No Kanye meant this festival already had a leg up in my book. They ended up with two out of three headliners I'd love to see, and a decent undercard. I hope they do gangbusters business and the music promoters of the world start to realize that you don't need a garbage person mediocre MC to move tickets at your event.
I dunno. Their headlining set at Panorama in 2017 was spectacular. It's not like Kevin Parker jumped around, but SO MUCH ELSE was going on that whether the frontman moved or not was not really a concern.
Saying the Coachella stage is "artistically limiting" less than a year after what Beyonce did with it is some serious bullshit. Then again, little else comes out of Kanye's mouth, these days, so I guess I shouldn't be surprised.
Oof, this is rough. The Lumineers and Khalid in the top line is weak sauce - I know the latter is pretty damn popular, but his set at Governors Ball last year was not good. And it just sails off a cliff from the second line, down.
On the plus side, the 1975's placement in this lineup has me somewhat reassured that, while we'll likely be seeing them out at Randall's Island, they're probably not going to headline. So, that's nice.
I was really hoping we'd get her at Governors Ball this year. I don't think I can afford to kick out for that MSG show unless the secondary market craters closer to the actual date.
I was there. It was so very good. I had two complaints: 1) Lucy Dacus didn't play "Pillar of Truth," which is my absolute favorite song of hers and a total banger. Her set was so good, but I NEED IT IN MY EARHOLES, damnit. 2) There was a strangely long time between sets given that the amount of setup and equipment change-over required was minimal. Normally, that wouldn't be a big deal, but when you're standing for four hours...
Other than that, though, it was a killer night all the way through. All three of them were so good, individually, but Julien Baker really crushed it - her voice is a total weapon, and those moments when she really cuts loose sent chills down my spine every time. And the Boygenius material was fantastic - I figured "Me & My Dog" would be a highlight, but nothing beat "Salt in the Wound," especially that totally unexpected guitar shreddage from Julien Baker.
Here's hoping they have a good enough time with all this that we have a Boygenius full-length in our future.
I can't wait for this show in NYC tomorrow - I'll either be mildly celebrating the first good news in American politics in years, or I'll be drowning my sorrows in booze and great music.
I disavowed Kanye a long, long time ago. The guy's always been an asshole and I have no desire to fuck with that. Also, he's a wack MC and has been for a long tie.
Was at the 10th anniversary celebration concert at the Knockdown Center in Queens and can confirm this stuff holds up like crazy. It also reminded me just what a kick-ass live band TV on the Radio is. I'm not sure if this is accurate, but it feels to me like they're always a little bit of a second-tier band when people talk about that era - you have your Strokes, your Yeah Yeah Yeahs, your Interpols, and your LCD Soundsystems all up at the top, and then, oh, yeah, TV on the Radio. And that's a shame, because I feel like they absolutely deserve to be in that conversation, as much or more than some of those other acts.
After seeing them a couple times in May/June, I maintain that the Love Is Dead stuff really works, live. And I'll second that adding the live drummer has been great for their vibe in performance.
I often wonder about the disconnect that must be experienced by conservative fans of certain artists whose views about politics are expressed this loudly. It reminds me of when Paul Ryan cited Rage Against the Machine as a favorite band back when he was a VP candidate. Like...have you listened at all to the *words* of the songs, Ayn Rand, Jr.? And then, to have the band basically come out and say, "We hate you"...that must be really something.
Well, I mean, that's only if the timeline you're looking at starts relatively recently. This whole Target thing isn't the end-all be-all of the gentrification process - it's just a point on a very long curve. The stupid CBGB thing is just a focus for a larger discussion, it seems to me - kind of like how, say, elections, for example, are seen as a chance to take stock of the social and political bent of a community - those trends are there all along, but they're brought into relief by specific moments.
So, yeah, obviously, a Target going up in the East Village as it exists now is not an actual example of true gentrification, as that ship has already sailed. But it feels like a culmination of the thing, especially with the ham-handed attempt to "honor" the very kinds of buildings (the tenement facade might have been just as bad as, if not worse than, the CBGB bit) and businesses that the creation of the kind of environment in which a Target could appear made not viable.
My wife and I got there, put our stuff in a locker, grabbed a beer, and 10 minutes later, we were evacuating. Good times.
My favorite moment of this was when two young ladies stood on a rock outside the gates trying to get the crowd to protest/start a "Refund! Refund!" chant. Two thoughts:
1) Were they expecting someone to come up to them with a wad of cash and say, "Here you go!"
2) Flint still doesn't have clean water.
I'd be curious as to how many of the people below shrugging this off ever actually set foot in CBGBs, or in a non-gentrified East Village.
What's more, this isn't just people casting around for something to bitch about. The hyper-gentrification of the East Village is just part of a larger problem plaguing the city; one that affects real, actual people, who are being run out of neighborhoods they and their families helped build so that another bullshit high-rise with luxury condos that'll only be occupied occasionally can go up, while independent business after independent business is forced out in favor of stuff like this Target. Like, actual human beings' livelihoods are being negatively affected by this, and to have Target pull a stunt like this is basically pissing on the graves of those livelihoods.
But, har har, why care about anything, right? It's just Internet outrage. Ugh.
Why parse Trump's words to make them sound more intelligent? This is the exact line he said:
"This is the only musical: the mouth. And hopefully the brain attached to the mouth. Right? The brain, more important than the mouth, is the brain. The brain is much more important."
We are truly living in the dumbest timeline.
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