| Review of Explosions In The Sky supported by El May and Eluvium, 16 February 2008, Melbourne |
[17 February 2008|11:57 pm] |
If I had to describe last night's concert in just two words, they would be 'fantastic' and 'intense'. If you ever have the chance to see Explosions In The Sky, I would very strongly urge you to see them. I have never seen a band so intently pour themselves into their music. The opening acts, El May and Eluvium, were both also very good.
( My full review. ) |
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[10 February 2008|11:54 pm] |
| [ | Tags | | | music, setlists, u2 | ] |
| [ | Current Mood |
| |  bored | ] |
| [ | Current Music |
| | 'Trains' by Porcupine Tree | ] |
Well, today's cricket match is proving to be remarkably dull. The Australian innings was entertaining as India simply skittled them, but after a good start, the Indians seem to have become scared of being skittled in similar fashion and have seriously put the brakes on. So, to pass the time, I thought I would make a post to complement my "fifty top albums" post from last month. But instead of just something bland like "fifty top songs" (which sounds like a tough ask anyway), I thought - well, what am I known for? I'm the U2 setlist guy. So, what the hell, here's my ten of my favourite U2 setlists over the years.
( Cut for length. )
And after doing this in fits and starts, it's nearly midnight, the cricket is well and truly over, India quite satisfyingly won even if it took them a painfully long and cautious time, and I should get some sleep. Have a good one, folks. |
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| Crowded House with The Walls and Augie March, 8 November 2007, Rod Laver Arena, Melbourne |
[18 November 2007|11:17 pm] |
OK, it's about time I reviewed a couple of the concerts I've seen lately. I've been meaning to for over a week, but university was hectic right up until the end. My last assessment item of the year was an exam on Wednesday, and since then I've been kicking back and relaxing. I've been reading LJ, but I've honestly been just a little too lazy to actually write anything. Time to break out of that slothfulness and put fingers to keyboard.
The first show was Crowded House on 8 November, with The Walls and Augie March as the support bands. Apart from Augie March, it was a really fantastic concert. As the setlist addict that I am, I noted down the setlists for all the bands. Crowded House's set was obviously easy, as I know their entire catalogue very well; The Walls' singer introduced most of the tracks and those he didn't name were easy to figure out from checking their site and consulting my notes; Augie March's singer only introduced the last two so I had to write lyrics for the rest and hope I got them right. I think my sets are accurate, or close to it.
( First support act: The Walls. )
( Second support act: Augie March. )
( Main act: Crowded House. ) |
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[20 February 2006|10:01 pm] |
Anyone fancy doing me a favour?
I'm bringing this question here because I'm utterly baffled. Would anyone be able to identify the snippets Bono sings in the following songs? Each file is just the snippet with the rest of the song edited out, so the files are about 30 seconds long at most. You don't have to be a U2 fan to help because Bono very rarely snippets one U2 song in another. He usually snippets other people's work.
1. Unknown snippet in Bad, 1987-05-04, Worcester (after the file ends, Bono continues to lead the crowd in chanting "sing it, sing it").
2. A different unknown snippet in Bad, 1987-05-09, Hartford,
3. An unknown snippet in Bullet The Blue Sky, East Rutherford: 1997-06-01 and 1997-06-03. I also have examples of this snippet from 1997-06-14, Edmonton and 1997-07-02, Foxboro, but it's even more indecipherable at those two shows.
I'm particularly bothered by #2 because I feel like I recognise it. In all cases, I've Googled whatever lyrics I could comprehend but failed to turn up any results of substance. Bono certainly fails to enunciate, and if anyone can identify these, I expect they'd do so based more on the tune rather than the lyrics.
Thanks in advance to anyone who takes the time to help! |
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| The last night of 2005. |
[31 December 2005|11:49 pm] |
If yesterday's entry did not prove it, my behaviour today proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that I am indeed a huge generork.
What does a normal person do on New Year's Eve? They socialise with friends or family, they play their music obnoxiously loud, they go and watch fireworks displays at midnight, and do other similar things. I, however, am not even remotely a normal person and have never claimed nor desired to be one.
So just what insane activities have I done to fill in the last night of 2005? Firstly, I posted a review of U2's concert setlists in 2005 on U2-Vertigo-Tour.com. That's my way of acknowledging the year that was. Secondly, with my interest in trains thoroughly rekindled, I have sat here with books on New Zealand's railways spread open in front of me. Yesterday, I decided to look up information on New Zealand's railways online for two reasons: 1. to save searching through my mini-library of books on Kiwi trains, and 2. to see if the Internet contained any additional or newer information not found in my books. I honestly expected to come across such information. The opposite happened. I just cannot believe the absolute absence of information online about New Zealand's trains. I loaded up Wikipedia and discovered that even though people write about all kinds of obscure topics there, no-one had done much for New Zealand railways - despite the presence of a list of all railway lines in the country, both open and closed, there were only about five actual articles. So that's why I have come to have books on New Zealand's railway history scattered across my desk. This evening, I have completed articles on the Tapanui Branch and Waikaka Branch ... and found myself often distracted by the really cool stuff in my books. Trains are so awesome, I hope you know that.
So that's how 2005 has concluded for me; the re-appearance of my railway fanaticism. 2005 has been good to me, or at least six weeks of it were. I've seen U2 live three times and acquired tickets to five more concerts; I've travelled to another hemisphere and been over 10,000 kilometres away from home; and I had the six happiest weeks of my life thus far with ![[info]](http://p-stat.livejournal.com/img/userinfo.gif) purplicious and the other Franklin folk. I'd like to wish every person reading this entry a great 2006, and I personally hope that the year passes me by quickly. An escape from Queensland in 2007 looms gloriously on the horizon. In less than fifteen minutes, I'll be able to say "I'll be out of here next year". Oh, and 2006, I really do hope you include me witnessing One Tree Hill played live in full by U2. I'd appreciate that a lot, thanks.
