dress with a square neckline and she had a sort of neu-Ann Taylor-ish necklace.
Seth: Is that ... good or bad?
Mary: Good. But it did all make me feel like we were watching her do karaoke during happy hour where she "transitioned" into "nightwear" by removing a cashmere cardigan BUT it all totally works for me.
Seth: Yes. Also: damn that was a short set.
Mary: True! But... you know, back to the clothes for a second... when she turned around she had a big metal zipper running on the back of the whole thing which I loved.
Seth: YES! When she did the makeout with myself moves
Mary: SO AWESOME. I loved that.
Seth: It was also a hint of, Oh, she could also undress herself right now with that zipper.
Mary: There was that for sure. Also, the hint of metal was the point at which I had to see the shoes.
Seth: Oh, I wondered what motivated your exodus from the VIP section.
Mary: I SO got big aggy eyebrows from security when I bumrushed.
Seth: I SAW THAT. But you know what? You convinced him of your VIP-ness in like 2.3 seconds flat. I was impressed.
Mary: Well, duh. So I thought her voice was wonderful but you are a gigantic snob when it comes to live voices so what did you think?

The Voice

Seth: I thought her voice was great, once I could distinguish it reliably! Also: while I also was hoping for a mega-mash-extended-remix of "Hang With Me"...
Mary: OH I THINK I KNOW WHAT YOU'RE GOING TO SAY NEXT.
Seth: ...that would have incorporated the acoustic version into Body Talk Pt. 2's electro orgasm.
Mary: Mmmhmm...
Seth: I was pretty happy with just the front half, because Robyn sang it with such, um ... it sounds lame to say it, but I'll say "pathos." That song really gets me. It's mining the same lyrical content as "Bad Romance," and yet it is 1000x more affecting, for me. Because the lyric that warns the listener not to get too close to Robyn...
Mary: Oh, I totally didn't know what you were going to say next.
Seth: ...but the lyric that reveals that she doesn't want a friendship that could tumble disastrously into furious, untamable love...
Mary: Right, the "don't fall recklessly, headlessly in love with me."
Seth: Is pegged to this KILLER synth arpeggio that ascends...
Seth: and ascends...
Seth: and ascends...
Seth: and is saying
Seth: FUCKING LOVE ME.
Seth: FUCKING DO IT ALREADY.
Mary: Whoa Seth.
Seth: There's such an almost unbelievable tension between that lyric and that music. It's dreamy and I want to make it alive in my heart all the time.
Mary: Whoa, "alive in my heart all the time." *looks away*
Seth: What?
Mary: I was giving you a moment... "emotions." Um.... So... "Arpeggio" I learned last night means "trance build up."
Seth: I was describing what part of the song was the arpeggio not what an arpeggio does.
Mary: I know. But I didn't know either before we talked and now I do and it's why we're pals.
Seth: No probs, broseph!
Mary: So like, I really wanted the electro version to explode onto the scene but she went acoustic all the way with that song and we were sadface.
Seth: Someday that's going to be busted out.
Mary: I hope so. I hope there's wine when it does. And also beer for you.
Seth: (And if not under Robyn's aegis–then approx 1 hr. after a hi-quality version of Pt. 2's "Hang With Me" leaks and a smart DJ puts it all together into a 7-minute jam.)
Mary: (handle it, Internetz kthxbai) Oh man, that song is the fucking shit. Also, remember when she sang A. Keys's "Try Sleeping With a Broken Heart" and I ate that shit up.
Seth: I noticed! I'm starting to think "Hang" is better than "Dancing," which is my current no. 1 single of 2010?
Mary: I LOVE "DANCING..." Dancing also has pretty epic lyrics
Seth: True.
Mary: I don't like feelings but it's what makes me love Robyn so much right now. This album seems to be a lot more honest in so many ways.
Seth: I almost did some true music-reviewer nerd shit right there, but am just gonna say "AGREE" instead.
Mary: COOL. So would you go to a longer show?

Longer Show? Yes Please!

