Dancing Brave

It's A Spice World And We're All Just Living In It

Catherine beat me to a lengthy post about The Greatest Show On Earth, but it bears repeating: The Spice Girls extravapalooza was the most fun I've ever had at a concert. It was layer upon layer of flamboyantly gay camp, combined with awesome outfits and the songs I've known the words to and bopped to on the treadmill ever since "Wannabe" came out 12 years ago. It was perfect -- like a giant, non-sweaty, non-invasive nightclub party, but with confetti cannons.

Our girl Catherine was obviously born under a particularly spicy star, since she managed to get us floor seats for the show. We were in such a good spot that we didn't even really need to look at the monitors for closer views, although right at the end I did and I caught a glimpse of something you don't see every day: Posh, crying.

At the three-quarters mark or so, after one number ends, Ginger gets sucked down below and the four remaining girls sing "Holler," which was their post-Geri single. Then Posh disappears and the other three sing "Let Love Lead The Way," and then Vicky and Geri return and the five girls link arms and walk slowly toward the crowd, representing their reunion. The crowd goes nuts, and the cameraman did slow, close-up pans across all their faces; it caught my eye so I looked up in time to see Posh wiping tears away from her cheeks. Mel B was teary-eyed, too. It was sort of sweet. Perhaps it was anticipatory crying, because right then, they broke into "Mama," which they did as an homage to their mothers and children by showing a long slideshow of family photographs from grandmothers through to their own children. Even the hardened among us (read: me) had to admit it was pretty touching. I mean, who doesn't love mothers?

In addition to sitting right behind the delightful Dave, who was so cute I wanted to take him home and talk about boys and clothes and which Spice looked the hottest (the answer: all of them, actually, although Ginger is way too thin and it's having an effect on her face), we also had a man behind us clad in a Union Jack tank top and a feather boa, weeping uncontrollably, and a friendly, excitable midget dancing on her seat in front of us and screaming, "I HAVE WAITED MY WHOLE LIFE FOR THIS. LIKE, ELEVEN YEARS!!" Dave, who is attending every U.S. concert, sang along to every song, boogied, spent slower numbers with his hands held to his face and swaying slightly, and often gently mimicked the choreography in that proud, almost inadvertent way that stage mothers do when their precious baby is on-stage performing a routine they both know by heart. And, as Carol pointed out in Catherine's comments, there was a rather tall and corpulent man in the third row up in the regular stadium section to our left, dancing his heart out and singing every line and having the time of his life. He seemed so out of visual place -- one of those "one of these things is not like the other" moments -- that we decided that he's a high-powered attorney in his regular life and that nobody at his firm has any idea about his secret predilection for Posh. Shine on, Secret Professional. Shine on.

Good thing the Pussycat Dolls were there, and headed backstage after (sans Asia, the TV series winner, because I believe she refused a deal with the group -- I think the group is doing nothing until Nicole's solo album comes out and that just got pushed again), because they could use some pointers on how it's REALLY done. Overall the show is just high-spirited and fun, with just the right amount of pageantry and self-awareness on the part of the girls. Where the other four each get a solo song, Posh just does a saucy catwalk; I love that she is basically like, "Let's not pretend we don't all know that singing is not my thing." Although she did have solos she actually performed -- they did a lot of their own live singing, which was surprising and great, because you never do know.

And the people watching... the night had pretty much paid for itself before the concert even started. A highlight was the girl in fuschia tights and chartreuse panties over top -- and no other bottoms to speak of -- waddling around at a snail's pace in apparently painful silver heels and violated by her exposed control-top ribbing. Homemade t-shirts abounded.  There were bad wigs all over the place, and a collection of girls in tiny skirts and foot-crippling high heels who were NOT trying to ape any particular Spice Girl but just apparently felt that they needed to look super overdresssed in case David Beckham saw them and spontaneously decided to leave his wife.

In all, as Catherine put it, that was a major highlight in the history of Me.

Covers

If you were ever curious as to how Justin Timberlake's "SexyBack" could be turned into a jazz tune, Corinne Bailey Rae evidently took it upon herself to feed your curiosity.

It gets smoother as it goes; I thought it was dead awful at first, but I think that's just because it was so surprising and jarring when you're used to the original. As it went, it grew on me just for the sheer originality of the approach, and by the end I may have been tapping my foot along with it.