Have a good one folks. Happy New Year! |
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| My rant against U2.com. |
[29 December 2005|10:01 pm] |
I'd just like to take this chance to voice my absolute displeasure with U2.com. At the time of this update, not only has a second concert in Buenos Aires been announced, but tickets have gone on sale - and if you read U2.com, you wouldn't even know this concert is going to happen. The people running the band's own official website seem to have forgotten that their job is actually to report on U2 and what U2's doing, such as tour dates!
This year really has been filled with countless examples of U2.com's incompetence and ineptitude, and I've frankly had enough of it. I cannot believe that while I am able to post an accurate setlist complete with snippets to U2-Vertigo-Tour.com within five minutes of the show's conclusion, the band's official site, when they finally post the set themselves, spell song names wrong ("Running to Standstill"), use incorrect and inconsistent grammar ("Pride in the name of love"), post inaccurate trivia (such as claiming The First Time was played in 1993), and make mistakes with the setlist itself! It's bad enough for them to post setlists that omit songs played or include songs not played (such as claiming Stuck In A Moment and All Because Of You were played at the final third leg show when THEY WEREN'T), but the worst example of their incompetence comes from the 10th of July show in Paris when U2.com's article centred on Bad, claiming that "it's always a special occasion when Bad is played" and that night was such an occasion ... even though U2 did not play Bad that night (in fact, they played Bad in Europe just once, in Dublin two weeks before the Paris shows). It's one thing to post a set containing songs that weren't played, but it's even worse to centre an entire article around making fanfare about a song the band did not perform.
I wish U2.com's incompetence was confined to setlists. I could then at least remind myself that your average person isn't nearly as concerned with setlists as I am. But of course, there was the presale fiasco that can't be ignored, the membership cards that many people never received, the insulting and pathetic U2 Communication disc, and just simply NOT announcing that a concert is happening. I was frustrated that the Australian and New Zealand presale was announced a mere day before it began, and I was unimpressed that Argentinian ticket details for the first Buenos Aires concert weren't announced until the day of the sale, but there was still the counter-argument available of "what if the details weren't made public until then and U2.com just reported it as soon as they could?" In this case, however, there's no excuse. The information is out there from the promoter, but U2.com has remained silent. Maybe they're on Christmas break? Well, look, all the major fan sites have managed to stay updated, the promoters have had enough staff active to make their announcement, Ticketek has had enough staff to put the tickets on sale, and I'm sure a lone U2.com staffer has five minutes to spare a couple of days after Christmas to write a brief article for the site stating that "a show has been announced for this venue on that day, tickets will cost $x for seats here and $y for seats there, so go get them at this link". Or maybe they're all just baboons who got a trainload of bananas for Christmas and haven't finished feasting yet.
A band of U2's calibre deserves far better and more competent online representation than this. In fact, no band deserves an inaccurate official website. What a disgrace. |
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| Setlists, and this isn't solely a U2 discussion. |
[18 October 2005|09:26 pm] |
Disclaimer: though this entry mentions U2 (quite heavily in places, as it's the example I know best), this is not an entry about U2 or meant to exclusively interest U2 fans. I'm seeking to discuss concerts and the relevance of setlists in a more general context, and the examples I give for U2 are intended to be comparable and applicable to other bands.
Over the last year, I've become known as a bit of a setlist freak for my fascination with and knowledge of U2's concert setlists. For those who aren't in the U2 fandom and haven't picked up on it from a few LJ entries, setlists are a hobby of sorts for me; not only do I love creating custom sets, but I am also one of the two maintainers of U2-Vertigo-Tour.com (and Elevation-Tour.com and U2Setlists.com, which use the same database) and have a considerable portion of the site memorised. In U2 circles, setlist variation has become the source of considerable debate lately after some of us (myself included) asserted that the setlists at the five consecutive New York shows did not vary enough. For this reason, I'm writing this entry to explain my position on setlist variation in a general sense, though I'd like to provide some context on the New York setlist debate first.
( Why controversy erupted. Yes, of course there are Vertigo Tour spoilers. )
( The importance of setlist variety for concerts in general. )
Now that I've written this ridiculously long entry that doesn't even discuss all the points I wanted to cover, will anyone actually bother to read it? |
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| How to scare yourself. |
[21 September 2005|09:27 pm] |
Sometimes I do things that, once I'm done, cause me to stop for a minute and think "André, did you really just do that?" Today, I did one of those things. After the setlist of today's U2 concert became known, I was inspired to make a thread on Interference off memory (with U2-Vertigo-Tour.com open for cross-checking). This was not some fanladish trick to me, but just the basic recall of data like I would remember my mother's birthday or Kate's favourite colour. I then sat back and looked at it and thought "... WTF?"
( The thread post in question. I don't expect non-U2 fans - or anyone, really - to read it. Just glance at it so you get an idea of what I actually did. )
I am officially insane.
Poll #574582
Open to: All, detailed results viewable to: AllIs Axver insane?
I do not plan on seeking a cure for either my insanity or Memory Like A Sponge Syndrome. |
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| The Finn Brothers, 2005-07-22, Brisbane: I'd spend six months in a leaky boat to see a gig this good |
[23 July 2005|06:19 pm] |
I'm not sure what to write about first: the incredible concert or the pathetic Australian crowd.
( The awesome show! )
( But how about that lousy Australian crowd? )
Summary: excellent show, shame about the crowd. If you haven't seen the Finn brothers live yet, hurry up and GO. Try to go somewhere with a good crowd too.
Finns: 10/10
Useless fucking Australian crowd: -57,000/10 |
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good
confused
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frustrated
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1 (3.7%)