Friday, May 22, 2009

TWO LIVE SETS, TEN YEARS APART

Live concerts don't thrill me as much as they used to. That said, I'm usually up for seeing an artist I have yet to see perform or one who will most certainly turn me out.

Last night, Circlesquare made their long-awaited New York debut at Brooklyn's Studio B, taking the stage around 130am to a somewhat sparsely populated room. The space was too big and too empty for me to feel the full electricity of Circlesquare's music, though lead singer Jeremy's highly mesmerizing voice, complimented by an electronified kick drum and thumpy basslines made the show well worth it.

Circlesquare also screened perfectly synchronizeed projections during each song, most notably of a slowmo mosh pit and then a slowmo adolescent girl fight, which was both eerie and uncomfortable and yet perfectly suited to the music. Though I didn't feel moved to dance, I left feeling entranced by the sounds and videos of earthquakes and tunnels on loop.

I also unearthed a youtube video, probably shot in late '98 or early '99, of a Make Up concert I had attended in DC. The Make Up were quite the opposite of Circlesquare--lively, physically aggressive and a spectacle to behold. Nothing has ever come close to duplicating a Make Up concert except maybe seeing The Yeah Yeah Yeahs, which I hope to do again soon.

More shockingly, I saw myself, 10 years younger, dancing and singing along to the Make Up at 7 minutes and 25 seconds into the video, making me wonder how many Bouncing Souls and Patti Smith and Avail videos exist that I have yet to find. Here's the video (part 1 of 4), where you can pretty much make me out on the left of the frame from 7:25 - 7:40. I had poofy long hair and mutton chops back then.



Circlesquare - Fight Sound pt. 1
The Make Up - Here Comes the Judge

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