Apparently, the radio show that elicited the cover -- Jo Whiley's show on BBC Radio 1 in England -- yields a lot of unusual ones. The Fray did "Hips Don't Lie," which cracks me up during the spoken parts, what with all the joyous whoops in the background. I love a good whooping.

Not to be confused with a whuppin'.

Demi Need Not Apply

Thought I'd throw this one open to the group...

At the end of every strip class, we each get a chance to dance to a song of our choice. Some weeks, Sheila picks a theme for everyone to use, either when selecting a song or deciding what clothes to peel off. She does this, I assume, to keep people trying new things rather than falling back on the same music or the same clothes every week, because you never know what something fresh will unleash. It sounds kind of lame when I type it here, but it actually does help and is pretty good for us, especially if you're like me and tend to fall into a rut where you don't know what song to do and so you use Sia's "Breathe Me" again. And even though it basically rules, the last thing I want is to get inured to how sexy a song it is.

Ahem. Where was I?

For Saturday, our theme is "movies" -- a movie song, a movie character, or both. And I need help, because I am usually not very creative with the assignments. I had Jen help me with Latin week -- she suggested a bunch of slow tangoes and "La Tortura" by Shakira, and I picked the latter because I knew it best, and it went well. But with "movies"... well, I should not be drawing a blank, butI am, because my memory-on-demand is terrible, and right now I am completely unable to think of any movies at all except, like, Mr. Smith Goes To Washington, and as awesome as that might be in some ways, I don't really think I want to strip to any of Jimmy Stewart's monologues.

And so, pretending for a second that there isn't a movie called Striptease, does anyone have any fun suggestions?

Be Quiet, Brien Wilson

I've decided recently that any Christmas carol by The Beach Boys is automatically one of my least favorite songs of the season.

It's not that I have anything against The Beach Boys -- they want to take me down to Kokomo for cocktails and moonlit nights, for God's sake -- but the band just has a very particular sound, and that sound is of summer. I simply don't want to hear that particular brand of perky during the holidays, that's all. It drives me a little bonkers.

I've also learned I can't abide Paul McCartney's "Wonderful Christmas Time," although I appreciate where he was going with it, as the season is far and away the best. I just think if you're going to come up with a modern classic, so to speak, you have to err on the side of "All I Want For Christmas Is You" rather than on the side of breathy testosterone. Not to say guys are excluded from my little cadre of favorite Christmas carols; just that they need to camp it up these days.

I say "these days," because otherwise, that criteria would exclude Wham's "Last Christmas," and yet that is a COMPLETE classic in spite of -- and maybe because of -- its plaintive nature. I remember Young Heather being absolutely gutted that the silly cow in the video chose Andrew Ridgeley over GEORGE MICHAEL. What was that about? Oh, that chapped my hide on his behalf. He gave her his heart and she REGIFTED IT. Well, not even that; she just sort of threw it out with the gift wrap. It made absolutely no sense to me, although this might also have to do with the fact that I just KNEW George and I were meant to be, and that horrible woman from "Careless Whisper" -- oooh, and the one who is being kind of prickly with him in "Wake Me Up Before You Go-Go" and is maybe considering not waking him up all... well, those are evil and stupid people. Apparently George really didn't have much faith in his ability to keep a woman. Whch is just as well, as it turned out he didn't want one, and then poof went my childhood dreams of boating around on a yacht and passing by the woman who left him in "Careless Whisper," and laughing at her and showing off how divinely happy we were and how he didn't need her anyway.

But, that dream is dead. I feel like a Clay Aiken fan. All those people who swear he's not gay are going to be so crushed when he surges out of the closet later in life, and they'll remember back when they dreamed his song about stalking applied to THEIR bedroom windows.

I'll close with this irrelevant note: Thanks to the above little tangent, I just then got a vision of Clay Aiken remaking the Mariah Carey song, and I started snorting with mirth at my desk. Nasal activity like that is always both attractive and appropriate at the office.

Queen! Queen!

Life is good. We just got back from a great weekend in Big Bear, and the first thing we did was buy tickets to see Queen at the Hollywood Bowl in October.

