Student Life Archives

leeson.ohje.de

Letdown isn’t the right word. How about “debacle,” or “disaster” or “worst show that I’ve ever attended, and that includes Peter Frampton when he opened for Lynyrd Skynyrd in ’98?” Yeah, that about sums up the Fall show. Not only was singer Mark E. Smith completely juiced and incoherent, but the show didn’t start until 12:15, roughly four hours after I’d showed up to see the mediocre opening bands. On some level, one has to expect Smith to be slightly unintelligible, since that’s part of his appeal, but surely drunken stumbling and feeble geriatric gestures do not fall into his accepted practices. Smith screwed the fans, he screwed his own bandmates, and he certainly screwed the 25-year post-punk legacy he helped to create. So screw you, Mark E. Smith.

But to start from the beginning, Lost to Metric kicked off the evening and quickly shattered the eardrums of anyone standing too close. The bass drum was so loud and resounding, in fact, that the vibrations were making my stomach feel queasy. They weren’t a bad act, though, churning out some math-rock numbers at ear-splitting decibel levels. Local act Tone Rodent followed, and while this wasn’t as awful as had been promised by my Cadenza cohort, who was now in attendance with a half-quart can of Stag in hand, it was still largely unacceptable, as the quintet insisted on burying their forgettable songs with layers of noise a la Sonic Youth. Rounding out the unending procession of opening bands was Low Flying Owls, a decent four-piece band that recalled the psychedelic feedback rock of Black Rebel Motorcycle Club and the Stratford 4. The Owls knew how to keep it poppy, too, opting for simple drum beats and some playful keyboard segments. Overall, a perfectly adequate opening act.

Then the pain began. The audience listened impatiently to almost the entirety of the Fall’s “This Nation’s Saving Grace,” with the band members nowhere in sight. Eventually, one of the Creepy Crawl staff started setting up the drums, but the band was still alarmingly absent. Only a frosty caffeinated beverage was keeping me on my feet at this point, having endured four smoky, godforsaken hours in the Creepy Crawl. Finally, the Fall rushed onstage, hastily picked up their instruments, and started bashing out “Open the Boxoctosis,” from their latest album. Smith was the last to take the stage, and the crowd cheered the (barely) living legend.

I was expecting a sad sack, but damn, the man is looking practically mummified these days. He feebly smacked his thin lips every now and then and tried in vain to keep up with some crumpled lyrics sheets. He sang every other line of the songs, forgetting or just neglecting to sing half the lyrics. He was still recovering from a broken hip, so at times he slumped in a chair behind a table, at others he lurched about the stage, tossing around microphones and fiddling with his bandmates’ amps. The poor young twentysomethings backing him were forced to play through the songs regardless of whether he sang or not, and at times you could almost hear their sighs and see their looks of exasperation. The band made it through five or six songs, pounding out a wall of sound while Smith continued his drunken, possibly painkiller-induced shenanigans. Finally, he had chucked around so many mics that the band had to take a five-minute break. A jarring synthesizer line repeated ad nauseam during this wonderful interlude.

As if things couldn’t get any more weird and confusing, when the band returned, some other dude grabbed the mic and the lyrics sheet and started barking out the words in Smith’s place. Finally, Smith resumed his place and “led” the band through crappy versions of “Mere Pseud. Mag. Ed” and “Mr. Pharmacist,” which was practically instrumental. The band again stormed off the stage, but Smith must have died at this point or something, because the house lights came up and the PA music started. The fans, whose reactions during the night had ranged from optimistic dancing to bewilderment to frustration, now filed out of the venue in a smoldering rage. One guy shouted, “I’m burning off my tattoo!” Yeah, if I had a Fall tattoo, I’d feel inclined to take a soldering iron to it as well. I returned to the South 40 crushed, unable to shake the image of Smith’s toothless, pathetic countenance. What’s worse, I can’t listen to my Fall albums-which are actually, you know, good-without remembering that awful, awful excuse for a concert. Oh, how the mighty have fallen!

