tracklisting: 01 10CC - Worst Band 02 Tom lehrer - The Elements Song 03 Crispin Glover - Clownly Clown Clown 04 Dr. Octagon - Halfsharkalligatorhalfman 05 Ween - Your Party 06 The Chills - Pink Frost 07 Supertramp - Bloody Well Right 08 The Dubliners - The Pool Song 09 Andy Stewart - Campbeltown Loch 10 Terrorvision - Tequila
the warlords have a number of shows coming up first off is gig in twisted peeper on Friday the 12th of June and its MEN ONLY. after that they are playing a late show in Tripod Saturday 20th June. And they also will be playing Glastonbury this year Friday on the Shangri La Stage and Saturday night on the Trash City Stage
An early Christmas present from The Vinny Club The Vinny Club Christmas Cake - VINGREDIENTS
4 kg of pure Hasselhoff Dash of Vinny Club Pinch of Curtis Blow 1 big metal jug of Twisted Sister 1 litter tray of Jingle Cats Top with Michael Bolton Marzipan Finish with a sprig of fresh Kenny G
Bon Iver played to a full house at Tripod this week for one of his many, many 2008 Irish shows. I'll admit I was worried about the show due to (a) the tremendous hype surrounding Bon Iver and (b) the transition from one-man-band to full ensemble.
Click the readmore for conclusions, and some videos. Whereas some of these fears were proven to be justified, the gig was a good one, and had some amazing moments. Hype-wise, it worked out well- I don't think Tripod is a venue that lends itself well to sell-out shows. It can get to the stage that it's uncomfortably packed, and if that's the case you're lucky to get anywhere with a decent view of the stage. Because of the reverential awe most audience members felt for Mr. Vernon & co. the crowd seemed quite civilized. There was no pushing & shoving, and certainly no talking. It was almost like going to the cinema...
The band featured Vernon & three other musicians playing a variety of instruments- all of whom contributing to the excellent harmonies for which the album is famous. Opening with a delicately powerful performance of Flume, I'm led to believe that the show may well turn out to be as amazing as all the crazyhype suggests. But it soon becomes evident that there are two problems. There have been some translation issues with the material. Obviously moving the songs from their multi-layered, lo-fi incarnations to the realm of full bands and live shows has involved the making of some decisions as to the arrangements, and unfortunately they don't always work.
There is a hint of overstatement about some tracks- where everything is embellished, and everything is announced. 'For Emma, Forever Ago' features some fantastic moments of pure spontaneity, none more obvious than in the track Creature Fear. On the record the chorus crashes in from nowhere, where every instrument spilling out notes blissfully. At Tripod the chorus of this song is preceded by the strumming equivalent of someone shouting 'HERE COMES THE CHORUS!'. This seemed to occur a lot- movements were announced either by the guitars or the drums, and it seemed unfortunate that the inventiveness of the songs was suffering.
When the arrangements were right, however, they were hella right. Skinny Love was played with three drummers, all building to a crescendo that is truly spine-tingling; and Blindsided gets an interesting & welcome accompaniment by some retro-sounding 808 electronic drums. At points like these, and when Vernon plays RE: Stacks on his own as part of the encore, it's clear that these songs are something special.
The main question is whether or not lightning will strike twice. The band obviously have a shortage of material- the album has nine songs, and the set only contains one new one, Blood Bank, which seems more traditional alt-rock than anything else, and makes me wonder where the followup to 'For Emma...' is going to go. Eager to give the audience a full show, the band have filled out the set with three covers. The first, a Graham Nash song, seems strangely like a song from a musical, but is interesting enough to make an acceptable addition. The second was a Talk Talk cover, which frankly didn't work and for probably the only time during the show had people chatting or hitting the bar.
The show concluded with the third cover, a Sarah Siskind track, and the performance of this song embodied everything that's great about Bon Iver. It's a vocal led song, and the band all huddled around a single microphone to contribute. I'm not going to tell you how good this was, you're going to have to watch it for yourself. Here's a video from their New York show, featuring The Bowerbirds:
All in all, while the gig had it's flaws, in pointing them out I'm really just nitpicking. From an album this good, expectations for the live show were always going to be unrealistic, and the Saskind song alone made the show a good one. Bon Iver will be back in December, and I highly recommend that anyone not yet converted should check it out (tickets here). Let's just hope for the sake of the regulars that Vernon have a chance to pen a few more tunes in the meantime.
While I'm posting about Bon Iver, here's an outtake from their Blogotheque sessions which features a pretty bitchin accapella version of For Emma:
This is the gig news I've been waiting months to hear: TV On The Radio are set to play Tripod on November 15th as part of the Heineken Green Synergy festival. I'll admit I was getting a tad nervous as the band announced UK tour dates on Monday, an announcement which would usually go hand in hand with that of any Irish dates, and I was very close to Ryanairing it over for a London or Manchester show. So now there's no need, woo hoo! My wallet can breathe a sigh of relief.