I know Queen isn't really Queen without Freddie Mercury, but I love the music so much -- my Dad pretty much weaned us on it -- that it's worth it to me just to go and hear it and sing along and dance like a moron. Some guy named Paul Rodgers is singing lead, and apparently he's well known from bands like The Firm and Bad Company, but... yeah, I don't know any of that, so to me he's perfect: A faceless, (comparatively) fameless guy who isn't going to try and make the songs anything but what they are and what they were. As much as I liked the George Michael rumors when they were swirling, I think he's too famous to step in for Dead Fred -- he's got his own style and it's very specific to him, and that might end up rubbing off in a weird way on the Queen songs.

I don't know. To be honest, it doesn't matter. Anybody is fine. I just want to scream out the lyrics and shed a tear when they pay the inevitable sad tribute to Freddie, of whom (and of whose appearances in videos, and of whose kicky mustache) I have happy childhood memories.

It also will knock off a "101 in 1001" list item, which was to see something at the Bowl. A happy coincidence.

Spoon Me

Spoon did an in-store last night at Amoeba Records, so Kevin and I met up with his friend Greg and went to see it. After the hoarse Coachella show, we wanted to see if the band sounded better.

Amoeba is basically a music-lover's haven, and there's a tiny stage against the back wall that often hosts in-store performances. This is the first one I've been to, although I've intended to go to others and been unable to do it because of work. Now that I'm a layabout, though, I'm free to head off to these things without worrying about what my coworkers will think. Take THAT, employment!

It was a great set, and so far I like the sound of the new album. I wish they'd played "Everything Hits At Once," which they didn't touch at Coachella either, but they did play "The Way We Get By," so that pleased me. A little "Small Stakes" wouldn't have gone amiss, though...

One thing they do live is fill their occasionally very spare-sounding songs with extra guitar, which makes them sound harder; the sacrifice is that some of the little studio touches, like clapping or musical experimentation and effects, get left out. But on the whole I liked the set, and I am excited to borrow the new record from Kevin.

I could buy it, but I am lazy.

Coachella Photos

Finally, I pilfered some Coachella photos off Kevin's computer -- part of the reason I took so long to post that entry is that I had delusions of illustrating it; as time passed and the photos and text both swelled in quantity, I decided to separate them.

The following are all thumbnail images, because I couldn't post them big enough and couldn't crop them without somehow detracting from the image. Click to see them open in a new window, in a slightly larger 12-by-9 size.

First up: the setting.

This is a view of the middle of the polo grounds, with a snowy peak just edging above the mountain line in the center-right of the photo. There's something so impossible about standing in Southern California desert country on a late April afternoon in eighty degree heat, only to look up and see snow on the horizon.

Here, the main Coachella stage is off to the right; behind is what they call the outdoor stage, which is a smaller open-air venue than the Coachella stage and is tucked in a corner of the field. To the left are the Gobi, Mojave, and Sahara tents, all in a row; Sahara is the rave/DJ tent, Mojave tends to attract more rockin' acts, and the open-ended Gobi tent seems geared toward one- or two-person performances.

This view of the grounds includes the Drum Orb in the distance. The venue pegs itself as something of an arts festival in addition to a haven for music lovers; last year's experimental instrument came from a company that's well-known for stringing existing structures with interesting architecture, and then playing them as instruments during a chamber music concert. At Coachella, the lack of existing structures forced them to erect something small as a cheat, but it was still neat to see.

Here's a closer look at Drum Orb:

The drummers performed three times each day, and noodled occasionally in the early afternoon. I can't tell completely what the point is, other than to look cool -- I loved watching multiple people bash away at it. Generally, though, it mostly sounded like loud drums. Good loud drums, and a variety of drums, though.

In addition to music projects, there are places to relax or blow off steam. For instance, the Misting Oasis -- which sprayed people with water, and is where I waited out the M83 set I didn't much care for -- sat out in front of a round, mini-Epcot-looking structure with plants and a tranquil atmosphere inside for anybody in desperate need of shade and a place to lie down and take a breather. We peeked in but never made it further inside.

There's also Cyclecide, which we affectionately call Bike Wars, because the odd-sized bicycles are often ridden by people trying to unseat each other for shits and giggles. All you have to do to get in on the action is wait in line -- or, if there isn't one, charge right in and grab any available craft.

We coerced Kevin into taking a spin:

He got on a little runty bike painted like a bee, which is apt, because one minute after he left the enclosure, we noticed a swarm of killer bees near the area's other entrance. Since Palm Springs had reportedly grappled with killer bees in the days before Coachella, we fled fast, peeking back only after the area had been marked off with police tape and we could see piles of stunned bees on the ground. I'm guessing they were sprayed into submission, and then hopefully transported rather than killed, but who knows -- and honestly, I kind of forgot about it two seconds after we left.

