DerekMartin.ca

Highlights:Being stuck in a 10,000 person mosh-pit, pressed right up against a Natalie Portman/Angelina Jolie hybrid (face of Natalie, etc of Angelina). Nobody could move, so neither of us could leave, and everyone was jumping up and down and sweating. It was just totally insane. The pressure was so intense that when Metric (?!!) came on we actually broke the METAL barrier at the front of the stage. My friend Frank Yang of Chromewaves.net was in the photographer pool during Jamie T. I thought that was pretty cool. He had a big honkin’ lens, too. Another friend of mine, Chris Loyal Johnson, was ALSO in the photographer’s pool!!! He got a shot of me in the midst of the mob. His lens wasn’t as big as Frank’s, but I’m sure he can still do great things with it. Also, they replaced Amy Winehouse with Kid Koala (DJ from Montreal). Lowlights:It was SO HOT that Kid Koala’s records melted on stage, and he had to cancel the rest of his act after finishing just 20 mins of a 1 hour set. Having to wait nearly 2 hours for a ferry back to Toronto after Bjork’s encore, finally arriving home at 1:30am. Highlights/Lowlights:The drummer for Earl Greyhound threw his drumstick AT the crowd instead of TO the crowd, hitting the girl directly to my right square between the eyes with the pointy bit. Yes, blood spurted everywhere. She was evacuated by a friendly team of medics. Unfortunately, some bastard ran off with the drumstick, so she didn’t even get to keep it as a momento to match her new scar. Lights:They were very bright, and very hot. Thoughts on the Acts (in order from most favourite to least) Bjork - Ridiculously well produced & energetic awesomeness. I think everyone was unprepared, and totally blown away. Her DJs were using some of the highest tech gear I’ve ever seen, namely The Reactable. This video shows the reactable in action right from the beginning. Also, she had the energy of a 17 year old, not a 42 year old. She was also the ONLY act to have big explosive fireballs, confetti cannons, and lasers. She played 3 encore songs (during which the confetti cannons fired), including Declare Independence. Click that link to read the lyrics. I’m pretty sure it wasn’t written with her fellow Icelanders in mind. I AM going to make my own flag, and raise it. I want to see her again ASAP. Jamie T & The Pacemakers - Young & inspired, rollicking & fun. Dude is like 20 years old, but has great lyrics and original rhythms. His tunes are the mutant spawn of White Stripes, Sid Viscious, The Streets, and Bob Dylan all rolled into one. Love it. He’s now in my regular rotation. The Editors - Wicked awesome. Their vocals are the bastard-child of morrissey and magnetic fields, and what a glorious bastard it is! I ditched the Smashing Pumpkins to see The Editors, and I’m glad I did (I saw them live at EdgeFest anyway — you know, a DECADE ago). Arctic Monkeys - They were, quite possibly, the best concert band I’ve ever seen. Yes, this was a surprise. I don’t even have any of their albums. Their sound was perfect. Their energy was infectious. The crowd went wild. Just wow. It was enough to make me want some of their albums. Metric - on both days it was the band plaing at 6pm that saw the MOST crowd surfing & moshing. Yesterday it was Arctic Monkeys, today it was Metric. Absolute insanity. We actually broke the barrier at the front of the stage, and security had to push us all back so they’d have time to fix it before The Killers. Anyway, Metric was great. She played with the audience a bit, in a fun way, and got us to want her to give us more. And she did. And people just went apeshit. The Killers - I have to put them above MIA just for the sheer production value of their show. They had an actual set, and their costumes were great. Actually, a really great live show. i was impressed. oddly, the title track from their new album was my least favourtie of the bunch they played. M.I.A. - While it wasn’t as intimate as the time I saw her at the Phoenix 2 years ago, this show was still really good. Her beats were phatter than usual on teh mega-speakers, but she still managed to keep things friendly & fun. I think she garnered a few new fans (her first album and diplo’s remix are both better than her new album, though, IMHO). If I could date any act, though, it’d be MIA, not metric or dragonette, or the girl from stars. She’s got that activist power, and spunk that I find so alluring. Ok, wait — if Bjork was 5 years younger I’d date her… but since she’s not, it’s MIA all the way. The Stars - the vocals were so quiet that you