20 posts tagged “concerts”

Eisley was so good that I was starting to worry about whether Mute Math would be able live up to their performance.   The intro was pretty awesome and the beginning of their first song, Typical, started epically with the lead singer standing on his keyboard while playing the keytar, and then jumping off all crazylike.  But despite the high energy, I still felt like something was missing.  Would Eisley really come out on top?

Hell no!  It seemed Mute Math put the poppiest songs in the beginning on purpose, leaving them time for the more chill songs that turn into 10 minute jam sessions in which everyone is switching roles and playing homemade instruments and doing head stands and handsprings off piano's and jumping from the highest thing they could climb up on.

In short, it was awesome.

Mute Math's description of themselves:

Born in the dust-laden family garage with archaic samplers, Radio Shack mics, and broken record players, Mute Math have been noisily calculating their notes for the past few years. This electro-alt rock collaboration between longtime friends Paul Meany (vocals/keys), Darren King (drums), Greg Hill (guitar), and Roy Mitchell-Cardenas (bass) has crept up on the music scene with the onslaught of a worldwide fan-base driven to their website from countless video blogs and non-stop touring.

The four piece (originating from New Orleans) has scattered influences that are apparent without being obvious, and touch on everything from DJ shadow styled beats, moments of beauty and grandeur a la Bjork, and vocals that pay legitimate homage to Police-era Sting. When asked about this vast expanse of musical territory that we are asked to find them dwelling within, Meany replied, "I blame it on the past forty years of music". They act on the idea that their magic is to be found in the mixture of countless thoughts. Their live show thrives on this random energy too involving homemade instruments, live sampling, a junked-out keytar, and the kind of freak-outs that keep any given performance worth the price of admission.

Onto the videos!  Here's a video of the intro with all the flashing lights:



And one of the closing song.  You see that instrument the frontman is holding?  Yeah, he made that.  And yes, the audience plays it.




Once I split the Break the Same video into parts (it's too big) I'll post that too.  Also, they played a new song: Clockwork, and I have the video of that too. :)

To view everything I have up so far, check out this collection:

It's going to be great. :)

A track called "Man Of Mystery" was also played as a mini riff (2 minutes long) between songs. This is a cover from the 60's band, "The Shadows".

And bonus!  Stockholm Syndrome.


I can't seem to stop, they're all so good!  Here's the collection of the rest of the videos from the Austin City Limits Festival:

Muse at the Bill Graham Civic Auditorium

What an experiece.  Wow.  There is no concert better than a Muse concert!  Matt Bellamy is a freakin god on the guitar!

We got to SF on Sunday, checked into our hotel, and had dim sum.  Mmmmm, dim sum. ;)

We went to the DJ gig that night.  Unfortunately, we had to leave before Dom did his thing because it was 1 am and Rico had to work the next morning.  Oh well.  From other reports, we didn't really miss that much.  Also, apparently I was standing less than 5 ft away from judytuna and we didn't recognize each other.  Oh well.  We were totally going to hook up and chat, but we didn't organize it well enough.

Earlier that day, Carrie got out her tickets just to make sure they were there.  I then realized that I had completely forgotten to bring my tickets!  I freaked!  Luckily I still had time.  So on Monday morning I took Rico to work in San Carlos, and then drove down to SJ to get the tix.  Got back by about 10:30, just in time to get ready and check out of the hotel.  Whew.  Crisis averted.  Imagine if I hadn't realized until a few minutes before the show!!

The Line

As soon as we were checked out of the hotel, we went to go stand in line.  Yep, at 11 am.  We met some really cool people.  Katie was there by herself, so we invited her to play cards with us and chat and such.  She handpaints Vans shoes to make some extra cash.  She had on Origin of Symmetry shoes, and showed us the pair she'd painted for Matt.  Here are some of the shoes shes made:


Very cool.  If she posts a picture of the ones she made for Matt, I'll post it here too.  It was awesome.  Black shoes that fade to green towards the front with a futuristic cityscape on the top, being flooded by water with red crashing waves at the toe.  If she got them to him, I'm sure he loved them!

If you like her work, check out her site here.  Help get her to Wembley!

The people in front of us were cool too.  One was actually reading about classical history!  Of course, what would you expect from hardcore Muse fans?  Of course they're intelligent! Muse is "rock for clever people." ;)

They also really helped us out in the concert, but we'll get that later.