Seth: Yes indeed I would. Would you not? Did you feel like this was a particularly concise show of Robyn's recent awesomeness that you wouldn't want to see diluted by the parts of her catalog that you're less impressed by?
Mary: No actually, and typically this would be my reaction since I am horribly lazy and like to quit while I'm ahead in everything BUT I'm genuinely sorta interested enough to consider going to a longer set.
Seth: Maybe you are not as lazy as you think!
Mary: Maybe. That'd be weird. But I am going to buy the shit out of this album and I really want her to win. I want her to have it all. And FIND WHATEVER IT IS SHE IS LOOKING FOR. Oh, and speaking of Lady Gaga which you brought up earlier... a lot of the contest winners were talking about her.
Seth: Oh yeah?
Mary: Yeah, and how stupid over her they all are.
Seth: Interesting. I think Choire owes me $5 now, or something.
Seth: And then Ke$ha muzak was playing before the show and they are over her too.
Seth: Well, they were perhaps excited by their proximity to Robyn a tad overmuch. OR perhaps there is greater equilibrium in the roiling sea that is our nation's pop affections.
Mary: OH. IMPORTANT QUESTION.
Seth: ?
Mary: What did you think of Robyn's hair?

Robyn's Hair

Seth: When the laser lights chilled the shit down for a hot second, I noticed the right side of her head was dyed blue! (The laser lights were green, color-wheel nerds.)
Mary: YES there was that. But what do you think of the cut? THE CUT?!!
Seth: Oh I liked the cut. But I'm not sure it's meant for me? For me to like, I mean.
Mary: EXACTLY. See, I think guys will hate it but like, girls love it. And maybe want to get it. It's such a "GIRL DECISION" cut. I am in the mood to see this on more people.
Seth: BRB going to Chelsea Barber.
Mary: No dude, on chicks.
Seth: OHHHHHHHHH
Mary: NO BROMO
Seth: LOL
Mary: I liked her shoes too... they were peep-toe wedge booties for the record
Seth: ... I don't know what that means!
Mary: It's OK.
Seth: I know! And that's why we're pals.
Mary: Totally.

Seth Colter Walls and Mary HK Choi are a mite sluggish today.

Photo of Robyn on tour by Roger Zender from Flickr.

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I do not like the band Train. Or, more accurately, I have no opinion of the band Train-they fall into the category of bands that I know "exist." I am aware of that song with that catchy mandolin about greeting a "soul sister," and that's about it. But there I was, forging with them that special bond that can only come from a shared presence on a Jumbotron.

The studio was stuffed full of cameras and men with headphones. The TVs hanging from ceilings and walls idled on a single image, that of one the two sponsors. The company logos were everywhere, and the audience was stuffed to one side of the band's gear. I stood with people associated with the sponsors or the PR firm, friends, and family. Three teenage girls were placed up front, getting antsy waiting for this "adult contemporary" band to come on. They were clearly very excited. They were giggling so hard they looked like they had found a golden ticket to Willy Wonka's confectionery sweatshop.

"It's just like TRL!" one of these girls said, baring her plastic braces.

"What's TRL?" said the woman next to her, presumably her mother.

"Omigod you don't know what TRL is!"

The girls giggled more.

I was standing in front of three twenty-something guys, and asked if they worked with the sponsors. They informed me they were friends of the host, Allison Hagendorf. I had no idea who that was. They pointed her out. Makeup people were puffing her cheeks painting her lips with lipgloss.

"Oh, right," I said.

"She's the host of the Fuse TV's Top 20 Countdown," one of them said.

"Oh, probably should have known that," I said. "She's pretty attractive."

"These are her parents," he said, and waved to the older man and woman standing directly next to me.

"Oh, hey," I said to Mr. and Mrs. Hagendorf. "Um, sorry about that."

A few minutes later Allison Hagendorf, primped up and sporting a well-practiced smile, introduced the band-"You can catch a subway anywhere in the city but today you gotta look up if you wanna see TRAIN!"-and out they came. The lead singer had on a purple tight tee shirt and more gel in his hair than The Situation. The guitarist was bald with Bono-style glasses. The drummer was blonde and in the interview part asserted that John Bonham was "the best drummer ever."

First up was "Drops of Jupiter," an exercise in schmaltz-pop held up by rolling electric piano and lyrics filled with clunky reference to soy lattes and fried chicken. I hadn't thought about the song in years. Alison Hagendorf described it as "cosmic." Right. Jupiter.

They played their new single, "If It's Love." I wasn't exactly listening, as I was too intent on making sure I didn't scratch my nose while millions of teens watched this nightmare Facebook. Pat Monahan, the lead singer, did some pompous breast-stroke movements; his other blindingly white dance moves during the show included, but were not limited to: the arm roll, the fists-clenched shoulder-shake, the hip-boogie, and the look-at-the-camera lunge.

Then they broke into "Hey, Soul Sister," the song everyone knows, even if you have no idea what these guys look like (I sure didn't-I Google imaged them on my phone in the bathroom). The kids really liked this one! They swayed, smiled and mouthed along with the words. Unsurprisingly, the "adult contemporaries" in the room liked it, too. I mean, it is their music. They got down!