couldn’t hear a lot of them (this was typical of the main stage, but not the 2nd stage). Also, I think they forgot to mic the lead singer’s instruments because his trumpet and kazoo-keyboard-thing were dead silent. Too bad. That being said, it was a good set. Wish i’d listened to their new album more before the show so i could’ve made out the lyrics aided by memory. the crowd was happy to see Tokyo Police Club, but Stars are were the first band of the day that everyone went totally wild for. I was happy to finally see them live. Tokyo Police Club - They played the 2 songs of theirs that i like, so i was happy. Most impressed with their spastic keyboardist. Wow. I’d wanted to see them live ever since I’d heard them on the CBC Radio 3 podcast (or was it The Ongoing History of New Music?). Dragonettes - The first band I saw on the first day. They had some killer beats and I’ll definitely give them a proper listen now that I’m back online. Kid Koala - not his fault that his records melted. I KNOW he’s awesome because I saw him open for K-OS at Hillside Festival in Guelph a number of years ago, and his skills have only gotten stronger since then. What a bummer. Louis XIV - Not bad, but didn’t tickle my fancy. Earl Greyhound - Nothing expected & nothing lost. Better than Interpol. BELOW THIS POINT LIES ONLY DISAPPOINTMENT****Interpol - Will someone please tell me how this high school band got famous? Every song sounded hte same, and they had no presence. Bunch of nonsense. K-OS - WAY more of a bummer than Kid Koala’s technical issues were K-OS’s alcohol issues. He was totally hungover for the show, and left it up to the audience to fill in most of his lyrics. Unfortunately, he hadn’t pumped us up enough yet to make us want to do that, resulting in most songs being just the pure beats with no vocals. Booooooooo. WEAK SAUCE, K-OS! NOTE:The music I like to listen to and the music I like to see live are TWO DIFFERENT MUSICS! I like to listen to stuff that’s not *too* loud, and has a soul. BUT if I’m at an outdoor concert, I totally *want* loud. If it’s not loud, I don’t get into it. This may account for some of the rankings above. Epilogue:I moshed all day Saturday, and got all sweaty, but passed out the moment I got home at 1:30am on Sunday. On Sunday I woke up and went right back to the island, still wearing yesterday’s sweat (but it was supposed to rain, so I didn’t worry — my deodorant would cover anything until the rain). Except, it never did rain on the island. It rained downtown, but not on the island. So the sweat continued. On Sunday night I got home and passed out right away AGAIN. While I was moshing (for 16 hours) I decided that I would start each new day by listening to a Deepak Chopra meditation CD that my friend Jen gave me. On Monday morning I got up 2 hours before I have to leave for work so that I could listen to it for 1 hour, have a quick shower, and then spend the next hour in the cafe. So, I got up and put it on at 6am. I listened to it, not realizing that it was on repeat (you can’t tell just by listening to a meditation CD - it all sounds the same). When I finally looked at the clock it was 8:05am, and I had to be at work for 8:30, which meant I’d have to bike FAST after a very brief shower. I ran to the bathroom and BOOM. Guess what? Our water was turned off. Fuuuuck. I had to BIKE FAST to work, working up a sweat, to layer on top of 2 full days of sweat. Grossss. I went to the gym at lunch and washed it all away, but the first few hours of the day were NOT cool. Ideas I had While Moshing:Moshing turns off your intellect and makes your creative juices start flowing. I had the idea of making a hat that says “TEXT ME @ 416.876.6197”. I’m gonna do it and wear it all the time. I’m gonna make my own flag, as Bjork suggested. I’m gonna suggest a new iTunes feature to Apple - When I’m listening to an album by MIA in Coverflow mode, it should show the cover when the song begins, but then it should look through iPhoto for any photos & video I have tagged with the artist’s name, and show those as a slideshow. That’d be ultra-cool for any concert-goer. I’m gonna make & seed a torrent of “Songs for Revolution”. I also want to tell my gym that I’m sick of waiting nearly a year for my locker and that I want it now. I’m sick of lugging my stuff all the time.

Comments from my old blog:

mom said: chaching ! at 2007-09-11 21:26:28

u.c. said: Sounds like a hard life.

Great fan of Bjork,interesting-very clever musical scores.A ground breaking and sometimes glass breaking performer. at 2007-09-17 04:06:10