Which was the best band you’ve seen live?
That’s a tough’n. Seeing Springsteen live for the first time (and the second time, too) was pretty awesome because he’s the goddamn Boss. The amount of energy Bruce and the E Streeters are able to get out of their mere human bodies is pretty unbelievable, especially considering their average show is like 3 hours. The only thing that keeps me from saying one of those shows was the absolute best is that no matter how close you sit (or rather how close your seat is; I wasn’t sitting or sleeping like that fucker Chris Christie), seeing somebody in a stadium just feels kind of impersonal. There’s something to be said for the communal connection between Springsteen fans in that large of a setting (the sense of respect and loss during the Clarence tribute when I saw him in the spring was really overwhelming), but still, I just prefer smaller shows, like when Billy’s Band played at Harro East in Rochester a couple years ago.
Oh man, Billy’s Band. Alright, so Billy’s Band is this Russian group that does half Tom Waits covers, half their own material. They got a guitarist, a singer/double bass player, an accordion player and an alto saxophonist. Needless to say, it’s a pretty fucking weird show. And that’s kind of why I loved it so much; there’s just no other experience like watching them play. Everything about it was bizarre and awesome; the fact that they’re a half tribute band, the fact that occasionally the guitarist would put down the guitar and start screaming and banging on these massive symbols, the singer’s pretty insane attempts to tell stories in english in between songs (one of them involved him skinning a dog and wearing its fur after it bit him, I think), the fact that their original music is not only really good, it also sounds like nothing I’ve ever heard before, just all of it. It was just fucking bliss.
But I still think my favorite show ever was the Timothy Bloom/Fun./Janelle Monáe show I saw at U of R in the fall. That was a pretty damn groovy show. That show was just the best ever because of how well it built up. We got started with Timothy Bloom, a pretty excellent soul singer who hasn’t released too much music yet, and he played some cool soul songs, got everybody loosened up. Next up, we got Fun. (before they blew up, which is kind of cool) playing their asses off, as always, and hinting at the fact that they were gonna be enormous in a matter of months. Then motherfucking Janelle Monáe came out and shit went down. Janelle Fighting freaky hooded people. Guys in fake beards robot walking across the back of the stage. A Prince cover. Kellindo Parker. Janelle getting everyone in the audience to sit on the floor. Janelle sneaking around behind the audience and dancing in a big ol’ circle. It was the best interactive live experience you can imagine. Best show ever, dude.
