Bands: Erland & The Carnival, Paul Weller
Venue: Apollo Theater
Date: November 6, 2010

Act  One – Erland & The Carnival – A very respectable UK folk/post-punk revivalist group. As Erland said, they were simply warming up the stage for Weller. With that said, their set was quite modest in length — not more than thirty minutes — but very effective. They reminded me of a more eclectic/James Bond theme music version of Editors. When they jammed, they jammed. I found myself recognizing a number of their tunes from the video of the gig they posted on their MySpace page.

Act Two – Paul Weller – Over the past several months, I’ve gained much more appreciation for the Modfather. It was a quite a treat to see him perform last night at the historic Apollo Theater. Weller has quite a catalog to choose from in selecting his night’s set-list. Last night, he incorporated a bunch of tunes from 2010’s Wake up the Nation. What made up the rest was a fine variety of relatively recent material, a little bit older stuff, and classic Jam and Style Council tunes. The sound was excellent. The aid of two keyboardists/effects performers and an extra rhythm guy contributed greatly to Weller’s backing. What I love about Weller is when he really rocks out. The drum solo in “One Bright Star” and the pure magic of “All I Wanna Do” were just some of the many highlights. Weller gave off the impression at the end of his second encore that the near sold-out crowd would be back to hear him for a second time in a row the next night. Those people are in for a double dose treat.

Set-List
1. “Aim High”
2. “Into Tomorrow”
3. “7 to 3 is the Striker’s Name”
4. “Pretty Green”
5. “From the Floorboards Up”
6. All I Wanna Do (Is Be With You)”
7. “Sea Spray
8. “Paper Chase”
9. ??
10. “No Tears to Cry”
11. “Shout To The Top”
12. “Trees
13. “How Sweet It Is”
14. “One Bright Star”
15. “Andromeda”
16. “Fast Car Slow Traffic”
17. “Start!”
18. “Echoes on the Sun”
19. “Wild Wood
——Encore One——
20. “Broken Stones”
21. “Pieces of a Dream”
22. “Wake up the Nation”
23. “Art School”
24. “Come On, Let’s Go”
—-Encore Two—-
25. “The Changingman”
26. “Porcelain Gods”

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Bands: Fergus & Geronimo, K-Holes, Cerebral Ballzy, Black Lips
Venue: The Shank
Date: November 6, 2010

Comments on the Venue: Where do I even begin? I just want to clear something up, first. Hipsters, individually, are not necessary bad people. Talking to a few of them and sort of mocking them (“Are shows in a big warehouse the new thing?”), I realized there are some good apples in the bunch. Not so much for the case for the hoi polloi of Williamsburg hipsters. Damn, these people suck so much! As Rich said, they are people with a lot of money, but love to act like they don’t have any. These hipsters wait in long lines for port-a-potties and $4 beer. Making loads of money off of the cheapest brands of beer is suddenly relevant. These people have no respect for the bands and care solely about themselves. Shocker! The venue itself was the complete opposite of the Apollo. I didn’t expect some first-rate DIY “soundspace”, but…this?! Every process after the most basic (checking IDs, buying tickets) was actually pretty laughable. There are shit-loads of people just standing around, smoking whatever they feel like. In front of the stage are hipsters yelling at each other and pushing each other. The stage itself is pretty legit, but the sound system is quite awful.

Act One, Two, and Three – I wasn’t really paying attention much to any of these bands. Fergus & Geronimo sounded really good. I caught the tail end of their set. K-Holes were the same K-Holes I saw in July and August. Cerebral Ballzy sounded not so good, but I couldn’t really hear them all that well from where I was standing.

Act Four – Black Lips – After avoiding the pit area for a while, I made up my mind. I was going to stand in front like I usually do. The moment Black Lips come on, they sound-check jammed to something that sounded like “Stone Cold.” A soft rocker to test out the waters. This was all well and good. They then got the night going with “MIA,” the frantic opener from excellent live album Los Valientes del Mundo Nuevo. After that was a new song. After that was “Make It,” “O Katrina,” and another new song. “Make It” and “Katrina” were both listenable and very well played. This was a good thing. It was very down-hill from here. A bunch of idiots stormed the stage after like five minutes and, like on the boat cruise, all the amps became unplugged. Jared’s microphone also fell from its stand multiple times. Some asshole started talking into it all the while Jared thought it was still there. The Lips ad-libbed, while the sound “crew” was trying to fix things, a cover of Elvis’ “He Touched Me.” Parts of “Dirty Hands,” “Ain’t No Deal,” and “Fairy Stories” were played. Keep in mind “parts.” Nothing was complete about the Lips set. I blame it on the “fans”…these self-righteous douche-bags who wanted all the attention. At least the Lips got paid $10,000 to play this shit-show. The second to last song was “Sea of Blasphemy,” which almost was a valiant attempt for them to restart their set…except it was the second-to-last sosng. You know shit has gone wrong when I think “Bad Kids” is “Ghetto Cross” for a complete minute. Damn, son.

Grade: D+