where we'll join our heroine in her travails in search of kick ass music and more

Friday, June 5, 2009

Art Brut @ Mercury Lounge - 6.2.09 (pics & vids to come)

Art Brut is in town!...or at least will be until this Friday, June 5th :o) So you should run (it’s ok, I’ll wait) and get yourself some tickets for their gigs at Mercury Lounge. You’ll probably have to look in craigslist since I think all nights are sold out, but it’ll be worth it – you won’t have a funner time at a rock show this year.

…the above paragraph has pretty much ruined any suspense this blog entry might have had, seeing as I’ve just instructed you all - all two of you: thank you loyal readers ;o) – to head out to see them. Dammit! I need to build up to it like my 12th grade high school teacher instructed.

But they were great all around. The audience started hooting before they’d even made the stage…which wasn’t so hard seeing as they all had to walk through the audience in order to make it on to the stage – for those who haven’t been, Mercury Lounge is pretty small.

Eddie Argos, the lead singer, takes the mike wearing his long trench coat and his fabulous eyebrows and starts by telling us all about where we could find more info on Art Brut.

H – t – t – p - : - / - / - w – w – w . - m – y – s – p – a – c – e -. – c – o – m - / – a – r – t – b – r – u – t

Yep, he spelled it all out, complete with hand gestures for the dashes and all. And then he started to spell it out again, but stopped after a couple of letters ;o)

They started out with their new single Alcoholics Anonymous which was just a blast of fun to begin with.

And of course the energy only increased through the night, along with the size of my hair – it was a very humid night ;o)

The crowd was an interesting mix and I was glad to see some ‘oldies’as my concert buddy of yore affectionately refers to them, i.e. anyone over 45, really enjoying themselves and getting into it. Just as sometimes the younger NYC crowds can be a bit apoplectic, so can the oldie contingent in an audience – the whole ‘I’m-going-to-just-stand-as-still-as-humanly-possible-and-not-even-acknowledge-that-I’m-in-a-rock-venue-surrounded-by-sweaty-people’ vibe. But not this group – pretty much everyone around me was getting into Art Brut. And how could they not? They’re freaking infectious ;o)

Eddie introduced Moving to LA by dedicating it to his cousin who’s a pilot (who was supposedly at the show)…and who lives in Palo Alto, which was the closest Eddie could get in a song ;o) He tried to point in the right direction – LA’s direction – and got mixed responses as to what the correct direction would be. Decided to stick with the direction he had chosen and said that for the following night he’d change it.

During Modern Art, Eddie decided to come out and meet us plebes, which isn’t that hard to do in a venue like the Mercury Lounge – ‘oh, look,let me just step off this wee stage, and there I am in the audience’. He came out and told us a rambling story about going to the Van Gogh Museum in Amsterdam [alfacinha heartily recommends it btw – kick ass place] , all whilst moving about within us…well, as well as he could giving the short leash he was on, i.e. his mike cord. At some point the mike gave out (as it had earlier in the evening, when Ed their poor sound guy had gone through a few malfunctioning mikes and eventually had to tape the wire to the mike stand just to get it to work), and Eddie tried in vain to yell out the remaining bit of the explanation. He ended up getting back on the stage and yelling out the rest from there, with so-so results – I imagine the people in the back didn’t quite manage to get the gist of it ;o)

And if they didn’t already appeal enough to all us geeky folk…before introducing DC Comics and Chocolate Milkshake, Eddie mentioned how he’d visited the actual offices of DC Comics and had had a great time. When I sent this song’s lyrics to a good friend, he remarked that itwas his new anthem…except it’d be Marvel Comics instead ;o)

Eddie extolled the joys of transport and introduced The Passenger -‘like the Iggy Pop one’ - by saying how rubbish LA mass transit is and how much better the ‘NY tube or metro or whatever it’s called’ is.

He also ended up introducing quite a few songs by saying how most of them were about him being naked - ‘Here’s another song about me taking off my clothes’.

Earlier in the evening, one of the opening bands – Mystery Murder - had spotted a guy who had come to the previous night's show as well. At some point during the gig, Eddie turns to this same guy and lets him know ‘that the set list for every night was going to be the same – the songs were just going to get louder.’ :o)

They also played at least one cover, the Ramones’ The KKK Took My Baby Away, although they introduced it as a little song they had just written up that day, so they might be a little off in playing it ;o) It was a blasting cover, full of energy and fun.

They also played Direct Hit, Pump Up the Volume, My Little Brother,Twist and Shout, Emily Kane, Bang Bang Rock and Roll, Bad Weekend, Nag Nag Nag Nag, Formed a Band, and Demons Out. I’m surely missing quite a few songs, but these were the ones both me and my boy could remember afterwards.

As has become customary during Formed a Band, Eddie told all of us to, well, to go form a band. He also told some of us that we were now in a band, and a very select individual few that they were a band.

I had an amazing time and my boy was doubly excited about now being in a band ;o)

P.S. I have to mention how much I liked the first opening band's last song – Les Sans Culottes’ cover of My Sharona (in French!). I was really sorry to have missed the beginning of their act.

P.P.S. Murder Mystery, the second opener, started out really well with a couple of lovely songs which reminded me a bit of Andrew Bird, but then quickly fell into some more bland ‘American rock’ sounds, reminiscent of some warmed-up Beach Boys stuff. I was really disappointed, given their great beginning. But they redeemed themselves in the end, first by bringing out a cello player as well as a couple of violinists and a trumpet player for a lovely song – at that point, they looked like an American version of Belle and Sebastian on stage :) But their final song was even lovelier, with the singer’s sister (and resident band drummer) taking the lead mike and singing a great ditty.