Anyway, that's Kevin up there on the right, buzzing around merrily toward the camera on a stubby cycle. He tried getting up on one of the big ones, but couldn't hoist himself without tipping over in the other direction. It was actually really funny to watch; not so much for Kevin.

Remember when I said I fixated on the Keane piano player? This is what I looked like throughout the set:

I had Kevin's binoculars trained on the guy. (That's the main Coachella stage, by the way, where the big headliners played at night -- Coldplay, Nine Inch Nails, Weezer, New Order (hee) -- and acts like Snow Patrol, The Futureheads, and Buck 65 played by day. Also, you want to talk about fug? Then let's discuss my boater's hat, purchased in Maui for the practical purpose of trying to prevent my fair skin from scorching. I figured it might come in handy in the desert, and yes, it looked splendid with my camouflage "SPAM" t-shirt. The one handy tip for Coachella is to immediately relieve yourself of any inclination to look cute. Go for function, not fashion. (Clearly I took my own advice.)

That's the outdoor stage on Day Two, during Jem's set. You can see her up there in her bikini top, if you click to see the larger version. This sky, the palm trees... it's a good look at how idyllic it can be out there. We had a light breeze and the perfect airy music for that kind of weather. Everybody was happy.

That's the stage at night on Day One, while Cafe Tacuba played. I like the lights on the palm trees, which you can see closer -- if a bit blurry, although I kind of like it that way -- here:

While we took a food break and listened to The Dresden Dolls, Kevin caught sight of a pooped little rave couple sitting behind us:

He loved how sad this little scene seemed -- a broken-down boy on a broken-down bench. Kevin framed it so that the Sahara rave/DJ tent from whence they doubtless came is in the background.

For whatever reason, the Coachella people love tesla coils, and have had one at least the two years we've attended. Late at night, it goes off, crackling the air with its bolts of electricity and prompting a few pathetic jokes from me about 1.21 jigawatts. Here's the coil in action...

... as a throng of concert-goers leaves the polo grounds at the end of the night. Those white peaks behind it are a massive beer garden; to the right of that, just off-camera, is the VIP area. By this point in the night, Coldplay had wrapped, Spoon had just finished its set, and everyone was headed en masse for the parking lot. Watching the tesla coil crackle over everyone's heads was both cool and a little intimidating, as we couldn't quite forget the utter flammability of our surroundings. One stray bolt of lightning, and we'd either burn up or get zapped back to 1955.

The other bizarre thing at Coachella is the participation of a group called RoboChrist, which puts on robot shows twice nightly that are, to put it kindly, fucked up. Last year, we thought the giant robot in the middle of the circle was RoboChrist himself; this year, we learned it's just the company name -- well, we think -- because the act was back, but this time, it wasn't a mechanical man getting attacked by robot French fries, drinks, and other fast-food perils. No, it was... a baby. A giant pink baby.

Why a baby? I have no idea. RoboChrist shows are all very crowded with bystanders, because it only goes on at night, so people walk around all day feeling like the demonic baby is watching them with some evil scheme percolating in its paper head. After seven hours of staring at this thing, then, plenty of people get curious about what it actually does. They resolve to show up and see for themselves.

I wish I could shed light on that; it was, regrettably, too tough to tell. I am not extremely tall, nor am I good at elbowing my way to the front of a mob, especially when there's a risk I'll get doused in fake blood. But what I did see were two remotely controlled robots -- their masters just outside the ring -- who basically attacked the baby while it played with its dolls. The robot claws tore the baby to shreds as blood spurted everywhere and the pink menace was ripped apart:

Here, it still -- with its nude Ken doll brain -- looks presentable. After this point, the robots completely tore it to pieces. Seriously, one of them tore off the baby's arm and twirled it overhead before tossing it atop wreckage. Next was a foot. The whole thing was a deflated pile of pink, with blood fountains everywhere. We walked away not completely sure what any of it meant, other than the fact that some people should not be handed remote controls that operate anything.

I apparently forgot to snag the shot Kevin took from a higher vantage point of the crowd surging toward the exit of the venue; as you leave, you go up a slight incline, so if you take the time to turn around, you can see down to the sea of humanity ambling in your direction. It's pretty amazing. I'll post that one later, if I remember to get it from him.

