This is a video of a 1978 Talking Heads performance filmed for London's Old Grey Whistle Test. Tina Weymouth's deadlocked focus on David Byrne apparently started way before Stop Making Sense. Reminds me of the fact that James Brown's musicians could face fines if they weren't looking at the Godfather during certain parts of a performance. Also, it's amazing how such an art-centric band can look so preppy and downright scary how much Byrne looks like a doppelganger for American Psycho's Patrick Bateman, a movie and character that one could argue were both based on this song.
Admittedly, I sort of burned out on Odd Blood months ago, after a few weeks of constant rotation and initially proclaiming it on par with the band’s debut All Hour Cymbals. Now that I’ve had time to fully digest and take a step back I can view the band’s second LP for what it is. All Hour Cymbals was one of the finest records of the last decade and Odd Blood is a nice contrast and addition to the band’s live canon, giving the live shows a fuller sound and doing away with a lot of the grooviness that stamped their early live sound in favor of a more dance-oriented show. A very strong effort, but All Hour Cymbals it is not in my opinion. However, seeing the opener (and strongest song on Odd Blood) “Madder Red” jarred me right back to the giddy level of excitement for the new material and last year’s anthemic stomp-clap “Tightrope” is a nice follow-up. Yeasayer is in a small group of three new-ish bands that have my full attention for the duration of their career (along with Delta Spirit and Dr. Dog–barring some sort of Kings of Leon foray/demise into arena rock homogeneity) and this video only resurrected my need to catch the band while they are still touring on the new material (they skipped New Orleans twice in the past year in route to Austin, something a lot of touring bands sadly do). These guys are gonna be around for a long time, so check out their fall tour dates and go see them while they are still playing smaller venues.
Also, it’s great to see vocalist Chris Keating still doing his signature hand gyrating move.
Watch the full concert at baeblemusic.com
Setlist:
Madder Red
Tightrope
Love Me Girl
I Remember
Wait For The Summer
Sunrise
Mondegreen
Ambling Alp
Rome
O.N.E.
Grizelda
2080
Yeasayer 2010 U.S. Tour Dates
JULY 23 at CAPITOL HILL BLOCK PARTY in SEATTLE, WA
AUGUST 6 – 8 at LOLLAPALOOZA in CHICAGO, IL
SEPTEMBER 28 at MR. SMALLS THEATRE in MILLVALE, PA
SEPTEMBER 29 at NEWPORT MUSIC HALL in COLUMBUS, OH
SEPTEMBER 30 at BLUEBIRD NIGHTCLUB in BLOOMINGTON, IN
OCTOBER 1 at CANNERY BALLROOM in NASHVILLE, TN
OCTOBER 2 at MASQUERADE (HEAVEN STAGE) in ATLANTA, GA
OCTOBER 3 at TRUSTEES THEATRE in SAVANNAH, GA
OCTOBER 4 at STATE THEATRE in ST. PETERSBURG, FL
OCTOBER 5 at THE FILLMORE in MIAMI, FL
OCTOBER 7 at CLUB FIRESTONE in ORLANDO, FL
OCTOBER 8 at UNION GREEN in TALLAHASSEE, FL
OCTOBER 9 at HOUSE OF BLUES NEW ORLEANDS in NEW ORLEANS, LA
OCTOBER 10 at AUSTIN CITY LIMITS in AUSTIN, TX
How appropriate…
Wait for the summer
We’ll sleep when we wanna
Don’t tell your mother
We’ll leave when we
We’ll leave when we wanna
Meant to post this a few weeks back. Here's the full text of the brief, bare-bones interview I conducted with Galactic bass player Robert Mercurio early last month for the Bonnaroo Preview story for JamBase.
JamBase: This festival, along w/ JazzFest, seems to have had a profound effect on Galactic’s career, can you give us an idea of the extent that Bonnaroo has impacted the trajectory of y’all’s career?
Robert Mercurio: The first one probably had the biggest effect. We were still a younger band at that time and also it was such an event (I mean they all are). But that first one just had something special about it, because people questioned how you can get 80,000 people in the woods and no one get hurt, because it was unprecedented to have anything like that in the U.S. In '02 we had a really great late night spot and after that show for so many years I ran into so many fans afterwards saying “That’s the first time I saw you!” I think Bonnaroo is just such an amazing exposure gig because it brings in people from all over and they just come across you without even having to search you out. They’ll just walk by, say “Who is this band?!” and come in and join in the fun. We also had a big gig [in 2007] right before we released our album From the Corner to the Block where we invited like 2/3’s of the MC’s that appeared on that album. It was a really good exposure for that album.
The 2005 Krewe de Carnivale [Click to download] show sticks out in mind as the ultimate Galactic Bonnaroo late night and one of my favorite shows in general, can you share a memory from that night or the hip-hop oriented show in ’07?
That was awesome too and is kind of a prelude to what we’re doing now with Ya-Ka-May where we invite tons of New Orleans guests to come up and play with us. We had Kermit Ruffins, Dirty Dozen Brass Band, Leo Nocentelli and a few others. So that was really fun for us to bring a little bit of New Orleans up to the middle of Tennessee. Again, I really always think we really shine the most at our night shows there. We get to play longer, it’s not as intimidating as the huge main stage set…actually we had a really good set on Which Stage one year…but the main stage is a big stage to fill. When we’ve played What Stage it’s in the afternoon and it’s not the same as the night-time under the lights, in a tent, that just kind of fits us well.
How does Bonnaroo stack up with the other festivals?
It’s a whole different animal. Jazz Fest is kind of unique because it’s not like a camping festival, it’s not really totally geared towards kids, it’s more geared towards a family-oriented atmosphere. The bookings [at] Jazz Fest are more geared towards New Orleans Heritage. Bonnaroo, you could try and compare it some of the other festivals out there like High Sierra or Mile High, but I feel Bonnaroo just takes a step above everything else. They really put a lot of effort and expenses into making it a really unique experience both visually and sonically with all bells and whistles. The production is great and they take it a little bit beyond what the expectations of a festival should be with the Comedy Tent. They just do things that you wouldn’t normally hear about with things like the Silent Disco. We’ve done a bunch of festivals in Europe and I have to say Bonnaroo is definitely the closest thing that America has to an American festival. Those festivals over there, they’ve just been doing them for a lot longer, they’re REALLY HUGE and it’s not this like “Oh, we’ll just maybe go to the festival” you go, everybody in the country goes rain-or-shine. Everybody’s out there and it’s just a really great experience. But Bonnaroo is the closest thing to that vibe.
Will you guys be around for more than the one day? Are you gonna check anyone else out?
We are only gonna be around that day because we’re playing the Harmony Festival that same weekend out on the West Coast. So we’re going to have to fly out early Saturday morning. Hopefully I’ll get to check out some Jay-Z, that’d be badass.
Can you give us a little idea of what’s in-store for fans who come out to this year’s 2:00 a.m. show?
We’re bringing in some extra production lighting-wise. It’s gonna be our most extravagant light show and stage set-up that we’ve ever done. We really just decided that we’re gonna go over-the-top this year. We’re excited to see it too, we haven’t really seen it either (laughs). Our Lighting Director has been working hard on it and programming it and it should be really a spectacle beyond what you’ve ever seen from a Galactic show. We’ll have Corey Henry and Cyril Neville with us at the Bonnaroo show like we’ve had on the entire Ya-Ka-May tour.