Kathy Drury. I’ve gotta thank you first, as it’s the final column of the year, and there wouldn’t be a column period if you hadn’t pestered the next person on this list to shift her morning-addled ass into gear and introduce me through the proper channels. This actually makes two years in a row that you’ve been shouted-out in a culminatory column, which amounts to about two times more than any other professor’s been represented at all (as best I can remember), so be sure to bear in mind that you’re particularly special, to both me and…

Jess Minnen. Oh, Jess, my graduating friend, my original partner in column crime here at the new, slightly bastardized within-Student-Life Cadenza. I still recall the first party of yours to which I was offered attendance, where I met the section’s editor-in-chief and drank myself so stupid that it’s become the stuff of amongst-friends lore. “Beer before liquor” never seemed so accurate, and yet it was the slightly peaked beginning of a rather beautiful friendship. Don’t wander too far, girl; it just wouldn’t be the same if, on our designated tavern nights, I couldn’t share a drink with both you and…

Travis Petersen. Said section editor-in-chief, now formerly so, having recently shifted over to the editorial point of Cadenza’s musical battering ram. It’s been a hell of a year, in our pages and otherwise, and of late it’s only been more hellified, what with those attacks on “the man,” and those pretty girls making graves. Of all the cats I’ve encountered in the course of writing for this rag, it’s with you that I’ve shared the most wry glances and hilarious observations, a tendency I hope continues for the foreseeable future and beyond. You’ve been a master editor, but even better a new friend. As the li’l man said, “rep yo’ city,” and rep you did; the Dub-G couldn’t have a finer ambassador than you…well, you and…

Robyn d’Avignon. Secretary/Vice President/Official Co-Organizer of Choir/Co-Op/The World Entire/A Reasonable Region of my Heart. Don’t take that the wrong way-although I could do a whole lot worse for people to be taken the wrong way about-just take it that you inspire me, wryly, whimsically, wonderfully, to be better. I believe in goodbyes, but you don’t, so lucky me. I’m going to spend a considerable amount of time next year missing you…you and…

Kaitlin Eckenroth. I can’t even remember what damn country in which you’re going to be whiling away your autumn, but-needless to say-it’s not likely to be one that will appreciate you, in all your busy-fied, architecture-obsessed, chicly-bespectacled flavor, as much as I do. You’re one of countless guinea pigs to whom I’ve at times subjected this column in primitive form, but you’re only one of two readers to ever take the time afterwards to write back. I don’t even know who the other one is (some trick complaining about Borders), but you’re my friend and you made me think, like you always do. I’m never gonna dig “The Lord of the Rings,” but I dig you, and that’s close enough. Which leaves me without a transition to…

Jeff Smith, Bill Paul, Rich Chapman, Pier Marton and the entirety of the film department, with which I’ve only further developed my involvement this year, and to whom (proper syntax and word order be damned) I’m indebted for a career of invaluable filmic instruction. You’re each insanely worthwhile in your own indelible ways, and if/when I ever manage to score that big-money distribution deal, you can bet on the sizable donation I’ll be shipping back here (along with a signed movie poster to replace that God-awful “Snow Falling On Cedars” ridiculousness in the office…the office manned, of course, by…

Lori Turner, from whom I’ll request a second to close my parentheses). My most avid supporter, my most supportive reader, the most accessible necessity a department could hope to have. A major full of students owes their organization to you, and I owe similarly a healthy portion of my column self-confidence. There’ll be plenty of visits in the future, no doubt, with equipment to be out-checked and papers to be in-turned, but-let’s be honest-it’s not like I ever need a reason. Which reminds me…

Matt Simonton. For no reason other than a willingness to put up with my sensitive writerly persnicketiness, which makes it sound like I don’t know you’re a groove-sweet editor to have at the helm, which you most certainly are. With the help of lovely Melissa Langdon, whom I’m only now starting to know (Mel- Word.), you’re going to exercise a complete mastery of the editorial art. That, and the parties are still going to be sweet. And, speaking of big gatherings of people who don’t necessarily know each other…

All the non-Wash. U. people to whom I’m indebted, for reading this column preliminarily or otherwise, but whom I’m leaving out in name because they don’t actually go here. No offense. You know I’ve got love, but I don’t have much space left so I’ve gotta get to…