In its stead, I'll end with a fairly lame photo of yours truly, inside the Mojave tent during Pinback's show. It's our last show of the two-day festival, we're tired and facing a drive back to Los Angeles that very night, and I'm pretending not to see Kevin in the hope that he won't take the photo:

He, of course, ignores that kind of behavior and snaps away merrily. Do you love my 99-Cent Store neon bobby pins? Those came courtesy of my friend Laura. But the spiffy bun and Notre Dame t-shirt... those are ALL ME, baby. All me.

An Unforgivably Late Coachella Entry That I'm Only Posting To Make Sure I Document It In Some Way, Unlike Last Year.

The first time I heard about a massive two-day music festival in the desert, I admit I thought people who went must be crazy. Two full days of standing around in sweltering heat with thousands of people, long lines for fragrant Port-A-Pottys, and overly expensive concessions? Madness. Total insanity.

But then I actually went to Coachella, and realized that it's both exactly what you expect and wildly different.

When I started dating Kevin, I knew immediately that music was something we didn't have in common. Don't get me wrong, I love music, I play one instrument and can navigate a couple others if pressed; I'm just incredibly lazy about my fandom. I tend to wait for music to come to me, rather than going in search of it, and I don't spend much money on CDs because I'm cynical enough to figure that it's money wasted on a few songs I like and a bunch that stink. Kevin is the opposite -- in that he goes music shopping all the time, has a massive CD collection, sometimes buys things without sampling it first, and is rather on top of current and upcoming bands. He's not a snob about it; he loves Journey, Justin, Britney, and R. Kelly -- yes, R. Kelly; don't knock it until you've heard his latest single, "In The Kitchen" -- just as much as the next person. And thank God for that, because if I dated another person who rolled his eyes and acted miserable every time something mainstream came on the radio, it would fill me with murderous rage.

Anyway, Kevin being plugged into the music scene means he's on top of which bands are coming where, and when. Ergo, it was Kevin who first found out last spring that The Pixies -- a band I've loved for ages and ages -- were kicking off a long-awaited reunion tour with a performance at Coachella. We both decided that the prospect of a Pixies live set, before any renewed bickering threatened the group's peace pact, was well worth braving a day in the blistering desert heat. And since he could take Monday off, we decided that we might as well go for both days if we were making the trek down for one.

We had an amazing time. Sure, it was sweltering at times, but the music was excellent and the atmosphere ruled, and Kevin and I were completely sold. So we eagerly snapped up tickets for this year's festival as soon as they came available.

The thing about Coachella is, yes, it's technically in the desert, which means there's going to be dust -- in the parking lots, near the entrance to the venue, lurking amid the grass. But the festival itself is held on polo grounds, which means that it's a well-groomed expanse of lush lawn, framed by palm trees and mountain vistas; the earlier you arrive on Day One, the more you can appreciate how pretty it is, because the grass hasn't been trampled. It's not about standing around on a barren field wheezing through Weezer. The beer gardens are large and plenty, as are the shaded areas, and the food options -- though costly -- are actually rather good. The bathroom lines somehow never become prohibitively long, even at what I call the "Port-A-Prissys," which are essentially air-conditioned trailers with five or six stalls in them that flush, and running water. There are at least four clusters of these trailers in two areas of the polo grounds, set up specifically for people like me who get easily squicked out by staring at and then peeing onto a pile of other people's intestinal waste. Yes, I pee in the Port-A-Prissys, and I'm proud of it.

The crowds never get belligerent -- at least not in our two years -- and I think part of that is because they do a great job policing the beer gardens. You can drink inside, but you can't carry it out, which means you don't have rowdy people two-fisting it during a tightly packed set in one of the tents, spilling everywhere as they guzzle and bump the people around them. Sure, you can still get hammered, but unless you're being crafty -- and definitely, those people are there too -- you're not pounding during the actual sets, which makes the atmosphere a lot more pleasant.

