Maybe Ariel Pink is 2011′s Wavves. Or whoever imploded in 2010. (Topping a best tracks list can fuck with a man’s brain…) Whatever the case or context, a few days after the reportedly awful, mumbling New Year’s Eve wreck at the Inverted Cosmos party, Pink offered another seemingly unsatisfying performance at the Rock & Roll Circus at Lincoln Center. The Village Voice recounts:
…Ariel Pink is enthusiastically announced by our drag queen host, Acid Betty. AP saunters out alone with a mic, followed by two backup “dancers” in long animal hats who sort of move around every few minutes behind him. He is backed by no band whatsoever and sluggishly sings behind karaoke versions of his own songs. It’s as if we’ve caught him in his living room in pajamas on some strange drug trip we can’t even begin to understand. He lays down onstage, he walks into the crowd and sits next to someone, he climbs a lighting post till he’s brought down. It’s what you imagine may have happened to Kurt Cobain if he were still alive and performing in Vegas.
The entire crowd shares a skeptical look, not sure if they’re in on the joke or a part of it, if this is some Tony Clifton-style hoax where the real Ariel Pink is about to suddenly appear. Nope. “OK, next song!” Pink commands, waving his hand mid-verse as a DJ somewhere skips to the next backing track for him to sing along to. The crowd nervously laughs. The whole affair feels like some sort of meta-goof: “We actually got a bunch of companies to pay for THIS!!”
About 30 minutes after appearing onstage, Ariel walks through the crowd — still singing — and right out the front door. People wait a moment for his reappearance and then start to follow him. Pretty soon everyone does. But the guy is long gone. The circus is over.
Unfortunately, it seems like the circus has only just begun. You can read a review of the entire second night of the circus at the Voice. (Looks like the first night was a clusterfuck, too.)
[Photo by Rebecca Smeyne via the Village Voice
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over the top terrible.
Also we shouldn’t said Thanks Yael for the #tip!
Still love Before Today
“Oh, my God, it was crazy. I was off my feet for a whole minute. I thought I was going to die in there,” Jessica Schmidt, 18, who attended the concert told the Post…
http://www.thedailyswarm.com/headlines/upper-west-side-scared-moshing/
I don’t know — sounds memorable to me
it’s all good, scott! the album is good but it almost feels/sounds sort of eerie at this point. his antics are at the point where it distracts/takes away from the music. bad move.
Welcome to the dark dungeons of Silver Lake and Echo Park. It’s called drugs. Hit the speed pipe and your complaints will wither away.
It’s probably part of a meta-performance. I talked to him once after a show in which he had seemed really out of control, and was happy to find he was a kind, intelligent person instead of the drugged-up wack job I expected based on his stage persona. (Not that I would know anything about his actual habits.) I truly hope this doesn’t turn into a full-blown Wavves trash-fest. A lot of performers do stuff like that when they’re uncomfortable or nervous, but I think his music is brilliant.
Also, his band was really tight that night, he sang fine, and I doubt he could make music that sophisticated if he was always on drugs. I can understand people’s disappointment, but it sounds to me like he was annoyed to be performing alone with a DJ, annoyed of the hype, or what have you, and wanted to mix things up. I enjoy the fact that he’s an unpredictable performer.
I had a similar experience…..and I wrote about it below.
The guy lives 3 blocks from me, and I helped his career and I had to go to Seattle to see his band perform.
http://radiofreesilverlake.typepad.com/rfsl/2010/12/show-review-ariel-pinks-haunted-graffiti-neumoz-in-seattle-11272010.html
haha SEE what happens when indie-worshipping zines declare band X ‘the shit?’ The albums might be fairly good or neato keen but…doesn’t mean shit overall. Longterm, brainpower, live…but yeah maybe his hero’s Andy Kaufman, one of mine too. I still wouldnt ruin a rock show in tribute though. An interview? Sure. And the Cobain comparison did not surprise me either, only cause the guy looks freakishly like him.
fuck it dude. ariel pink got known for being a weirdo. it may be a dick move to all the concertgoers, but i see it as retaliation on pitchfork hype, which is turning indie music into pop.
In the indie music community today it’s getting increasingly harder to differentiate between what is considered “the shit” and what is simply “shit.”
aye aye to that cap’n.
good review Octavius. his antics remind me of early aphex twin, who would spin sandpaper instead of records, or press play on a laptop and disappear, and walk out of the venue. that sort of contempt for an audience rubs me the wrong way though/and shows a lack of appreciation for peoples money and time.
right…if you wanna be a performance artist then find a different fucking venue that duping music fans in concert halls, thats hallowed ground muthafucka. Act like a douche, talk shit, be sloppy, be angry, but just play at least 8 full fucking songs ya dick:)
i saw him open for the flaming lips in seattle this past september… his performance was probably the second worst i’ve ever seen. just awful
I saw him on that tour too. His band kept cutting off his weird rants by starting up a new song. They looked very unhappy with having to be up on stage. He also came out to the people in the front row and licked everyone he could get his hands on.
My first concert ever was an Of Montreal show in SF back in 2007. Ariel Pink had opened. It was the worst experience ever. He took like, 30 minutes to set up in between songs and just gloriously fucked up. Everyone around me was boo-ing him off the stage and my sister told me “I might have to cut my ears off if this doesn’t end.” Never would I have guessed 4 years later he would be on the “cutting edge” of indie rock. Fuck life.
haha, hilarious. makes ya wonder why anyone gambles on seeing this douche at all, ‘hey it MIGHT be good?! gentlemen place ya bets!’
i saw ariel pink in 2008 at hailey’s. amazing show, the sound was dead on…then around the 30 min mark, at the end of a song, entire band walks off stage, into the crowd and disappears…no encore. The next year at hailey’s they played a proper set, after Vivian girls opened. gotta keep the fans guessing.
Happened to see Ariel Pink open for Animal Collective at the Empty Bottle in Chicago, must have been 2004 or so. He had a huge melt down on stage, screaming and yelling at his bandmates, one of which threw his bass on the ground and walked off stage. Pink proceeded to pound on his keyboard with his arms and elbows and yell indiscernible gibberish into the mic. I think there was an “I’ll do it by my fucking self” in there. Eventually he left the stage and the crowd was dead silent. It seemed like a staged act or something and no one knew how to react. AC came on and played one of the best sets I’ve ever seen. Though, I gotta say, I really do enjoy ‘Before Today’.
Maybe he does it because he’s just a really nice guy and wants to make all the other acts he’s playing with look great in comparison?
Ariel Pink did once admit that most of his music is not meant to be performed live and he is probably aware of his limited…um…exterior talents. Pink is a camp-tacular songwriter above all else.
That said, I saw him in Montreal and everyone in the audience had a blast. The band was terrific and he was being quite the showman, interacting with the audience and grooving to the music with more passion and enthusiasm than most artists that I have seen live.
It sucks that his band wasn’t backing him up in NY. But judging from the description in the article, he probably made the best out of his circumstances, lol.
This just makes me like him more.
Sounds like a real life Fright Night.