After the show I tried to speak to the band about how awesome it is to play shows surrounded by corporate executives and products getting pimped out. First I talked to a very nice PR guy who showed me the laptop music software/headphone combination that sponsored this concert. Yes, you are correct. There was a shit ton of bass. Totally beast setup, bro.

Then, I was told the band had to keep to a strict schedule, and they were sorry they couldn't talk to me. I'm sorry too, Train. The future adult contemporary fan inside of me is very sorry.

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I woke up early the morning that the tickets for the Hole concert went on sale just in case the show sold out. The idea of seeing Courtney Love-a for-real rock icon-live made me freak out. I didn't bother to make plans with friends to see the show; I assumed that I'd know a handful of people who'd be as excited as I was. It turned out, however, that no one I knew was interested in the show, and I found myself becoming equally indifferent as the date grew closer.

I couldn't even find my ticket on the morning of Wednesday's show, and I was a bit relieved. While I searched my apartment, I wondered if losing the ticket was the best excuse for avoiding a potentially terrible concert. When I did find it, I realized that I had to go, as my chances of selling it were slim and I was in no position to skip out on a concert after paying more than forty dollars.

You've heard that Courtney Love is a little crazy, right? Her variety of nuttiness is one reason to see her in concert: to experience something that is unpredictable and rock 'n' roll, but also something that teeters on the border of trainwreck. Is there any other musician who can provide such an unexpected and unpredictable performance? There is a reason why there were so many gays in the audience-we like to watch a hot mess because we're SO MEAN. Was it worth it to attend a show for which I had very low expectations?

I skipped the opening act (I'm sure the audience at the Vic will never forget the night they saw FOXY SHAZAM open for Hole) and arrived just in time to hear trumpets blare over the speakers. The lights dimmed and the majority of the crowd pulled out their Blackberries and iPhones in order to film the opening moments of the show. It sounded a bit like the music one hears in the gift shops at Busch Gardens: it was deliberately schlocky, so pretentiously dramatic, yet it completely worked as Courtney strutted onto the stage clad in a black backless dress and thigh-high boots. She took a drag from her cigarette and, with a hand on her hip and a half-grin that didn't leave her face for the rest of show, purred, "Shall we?"

I was neither over- nor under-whelmed by the first songs. It felt a bit like what "rock concerts" look like in movies: a montage of two-minute versions of songs you'd recognize from some place else. But when the first set ended, it was time for some onstage banter. "VALERIE LOVES ME," she screamed, and I got super excited; I expected a cover of the Material Issue song. Alas, it was just a segue into the first of many monologues-all of which had the same theme. "That's my favorite song to come out of Chicago," she said. "Well, except for the ones that Billy wrote for me."

Have you ever run into a friend at a party and they're kind of wasted and they mention an ex but try to play it off in a way that it's, like, not even a big deal, OK? Or have you ever wanted to totally bash someone to a mutual acquaintance even though you know you shouldn't, and that doing so would just make you look like a shit? Well, Courtney has a lot to say about Billy Corgan. "I don't know why Billy thinks I can't write songs," Courtney said after playing "Pacific Coast Highway," from Hole's latest album, "Nobody's Daughter." "That song was good, right? It was co-written by Courtney Love. And I wrote the melody, which is the best part, right?" The crowd cheered, giving the positive reinforcement that Courtney needed and pretty much just flat-out asked for. "Seriously," she said, suddenly softening the blow, "Billy is so talented. I can't even deal with it."

There were other interjections about Billy-with whom I'm now on a first-name basis-throughout the show, but he isn't her only enemy in Chicago. "Is Jim DeRogatis here tonight?" she asked. "If so, fuuuuuuck youuuuuuuu!" (My sincere apologies to DeRo fans, but I'm on Team Courtney in this matter.) Sad to say, I was too far back in the theater to ask her what she thought of Chicagoan Liz Phair's "Funstyle."

The rest of the set was a mixture of forgettable new songs and selections from "Live Through This." Courtney certainly relied on the guys behind her to play the instruments, but she played to the audience nonetheless: she shoved her arms down to the people in the front row, chastised a girl for being too rowdy ("I was never that loud!"), and demanded that more lingerie be thrown at the stage. During the encore, in which she returned to the stage wearing an unbuttoned dress shirt over her visible bra and stockings in a possible Bob Fosse homage, she sang a cover of Big Star's "Thirteen" (classic rock concert move!) and then polled the audience on their credit scores. It was the MTV Unplugged version of the fully amplified crazy that one might expect from Courtney Love. There were no breakdowns, no public humiliations, and I was really excited!