Rico met us up there after work with about 15 minutes to spare.  It was close.  Doors open, I manage to get through rather quickly and sieze a spot on the barricade/rail.  Luckily I was able to save enough space for our whole party, and aforementioned history guy and his group were right next to us.  We were in the very front and to the left, about 10 ft from where Matt would soon be rocking out!

I went to go get my merchandise.  I bought two tshirts, the grey one with the winged spaceman, and the green girly one.  Unfortunately at some point during the concert these shirts got stolen, so I wasted my $60. :(

Immigrant

The openers were Immigrant, a crazy mustache-filled band that wasn't half bad. Click the link to hear their music.  Not bad, and the keyboardist had an amazing mustache! ;)

I'd also seen them the previous night at the club, and they were much better at the concert.  Probably had something to do with sound quality and the size of the stage/crowd.

Muse

I have to say: wow.  I've seen Muse before.  But this night, they were on fire!  First of all, it was the longest setlist I've ever heard.  I got a glimpse of it before the show from one of the staff.  I knew the last two songs were Plug In Baby and Knights of Cydonia.  I kept waiting for them to start, and they kept *not starting.*  It was ridiculously awesome!

Here's the setlist:

Take A Bow
Hysteria
Supermassive Black Hole
Map Of The Problematique <~~~ from our show
Butterflies And Hurricanes
Assassin
Sing For Absolution
Citizen Erased
Hoodoo
Feeling Good
Sunburn
Starlight
Blues Jam <~~~ From LA show
Time Is Running Out
New Born
----- First Encore
Soldier's Poem <~~~ video thanks to judytuna
Invincible
Kaoss Jam <~~~ video thanks to judytuna (you MUST check this out)
Stockholm Syndrome
----- Second Encore
City Of Delusion <~~~ video thanks to judytuna
Plug In Baby
Knights Of Cydonia

Yes, that's right, TWENTY SONGS (22 if you count the Blues and Kaoss jams).  They played for a full TWO HOURS. This is not heard of, especially in the States.

Fun Moments

Right before the blues jam, someone threw a cowboy hat onto the stage.  Perfect timing!  Matt picked it up and played the blues jam with it on, and then threw it back into the audience!

Spinny circles during Plug In Baby and in a couple other songs!

The freaking Kaoss Jam!  It was incredible.  He did the whole thing on his guitar, and it sounded like some kick ass electronica music!  Go look at Judy's video of it, it really was incredible!

As Judy also said, the vocals on Hoodoo were absolutely flooring.  Haunting and beautiful and just...brilliant.

Not So Fun Moments

Getting hit in the back of the neck by a crowdsurfer, hard.  The one time I hadn't gotten my arm up there in time.

Having my tshirts stolen. :(

Some guy being a complete douche and provoking one of the guys I was with to the point that he earned himself a well earned death threat.

General pushiness.  It was a *really* rough show, although it wasn't so bad for me because I'm am freaking lucky.  Between my man, Carrie and her man, and the people we met in line, I was pretty well protected.  There was just this skinny ass girl next to me with hipbones that dug into my thigh and hurt like hell.  I got back at her by angling my leg so that my knee dug into her thigh for most of the concert. ;)

I can't tell you how much going to a concert like this makes me love my boyfriend to death.  He works so hard to protect me, and I know he doesn't like it.  But he definitely makes me feel safe, and it makes me feel incredibly loved.  Thanks baby!

Picture Time!

I know I already posted the best pics, but there were some not so good ones that now look good thanks to some editing.  Here are some of my favorites:

The Grunge Set:

This one came out really awesome.  Only his hand and the guitar came out clearly, the rest was blurry, so I emphasized the blurry and softened it up.  It came out really cool.

Matt really likes to mess with the sounds of feedback, and somehow makes it sound awesome.  This picture came out really blurry, but for some reason his face is actually in focus.  There's a close up sepia version in my collection, which is linked at the bottom.


Some other nice touched up photos:

And the sepia set:

If you want check out the rest of them, take a look at this collection of editted pics:

And that's my review!  What an amazing band.  I can't believe how fortunate I was to have seen them in such a great venue and with such great energy!  I'm a little sore, a little deaf in my left ear, and a lot tired, but it was so worth it!