A Night at the Theater

It’s strange enough going to a concert on a Sunday night. The fact that it is Mother’s Day makes it even more confusing. I mean, I feel bad enough that I didn’t spend time with my family this weekend. Now I top it off by hanging out and listening to a band. But hey, it’s Damien Rice. There are certain concerts that provide you with an exemption from any possible guilt.

Going into this show I wasn’t as psyched as you would expect. Damien is one of my favorite performers and the last time I saw him he put on a show that still ranks as one of the best concerts that I have ever seen. And while his music hasn’t changed since then he did lose a significant member of his band as the lovely and talented Lisa Hannigan left. And while normally I wouldn’t worry about the loss of a backup singer Lisa was a vital part of the show. She sang entire verses and her haunting voice was as much of an instrument as Damien’s guitar or Vyvienne Long’s cello. So, I had no clue how Damien was going to perform without her.

And I have to admit, he put on a freaking amazing show tonight. It was the same band as before just now without Lisa. The show was just a full frontal assault from the moment he stepped onstage. The songs vary from acoustic and emotional to reverb filled, loop driven sonic nightmares. On some songs like Nine Crimes and I Remember he simply sang Lisa’s part, which wasn’t bad though I knew what was missing. A more interesting arrangement was Volcano where he reinterpreted her part by turning the song into something more appropriate of Crazy Horse than an Irish folk singer.

There were the usual moments of humor. At one point the band left the stage so that Viv could cover a Flaming Lips song on the piano. There were moments when the crowd was bouncing up and down and moments when no one would dare breathe. Those later moments were then typically interrupted by the incredibly drunk middle aged women next to me who would start talking extremely loudly. On the list of people I hate, drunks talking during concerts rank number four. The most amazing segue was the end of his set. After finishing I Remember with a long distorted guitar solo and vocal he unplugged completely, stepped away from the microphone, and sang and played Cannonball unamplified. I’ve seen a lot of performers play a song unamplified. I’ve never seen one performed within thirty seconds of a full throttle rock piece. It’s that change of pace that makes Damien Rice cool.

I still miss not having Lisa on stage. She has such an amazing voice and her stage presence would just leave you breathless but you know, if this was the first time you had ever seen Damien you would have left thinking this was the best show ever. You wouldn’t even have noticed that something was missing. That makes me feel good about his future. My fear was that without her he would just be another David Gray. He’s better than that and tonight it showed.

The five random CDs for the week
1) The Freddy Jones Band “North Avenue Wake Up Call”
2) Jump, Little Children “Between the Dim and the Dark”
3) Jay Farrar “ThirdShiftGrottoSlack”
4) Son Volt “The Search”
5) Aimee Mann “Live from St. Ann’s Warehouse”

I remember it well...

(I’ve decided to try to make the blog a bit more multimedia intensive. Natalie is a little more adept at posting images than Julie was and I’m close to figuring out how to embed YouTube clips into my posts. Not sure if any of this will turn out to be beneficial but I’m hoping that pretty pictures distract people from my writing.)

Over the weekend I learned something that totally bums me out and will potentially ruin the concert I’ve been looking forward to for months. The news is that the lovely and talented Lisa Hannigan (pictured above) has left Damien Rice’s band. Or, as the official press release stated, “Their creative partnership had run its course.” Or, translated from press release speak, “They got into a screaming match that had been brewing for months and she either quit or was fired.” In the music industry, creative differences indicates that blunt objects were being thrown.

Sadly, this doesn’t surprise me because it was always strange to see that everything was recorded as Damien Rice when Lisa sang lead on a number of tracks. The opening track on his new album begins with Lisa singing the entire first verse. That, and the fact that labels were desperately trying to sign her, had to add a lot of tension to the band. And it had to be a pretty rough ending given that the story I read is that she did the sound check in Berlin in the afternoon and was out of the band before the set began that evening.

Of course, what bums me out is that I have tickets to see Damien in a few weeks and my goal was to be next to the stage and standing right in front of Lisa with the hope of her looking down, seeing me and going, “You know, I really should marry that guy.” (Yes, that’s how my brain works.) It should still be a good show but a huge element is going to be missing. I don’t even know how he’ll do some of the songs. I’ve heard a version of “I Remember” without Lisa’s vocals and while it is nice it definitely doesn’t have the incredible power of the original version. I guess I’ll find out when I see the show where I’ll be hanging out by the soundboard.

I did just come back from seeing Guster tonight in Lawrence. Not only was I one of the oldest people at this show but I was getting a contact buzz off of the magic marker fumes from all the hands they had to mark. While it is nice that it makes the line to get beer a lot shorter I really don’t like feeling that I am one step away from being on Dateline NBC when all I want to do is catch a band. The more that I think about it, the rule of “Half your age plus seven” as the acceptable floor for who you should even be looking at seems to be incredibly accurate.

The other thing is that this was part of Guster’s “Campus Consciousness Tour.” Which means that not only did I have to deal with slightly more hippies than usual I was also chastised for not living a carbon neutral lifestyle. There’s a lot of things that I am in life and that is not one of them. Chaotic neutral yes, carbon neutral not so much. I do want to help out the environment, just don’t state that the fact that I drove an hour to see your show was a horrible decision before the band even plays. Though after seeing the opening act I definitely was thinking that. There is a fine line between a passionate lead singer and a total douche bag and he was treading on the douchery side of the line. Also, twenty year olds shouldn’t be emulating Mick Jagger. Mick Jagger shouldn’t even bother emulating Mick Jagger anymore.