I might be in the minority here, but I genuinely want Courtney Love to succeed. It's so easy-and frankly, so cliched-to call for the public humiliation of a famous person. Granted, those with a penchant for airing their dirty laundry generally have a need for validation and the inability to ignore criticism, but I'm also someone who thinks that everyone is a bit of a narcissist. (Hello! I have a blog, and I have my own personal Billy Corgans.)

It was quite refreshing, though, to see a very unpretentious crowd enjoy a band they really loved. Hole's a band that has, for better and for worse, been around in various incarnations for more than twenty years now, and they're still attracting a diverse crowd that ranges from girls in the the lace tops and kick-wear to bros wearing cargo shorts and rugby shirts.

There might even still be some tiny chance that Courtney Love's whole persona is a big act, that she choreographs her every move, and that we all may have fallen for it. But she seemed so genuine, so completely and honestly off-the-cuff-and I don't like the implications of an alternate reality in which a Bizarro Courtney has such control over a thousand people in one night. Perhaps I'm over-thinking all of it and should just acknowledge that the group of a thirteen hundred happy people was evidence of a great show.

Tyler Coates will be very happy to have breakfast drinks with you this coming Sunday at 11 a.m. in Chicago!

Photo by Ted van Pelt from Flickr.

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It all started out harmless enough, normal overcrowding issues with just just too many people in the Seaport area. Which, in retrospect, sort of makes sense: when you consider the fact that there was a line of people at midnight at the Best Buy in Union Square waiting for a chance to pay money to buy Drake's album, presumably a lot more people would show up for the chance to see a free concert held by said Drake on a nice Tuesday afternoon.

The concert started at 6 p.m. and Drake was scheduled to go on at 7:45-after opening acts Ninja Sonik and Hanson (yes THAT Hanson, the ones who sang "Mmmbop") were supposed to have their own little sets. Around 6:15, Ninja Sonik ended up doing about 2 minutes and then stopping, and Hanson, according to people backstage, looked out at the mob scene outside with limited security and didn't feel comfortable going on.

Around 7 p.m., as everyone was jostling for a better view of the stage, some people started to climb up and sit on those rooftop sort of things of the little kiosks at South Street Seaport. Police started yelling at those (mostly) teens to get off the roof, and that's when everything started to get a little wackadoo.

The authorities then thought it better to start to clear people out. But the thing is, if you're a kid whose been waiting for three to four hours to see rap superstar Drake, you're not looking to get told that you have to leave the same area that you've been perched upon after having to have heard a two minute set by Ninja Sonik. People started shouting and general unrest turned into crazy mob mode. The Heartland Brewery Restaurant and Pub across the street locked its doors (with patrons inside) because they saw what was happening outside.

If you've never been to the South Street Seaport, it's sort of like an outdoor strip mall on the water with two levels of stores. The top level also has a little terrace with outdoor furniture and other outdoor mall type things. As people started getting angrier, they started to throw trash from the ground floor of the terrace up to the second floor. This quickly escalated to glass bottles, and then the sort of pièce de résistance, the aforementioned outdoor furniture. The next thing you knew, there were chairs, tables, and plants being thrown from the top level onto the bottom level.

Things started to settle down, but as people were still holding out to see the free Drake concert that they were promised, no one was really evacuating the area. Police went up to get the people who were throwing the lawn furniture and took them out, but still people were still holding court wherever they had been waiting for hours.

Finally the police started to tell people to clear out and that the show was canceled. As I'm sure you can imagine, the crowd did not take this news particularly well. As the officers walked through and out of the crowd with the people they had arrested from the balcony, there was a swarm that just surrounded them-lots of them taking pictures. At that point, it got even more intense and the police started to spray mace through the crowd, with the obvious result that 200 to 300 people began dispersing as quickly as they could. It was like those times when a kid runs through a group of pigeons and they all fly away in a big mob, running into each other, making this big mass of feathers, only instead of pigeons it was kids wearing fitted New Era hats and Air Jordans.

After the mace incident, people seemed to understand that Drake wasn't going on, and things started to, relatively, calm down. Eventually Drake released a statement to the website Rap Radar:

I am humbled by the crowd that showed up in support of my performance and the release of Thank Me Later. I love performing for my fans but unfortunately the show was canceled by the NYPD due to over crowding, leaving me without the chance to give my fans a real show. I'm thankful for the support that the fans have been giving me... I thank you now.