The band's new album Dear Science is currently living in my stereo with no sign of it moving. With my heaping of seriously high expectations on the record, it's somewhat surprising that it has lived up to all of them. Alt-pop at its best, Dear Science is probably TVOTR's best album to date, which is really saying something.
Here's a taste for those who may not have heard it:
Future Of The Left Fri. Nov. 14th, Whelans Upstairs, €15
Bestival Reunion Tour: 808 State (Live), Dan Le Sac Vs Scroobius Pip, Florence And The Machine, DJ Yoda, Rob Da Bank, The Cuban Brothers, Sombrero Soundsystem Fri. Nov. 14th, Tripod, €25
Cut Copy & Mercy Arms Sat. Nov. 15th, The Village, €22.50
Professional tosspot and all-round boring bastard Mark Ronson has shown he's not such a cunt after all as apparently he heard Dublin Singer-Songwriter James McMorrow through having the same publisher and is asking him to join him on stage at the Dublin and Belfast shows this Wednesday and Thursday.
Check out James McMorrow here. The song "Down the Burning Ropes" has got this nice little Nick Drakeish feel to it. If you must then head to Ronson's gig on the 23rd in Belfast or on 24th in Tripod but if you don't then keep your peepers out for this chap as I imagine he'll play elsewhere around the country at some point.
For those of you looking for some prime industrial metal you could do worse than to head on up to Tripod tonight and see if you can score some tickets for Ministry as Al Jourgensen and his gang of misfits take themselves to these shores for the last time. In fact their gig tonight will actually be their last gig anywhere as its the last gig on their C-U-LaTour. If you havn't seen them yet (and I havn't) then go go go. If their half as good live as their records are then tonight should be some serious fun.
For all of you who dismissed The Presidents of the United States of America back in 1996 as joke band, then...good for you. However hopefully you'll have taken the correct stance of laughing WITH them and not AT them. The Presidents know exactly how silly they are and they revel in being as silly as possible and doing it all for the benefit of us.
From the get go its clearly obvious that The Presidents are going to have as much fun as possible regardless of what the crowd thinks. Luckily the crowd is seriously down for that and pogo's along to even the slower songs (few and far between). At one point a couple come onstage and the guy proposes to the girl. Does she accept? What kind of bitch would she be if she didn't. Normally this would come across as cheesy and shit but in the Presidents world its all part of the fun.
Musicwise naturally they crack out all the hits. 'Kitty', 'Dune Buggy' and 'Lump' are launched in the main part of the set while 'Peaches' and 'Kick out the Jams' finish it off. Encoring with 'Video Killed the Radio Star', 'Candy' and 'We're not gonna make it' they actually manage to restore me to life after one of the worst hangovers of recent memories.
Click after the jump to see a reminder of how awesome they were and are
First of all let me make something perfectly clear. If you don't like Explosions in the Sky then I don't like you. Also if you don't want Explosions in the Sky to play for as long as they possibly can then I don't like you. This means that the organisers of Tripod have now been added to this illustrious list of people I don't like which is a shame because I quite like the venue. Its small enough that you can see from pretty much anywhere and its big enough so that bands like Explosions can get a decent crowd and fill the place.
So why oh why would you bring a band like this all the way over from Texas and then get them to play for appoximately one hour and 5 minutes. Why the fuck wouldn't you leave the gig in the village where they don't have a curfew for gigs in order that they may turn the place into a club for cream crackers.
Anyway as you would expect from Explosions they are four men who play rock music that can make you feel like you are standing on a mountain top overlooking the world with a smile on your face while at the same time give you that sense of despair that you can only get lying in a corner after having sold your ass once more to feed your smack habit. If this sounds like a bad combination then you just don't understand man, you just don't understand.
Here's two of my favourites of theirs both from their 2005 album "How strange, innocence:
The video below isn't from the Dublin gig but it prett much gives you the idea. Four men in tshirts playing guitars and drums. The song below is called The Birth and Death of the Day and is available on they're most recent album "All of a Sudden I miss Everyone".
A band that has hovered close to my radar throughout their lifespan of 3 or 4 albums without ever having entered, I found myself nonetheless accompanying a mate to the gig, partly out of curiosity and partly because I needed practice driving with a full license driver (see here for tales of woe relating to that).
Now if Belle & Sebastian are not your cup of tea then stick well away from Stars. A band so sweet and treacly that they make the medicine go down. Throughout the gig the band members take it in turns to throw flowers into the audience, (Urp!!!) while the singer begins every song with a gushing review of Ireland and how much it means to him that people listen to their records all the way over here. Because we're so far away and off the world map obviously. Check this live performance for evidence of schmaltz:
The music really is decent enough though, however syrupy and there's some totally decent numbers thrown in the mix like this one:
And for all of you determined to see the attractiveness of a band before they make up their minds about them, have at you:
I'm heading to Feist on tuesday night and can't wait. Partly cause i STILL haven't been into Tripod since the big changeroo, and mostly cause Feist produces little slices of happiness like this.
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