This year, we drove down the night before the festival so that we could do a little gambling. It's here that I had the most insane luck I've ever had at a blackjack table, winning something like ten hands in a row; I stood up a hundred bucks richer after a relatively short time had passed, figuring that I shouldn't push my luck after losing two hands in a row all of a sudden. Kevin taught me that strategy for making yourself leave the table after you've won or lost your acceptable amount, and I'm grateful for that, because I probably could have been tempted to keep playing and see if my hot streak would last. As it was, I was content. (We would later learn that I had a hot hand that weekend; at a booth where you paid a dollar to see if you could roll a seven and win a free shirt, I successfully tossed a six-plus-one, and promptly opened up a Diet Coke bottle whose cap promised me a free one-liter bottle upon redemption. A beautiful thing.)

Then we checked into the Howard Johnson in Palm Springs, which is where we stayed last year. Now, at that time, Kevin and I vividly remember being pretty pleased with the place and how comfortable it was for the price. It had just become a Ho-Jo back then; now, it had a year of Ho-Jo-ness under its belt, and I have to say, it hurt. The mattresses were like cardboard, the towels were thin as the toilet paper, and none of us got a good night's sleep either night -- including Saturday, when we should have been out cold due to a long day of concert-going, draining sun, walking, and some assorted sneezing. "I can't figure out why Ho-Jo would take out good mattresses and replace them with crappy ones," Kevin said, genuinely confused. "I just... I don't understand. Help me understand." I sat down on the bed next to him to give him a hug, and the whole thing creaked like a broken staircase. When we stood up, the mattress looked tilted; when we returned to it after Day One, the dent still hadn't popped back out. I don't know what that thing was, other than From Hell.

This year, temperatures were cooler -- it was in the 80s during the day and dropped about twenty degrees once it got dark. The Santa Anna winds kicked up a bit, too, offering scattered relief from heat before sunset and even the occasional chill at night. That made it less daunting to be outside and in crowds as often as we were; although we made it through last year just fine, the aggressiveness of that 100-degree weather really zaps your energy.

Coachella is a haven for t-shirt slogans. Kevin lamented more than once that our Go Fug Yourself shirts weren't out in the world yet, because he was certain we'd have seen someone wearing one. "I don't know if this is our crowd or not," I pondered. "But then, I'm here, so maybe it is." Best t-shirt slogans we saw: "Iceberg Lettuce Sucks," "I *heart* Bob Saget," and "Guns Don't Kill People; People With Mustaches Kill People."

Kevin did outstanding pre-gaming this year, downloading songs from all the artists on the bill that he hadn't heard before and making himself a tentative Must List, then making me three CDs so that I could get familiar with the stuff I didn't already know. By the time the schedule came out, we were antsy to make sure we could see everything we felt we needed to see.

Day One was packed, with a schedule that pitted everyone we wanted to see against each other in some cruel form. We bounced around as best we could, catching beginnings and endings of some sets, opting to stay the entire time for others. Occasionally the crowds made those decisions for us -- if the tent had no elbow room, we'd hear a few songs and then wander somewhere else. The Doves bowed out, which was sad but made our day easier; still, we missed Stereophonics altogether, which bummed us out.

Initially I wanted to recap every band in detail, but there were too many. But here's a list of the bands we did see, either in full or in pieces; italicized are the highlights: Day One was Buck 65, Radio 4, M83, Snow Patrol, Keane, Rilo Kiley, Wilco, Cafe Tacuba, Weezer, The Secret Machines, Bloc Party, Mercury Rev, The Chemical Brothers, Coldplay, and Spoon*. We missed: Stereophonics. Day Two was Shout Out Louds, Sloan, Autolux, Jem, Kasabian, The Fiery Furnaces, The Futureheads, Tegan and Sara, The Arcade Fire, The Dresden Dolls, Pinback, and Nine Inch Nails. We missed: Bright Eyes, The Faint, Prodigy, New Order, and The Blood Brothers -- all on later than we could stay, except for New Order, which was a conflict.

* Spoon would have been a highlight, had the lead singer not been hoarse. Poor guy. Their sound was also effed up because of technical problems on that stage.