So at least that's good.

Photo and video via Rap Radar; second photo by Ben Detrick.

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North Dakotans are timely. They line up exactly on time to see Britney's opener, Jordin Sparks. The artists return the favor, with Britney hopping on stage as scheduled. The show's over by 11 p.m. All ages have come, with the primary group skewing down to 12 and topping out at 45. And they are almost exclusively female, which is unsurprising. This area of the nation offers little of what might be considered "female" entertainment. Hockey, football, hunting, dirt track car racing and such are common and plentiful. Not to say women cannot be fans of these things; but these things are generally not fans of women.

The Alerus Center shares a lot in common with the classic Simpsons "Monorail" episode: Springfield decides against fixing up the existing downtown area in favor of a slick proposal for an unnecessary monorail system that promises civic fame and wild economic prosperity. Failure ensues. The center is of the Field of Dreams school of economic development: "Build it and They Will Come." But they have not come. Spears promoters have agreed she appear in such a small location in part because of the $850,000 guarantee from the venue. The very successful 2002 Cher show is still spoken about here by taxpayers and Cher fans with equal reverence. But recent Neil Diamond and Fleetwood Mac shows were bombs. This essentially means that the taxpayers of Grand Forks promised to pay Spears even if ticket sales fall short. It cannot be overstated how apeshit this makes many residents. Add the fact that the center is in the hole more than $256,000 this year, when it is supposed to be in the black, and that its private management company has a dirty habit of hiding losses from public record. The Alerus Center is prone to a bad combination of over-optimism and mismanagement, the manner of which can be found under a variety of corporate names across smaller-citied America.

In the first six months of 2009, the top 100 tours took in over $1.1 billion, up nearly 11 percent over the same period in 2008. But the large arena concert industry is broken. Ticket sales are down and top acts are no longer selling out. And those that still manage sellouts, like U2, are forced to do it through ticket discounts. (For instance, the Grand Forks Spears show unloaded many $96 tickets at $20 "student" prices.) The comment boards of the industry's trade sites are foul with blame and rants about "wake up moments." The term "dinosaur" is used liberally.

The concert industry and health care are not so different. They are bloated systems that have found a way of delivering services in a way that would initially seem counter intuitive. The incentives could not be more backward .Profit motives hide behind high-minded rhetoric about delivering "art" and "health." And, maybe most tellingly, many of those fed up with both systems blame the wrong parties. For health care, it's illegal immigrants. For concerts, it's Ticketmaster.

Generation X's Boomer moment (i.e., being principled in youth when it's easy, before growing old and lazy and selling out) was Ticketmaster. Over a ten year period, bookended by valiant stands by Pearl Jam and String Cheese Incident, fans had an opportunity to hold Ticketmaster back. We offered our support but only in words. The result? Pearl Jam in West Valley City, Utah on Sept. 28 via Ticketmaster: $62.00 + $11.60 Convenience Charge + $3 Building Facility Charge + $5.10 order processing fee + $2.50 TicketsNow fee = $84.20-or 35 percent higher than face.

Rolling Stone, The Washington Post and The New Yorker have all recently printed versions of the "concert industry sucks" article and they all basically blame Ticketmaster or Live Nation, or both, for conspiring to make your concert experience both expensive and shitty.

Even Bruce Springsteen has blamed his greed on Ticketmaster. After the ostensibly union-friendly Springsteen apologized for signing an exclusive album release deal with Wal-Mart, he blamed Ticketmaster for the lack of availability of his "affordable" $96 floor tickets. In fact, The Boss had held back over 1,000 seats, making only 108 of these "affordable" tickets even available. The move, at worst, may make Springsteen a criminal and at best confirms he's a jerk. The scandal moved Rep. Bill Pascrell (D-Joisey) to propose the toothless and stupidly named BOSS (Better Oversight of Secondary Sales and Accountability in Concert Ticketing) Act. The true Boss Act should be Springsteen using his pull in the industry to push for changes in the way tickets are sold. But he won't.

By leveraging a hard built populist reputation to screw the common man and profit handsomely while blaming somebody else, Springsteen finally confirmed he really is a true American institution. Congratulations, Boss.

Make no mistake, Ticketmaster is not your friend. Like all profit-driven businesses, it is interested in money, not once-in-a-lifetime experiences or whatever poncey copy its advertising uses. And by all accounts, including the American Anti-trust Institute's, a Ticketmaster-Live Nation merger would not be better for you.

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