Last night my wife and I went to the Minnesota State Fair. We outlasted the downpour in the shelter of the building across from the Horse building. While we waited for the rain to subside, we even got to enjoy Hotdish-on-a-stick!
We ran into Robert Fitzgerald also. He is in the IP booth right next to the Cheese Curds on Dan Patch Ave. He is looking pretty scrawny nowadays. Politics must have its vampyric embrace on him. Hopefully he will fatten up once it’s all over.
We headed to the show around 7pm and found out that they cancelled Magic Numbers and that Sonic Youth would start at 8:20pm followed by Flaming Lips.
I am not a fan of any of these bands. I wasn’t familiar with the music and I didn’t want to stand for three hours in the rain.
The show was freakin’ awesome. I enjoyed Sonic Youth rocking out and Flaming Lips interrupted their set to let Magic Numbers play a coupel of songs…since they REALLY wanted to play for us.
I am an official convert for all three bands now.
I am secretly a fan of live music so I was pre-disposed to have a good time, but the repport established by the musicians last night - in spite of the deluge - was magical and I am very glad I gutted it out.
I have a couple of questions though:
Has anyone else attended a show reluctantly only to be converted to an actual a fan by a stellar live performance?
What does Flaming Lips mean? Does it mean they sing so awesome their lips are on fire?? Or does it mean they dated a girl with a scorching case of Gonorrhea?
My convert show was Phish’s New Years 2k concert in big cypress. I wasn’t the biggest fan, I mostly just heard them at parties and thought they were dumb. But in florida with 60,000 other people I learned what a Jam Band is for.
For me, yes. I hated — HATED — Oasis until I saw them play “I Am the Walrus” live. I figured any band from “Madchester” who liked the Beatles enough to cover them couldn’t be that bad.
My second conversion was The Dandy Warhols. I really didn’t care for them until I saw an amazing show they played at the 400 Bar. I’ve been a fan ever since.
If you like Sonic Youth I have two album recs. The first is its latest, Rather Ripped. It is damn good and very accessible to recent converts. Then I would suggest Murray Street from 2002 or Sonic Nurse from 2004. After that, go on to the “weirder” stuff starting with 1993’s Daydream Nation, one of the most important “modern rock” albums of our generation.
[…] After a particularly kickass concert experience, Bongo asked whether anyone else has ever gone to see a band they’ve never heard of and walked away a fan. Well, JZ and I had the pleasure of just such an experience tonight, when we went to see Clap Your Hands Say Yeah at the Vic in Chicago. The headliners were great, and the first opening band, Takka Takka, was very good. However, it was the second band, Architecture in Helsinki, that completely rocked the audience’s collective socks clean off. Seriously. By the end of the set (which was fairly long), we were all like, “What the hell happened to our socks?! Oh, yeah. Those guys really rocked!” I’m not sure how to categorize their music. Mostly, I would place them firmly in the “rawk” genre, but there was quite a bit of 80’s British synth pop, good use of some Clash-style Caribbean beats, tight harmonies, and a female vocalist that could give Neko Case (who I freaking love) a run for her money any day of the week. Plus, it looks like every member of the band can play any instument. And their last song was dedicated to the late Crocodile Hunter, Steve Irwin, which is hard to beat. I don’t know how big they are in their home country of Austrailia, but, in my humble opinion, they must be Huge. I don’t think they’ve broken the U.S. market yet. So if you happen to live in a city on the current tour, I say it’s well worth your money to sneak a peek. Upcoming dates include First Ave on Oct. 4th (yes, that’s you, Minneapolis, and that’s tomorrow). So fork over, and get rocked. […]