At the late-night double feature picture show

[sovay]

The Dresden Dolls.

Phenomenal.

Although I would have been very surprised had they been anything else, especially since they started off their set with "Science Fiction Double Feature" (with audience callbacks: I defy anybody to sing with a straight face while various portions of their audience are shouting "Fuck the back row!" "Fuck the front row!" "Why is the middle row always getting fucked over?!") that slid straight into "Girl Anachronism," my initial attractor to the Dresden Dolls and still one of my true favorites. I had heard "Backstabber" at the LHS concert last April, but this time it really made an impression on me: quite selfishly, I want their new album to come out so I can listen to this song until it gets unstuck from my head! The classic "Coin-Operated Boy," with live-performance rather than studio lyrics and about 95% of the audience singing along; the NPR paian "Christopher Lydon" by request and apparently for the first time in a couple of years; "The Jeep Song" also with enthusiastic audience participation, and slightly altered lyrics. Then the phantasmagoric "Mrs. O," "Missed Me" in all its skipping-rhymish, deeply disturbing glory; and "Boston," whose lyrics I had read online and which I had never before heard in concert: I loved it. This, I want recorded. ("Come back to bed, my darling / There is nothing in the world that we can count on / Even that we will wake up is an assumption / But I know for a fact that I loved someone / And for about a year he lived in Boston . . .") "Half Jack" for a finale, and that song can raise chills on my skin. I never got the name of the encore; Amanda Palmer performed it alone, Brian Viglione being down for the count with a heavy-duty cold and, it seems, having dragged himself out of bed just that day for the concert. I wouldn't have known from the way he played. That is a dedicated drummer and I raise my nonexistent glass (Toad's Place serves its beer in plastic cups, for some reason) to him for it. And Amanda by herself is no little thing to hear.

All in all, an amazing show. This is what live performance is for. This is what music is meant to do.

Comments

[blindsidepubs.livejournal.com]

I'm glad to hear you had such an awesome concert experience, Sonya. I never really go to shows anymore -- perhaps I should -- but I remember a couple performances distinctly, I'll never forget them, and you're right -- sometimes the night can truly be perfect. I'm glad you had one such night.

[sovay]

Thank you. Less Than Jake and the Dresden Dolls are really the only bands I've ever followed in concert, and those have been on the whole really good experiences. Last night, however, is right up there with the night that I and a close friend got to hang out with Less Than Jake after the show, and take drinks with them in their bus. This will definitely last me till the spring.

May you too have an awesome concert experience one of these days.

[blindsidepubs.livejournal.com]

Oh, I've had awesome concert experiences, thankfully, namely going to see Second Coming at a local club and their opening band totally stealing the show, Virgos Merlot, and getting to stop and talk with their lead vocalist and bassist after the show and have them sign my there-purchased CD (although that's not quite as cool as having drinks w/ the band), but it's a night I'll never forget all the same, and I'll always remember how their music made me feel, there, hearing it live for the first time, watching their passion. As good as Second Coming was after that, everyone was so numb following the Virgos Merlot performance there wasn't a lot left to expend.

Have a good weekend.

[sovay]

That sounds incredible. (Although I must confess that I don't think I've ever heard either Second Coming or Virgos Merlot . . .)

[blindsidepubs.livejournal.com]

Virgos Merlot were one of those bands who needed to be heard/experienced live to be truly appreciated. The album was fairly good, especially two or three tracks, but not nearly as good as the live show, and I can't say for sure I would have bothered purchasing the CD had I just heard it in a store.

Second Coming put out a fantastic CD, self-titled, before they went through some member changes and lost a lot of their appeal. But it's a highly recommended album if you ever come across it used at your local CD store. Just good rock out of Seattle post-grunge.

[greyselke.livejournal.com]

It sounds wonderful . . . you make me long to go to a coffee house. I shall promise myself to see if I can find one in the Baltimore-Washington area, I got spoiled and lazy living above the Cherry Tree Music Co-Op back in Philly . . .