Easily the best moment was The Arcade Fire's set. We knew that would be a mob scene if we waited late to head for the stage, so instead we set up camp there during the previous set -- meaning we had to sit through Canadian sisters Tegan and Sara as they wailed and strummed their way through a forty-odd minute set. They were fine, but we were restless, so I didn't really give them a fair shake and I knew it, but man, one of them has a voice that's like nails on glass. Still, the strategy paid off the same way it did with The Pixies last year -- we ended up in a prime spot for the show we really wanted to see. And it was so worth it. The crowd had an amazing energy to it, the band sounded fantastic, and everyone was shouting along and dancing while being vastly entertained by the group's other various shenanigans. Their red-headed guitarist/drummer likes to put on a motorcycle helmet and then either ram things with it or drum on it while he's wearing it; this time, though, he climbed the scaffolding around the stage and beat on that for a while until his partner in tomfoolery -- another random floater who handles drums, xylophone, and general antics -- chased him up there and they started trying to drum on each other. There were also assorted pranks with cymbals and a cape. It was the perfect live set, the kind where you already like the music but the concert takes it to another level. I think we're going to try to see them again when they hit the Hollywood Bowl, although we're really hankering to see them in a smaller club setting.

The Shout-Out-Louds and Jem were both surprises early in Day Two, the former because I'd never heard them before and the latter because I figured she'd be a low-energy Dido type with little to offer live. On the contrary, she was charming, and playing with a live band enhanced the songs I already liked and made good things of the ones I hadn't become enamored with yet. But the most interesting set was the third one we saw on that outdoor stage by The Fiery Furnaces. Kevin and I decided that they must've made a bet to sing every song in their catalog during the 40-minute set, because they were performing things three times faster than the recorded versions, and in some cases didn't even sing the whole song before segueing seamlessly into another tune. Definitely bizarre, but so much so that it actually enhanced our enjoyment of it despite the fact that in some cases we didn't realize we'd just heard a song we knew until two minutes after they'd moved on to the next one.

Buck 65 was a particular hit for us. He's a Canadian act who was described as a "boho rapper," which basically means he has kooky-poetic lyrics, a twangy backing track, and a voice like Tom Waits. He sing-speaks funny and occasionally poignant lyrics; disappointingly, he came onstage alone, without a guitarist to play the backing twang, but he more than made up for that in charisma and the way he basically told the story of his songs with gestures and inflection. One song he wrote is about a centaur, and how being a centaur can be awesome because you have massive genitals, but sometimes it sucks because it's tough to screw a woman when you're half-horse. It's so weird, but damn amusing the way he presents it. Another song boasted the utterly incongruous, apropos-of-nothing chorus of, "Skeleton... on fire... riding... a motorcycle." A third song was all about craftsmanship, and how people don't appreciate it these days. "I don't know if I can think of anyone else who could pull off an ode to craftsmanship," Kevin observed. "In fact, I'm not sure anyone else has even tried to pull off an ode to craftsmanship." I don't know how else to describe him. Kevin and I got really attached to "Wicked and Weird," which he'd downloaded before we came, and that's why we went to his early Saturday performance on the main stage. He started the festival off for us, and we felt like it was well worth it already.

Predictably, Keane was good. If you hate the album, you'll hate the live performance; if you love it, you'll love it. They sound pretty much exactly the same, which can be good, although I do wish they'd work a variation in, kind of like how Radio 4 does its bongos. Still, I remain devoted to the keyboard player, who is a twitching genius of tortured artistry. He hangs his head like Schroeder, thrashes like he's in a mosh pit, and kicks his leg out like Billy Blanks is urging him to conquer something. Several times I gasped, expecting him either to crack his forehead on the corner of the keyboard, or kick out so hard and far that he knocked the legs out of some of the tables. Both came dangerously close to happening. This man is well worth watching; I had binoculars trained on him for half the set.

I had been dying to see Rilo Kiley live, and that intensified once I found out that the lead singer, Jenny Lewis, played the little red-headed girl on that highly saccharine old series Brooklyn Bridge, which I'm not sure lasted even one season, but which my mother and I used to watch together because we thought it was cute and Marion Ross was kind of great in it. I couldn't imagine that sweet little pug-nosed kid scripting the kind of stirringly poetic lyrics she now does for the band, nor could I picture her wailing "Does He Love You?" Indeed, seeing her hasn't changed that sense that it's all incongruous, but I did detect traces of the little actress in her and that was kind of amusing. Beyond that, the set was fantastic, despite a late start because they were on a stage plagued with technical difficulties. They mainly played things from the latest album, More Adventurous, and they sounded absolutely terrific. Oh, and they gave us our rock-and-roll moment of the first day: At the end of the set, which they closed with "Does He Love You?", they riffed for a while, Jenny added some impromptu wailing, and then the guitarist finished by tossing his guitar in the air after his final chord and then bolting before it crashed down onto the stage. That sort of counts as trashing something, right?