Anita Rohira, with whom I haven’t spent nearly enough time. Jessi Stein, who needs to get back immediately from “the mystic East.” Beth Leonhardt, because ditto. That girl Sara from both Ohio and Ontario, for proving once and for all that geographical soulmates do exist. Michelle Repice, for having a last name worth repeating. Sam Caplan, Fernando Castro, Erin Chesnut and Cory Coleman, the absolute best neighbors any group of hardly-misfits could ever in any imaginable realm hope for, and I’m including Michelle Branch in any number of possibilities. Of course, James and Steve, because I don’t even need to say so. Table 17, in all its masterful trivia glory. Kristin Balzer, for giving me someone to write around. Anybody I’m forgetting, because I’m a big dolt for doing so. And you, the one reading this very sentence, for making it this far, or as far as you managed to get. Thanks for reading. See you next year.

cclive.nl

The Pageant was completely and utterly packed for the Strokes’ sold out appearance Tuesday night. After an unsatisfactory set from the Raveonettes, a forty-minute wait during set-up and sound check left the place buzzing, sweating and impatiently sipping over-priced drinks as backwards-baseball-cap-wearing dude-bros and their clubby clothes-dressed honeys jockeyed for place with rail-thin hipsters and their asymmetrical haircuts.

Relegated to the balcony because of late arrival and stuck behind the tallest girl to ever live, I was sure I was in for a disappointing evening. But as the lights went down and the five nattily dressed members of the Strokes calmly took the stage, their presences illuminated by the shadows cast from lit cigarettes, the unpleasant nature of the crowdedness seemed to vanish. The opening bass riff of “Reptilia,” from the latest album, “Room on Fire,” signaled the beginning of the show, and poseurs were removed from their hip trances as strobe lights blinded the audience.

The first uncontrollable ovation came long before the end of that first song, as all instruments dropped out but for the jittery guitar and the crowd went nuts. After the song, the screaming had to subside because the band followed the opening number with their most well-known hit song, “Last Nite.” The audience sing-along nearly drowned out vocalist Julian Casablancas’ artfully disaffected croon, but nothing could extinguish the fire of Albert Hammond’s spasmodic guitar solo.

Since the last time I had seen them-on the tour supporting the release of their first album “Is This It?”-the Strokes have morphed from an indie-style band playing small clubs and barely moving onstage to an arena rock force to be reckoned with. Casablancas, instead of hiding behind his hands and having to hold himself upright on the microphone stand because of the drunken wobbles, had some seemingly rehearsed banter and a calmer presence as he stalked the stage. Albert Hammond and drummer Fabrizio Moretti are both born rock stars, and have too much fun onstage to have time for ultra-cool poses. Though they stand stock still second guitarist Nick Valensi and bassist Nikolai Fraiture look the part. The lights were amazing and the sound was note perfect-every guitar strum and drumbeat was crystal clear. And nearly every song had a point where certain instruments would drop out, prompting ecstatic roars from the crowd.

What seemed to be lost in all of this, though, was a slight sense of the rock and roll spirit. A band whose songs are as intimate as the Strokes’ are wouldn’t be playing such a huge venue in a perfect world. Some of the connection from those earlier shows was lost, and it took the bigger, more bombastic, louder numbers to regain that. “NYC Cops” was a good example of this, and probably the best cut they played the whole night-though it wasn’t on the US release of “Is This It?” the crowd sure seemed to know it, and its punky blasts got the floor moving back to front and side to side.

For most of the set, they alternated songs from “Room on Fire” and the debut album and closed with their usual set-ender, “Take It or Leave It.” The house lights came up, indicating there’d be no encore. The Strokes are a very good band, and they’re getting very popular. Hopefully, though, that doesn’t mean the next time we get an opportunity to see them it’ll be at an even larger, more impersonal venue. It’s hard to set an entire room on fire when it’s that big.

Much more, and this is the snob in me coming out . . . it’s disappointing to go to a concert and be standing around people who don’t appear to enjoy any music, much less the music being played at the particular show. As my compatriots stupidly danced our white asses off, we were eyed incredulously by people who were obviously too cool for fun. Previous Strokes shows in smaller venues weren’t like that. Everyone was there for the band rather than the social event status of: “Dude, we’re goin’ to the Strokes show,” “Aw, sweet dude, you got another ticket, I think I’ll bring Megan . . . maybe she’ll let me tap that cuz I think she likes that one song they played on the radio.”

But that’s the dilemma of loving a band that gets popular. And I hope they continue to be-because, no matter how selfish I might be, everyone needs to hear the Strokes’ rock and roll renaissance. If that means I might not be able to see for the whole show, then so be it.