The biggest disappointment for me was Weezer, although the more I hear from other attendees, the more it seems like we're the only ones who were so underwhelmed. I think part of the problem is that we were in a decent spot relative to the stage, but not close enough to be part of the mob that was totally enamored with and infected by the performance. Their energy didn't carry, so we didn't get swept up in the set. The band played everything I wanted to hear, but the first half of the set was all slow songs that sounded even half a step more lethargic than they should have. Things picked up with their new song, "We Are All On Drugs," after which they played "Hash Pipe" and the new single "Beverly Hills," and then "Buddy Holly," so that was a plus, but otherwise I just got very little from Weezer at all. Other letdowns were The Futureheads, who I wanted to be awesome because I like the songs, but it was an average performance; and The Dresden Dolls, who sound like they should have a kicky cabaret-style live act complete with crazy mechanics -- "Coin-Operated Boy" just begs for some kind of insane prop -- but were instead kind of mundane. I'll give them that we were sitting out near their tent listening to the set while eating, so maybe things got more exciting, but from what we could see when we popped in for a look, it didn't live up to the potential.

The Secret Machines sounded great; we drifted in and out, but I caught "Erased," which is my favorite song of theirs. That's the real reason I ended up enjoying this band so much -- I first heard it last year, when Filter Magazine left a free CD under everybody's windshield wipers, and it contained "Erased," as well as stuff by The Thrills, The Killers, Ozomatli, The Secret Machines, Modest Mouse... Ah, it's so good, one of the best mixes I have. Ergo, I loved the symmetry of discovering The Secret Machines for the first time last year at Coachella, only to see them live in 2005.

Bloc Party was the buzz show of the first day, and they sounded good enough, but I'm not sure they were worth all that hype. I like the music but it didn't change my life or send me running to buy up all of it. The band performed in one of the tents, which means limited space for an intimidating pack of bodies, and it was completely packed. We squeezed in between some people and managed to make it four or five songs into the set before the heat -- and this is long after sunset and amid a brisk wind, so that gives you an idea how many people were in there -- and the crowds started to frustrate us, so we bailed and went to see Mercury Rev. (Incidentally, a teeming throng was a problem for a couple bands; Kasabian was so crammed, we couldn't even get close to the side entrances of the tent. We listened for a bit and then drifted elsewhere.) 

Nothing will beat seeing The Pixies last year, but on the whole, we saw a hell of a lot of good music and didn't have one sunburn among us. I think, as a fair-skinned wench, I'm the most proud of that. The sun and the standing and the constant scheduling conflicts were really tiring, but by the time we'd gotten back into Los Angeles, we were already thinking ahead to next year.

Meow II: Guster Boogaloo

There exists a version of The Carol Of The Bells done entirely by The Meowstro.

I can say without hyperbole that it is brilliant. It almost makes me want to go sing karaoke one night, ignoring the words and replacing them with "meow" in what promises to be an unpleasant oral tribute to Guster. I hate cats. Don't even like to look at them. And yet I love this bizarre stuff. What does that say about me? Am I twelve? Or just a closet cat-lover?

Wait, that can't be it. I HATE cats. Must be the former, which means I have exciting years of puberty ahead of me and all the pimples that come gracefully with them.

Woo! Music!

Kevin and I snagged tickets to KROQ's Almost Acoustic Christmas -- well, more accurately, the HSW snagged different tickets for herself and Jessica, so Kevin and I bought their old ones -- and I'm very excited about seeing eleven bands in one day. Especially when the lineup includes Modest Mouse, Franz Ferdinand, The Shins, and Keane.

I don't think I ever did an entry about how awesome Coachella was. Two days in the desert, music all day, plenty of delicious cold beer and water, and a shitload of sunscreen... Mmm. The Pixies played their first major show since reuniting that night, and they were fantastic. Everyone was geeked -- Thom Yorke of Radiohead dedicated a song to them, and the energy in the air was electric when Frank Black's first vocals blanketed the crowd. The set was flawless.

But I digress. Coachella was far less stressful than I expected, and it's opened me up to music festivals more than I had been before. It always sounded like a long and trying day, but actually it's invigorating, especially when the performances are tight. I hear KROQ puts on a good show, so the four of us ought to have a kick-ass time.