I don’t do reviews of shows very well. I go to a fair amount and never write about them. I should change that, but I end up writing about something more personal than the technicalities of the performance and I’m not sure it is what all the kids want to read about these days. The blogs that I stumble upon read more like a review in Pitchfork than an actual experience and sometimes that’s nice — if you aren’t there you’re going to know what the musician is playing and how he is playing it and how he is compared to someone else somewhat more obscure than the artist originally mentioned. That’s all well and good. But there’s more to going to a show than that. There’s what you bring to the show — what you were doing before you got there (I had spent the entire day at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and probably shouldn’t have because my legs were killing me and I had like, four more hours of standing to look forward to once I got to the show) and what you’re feeling like and what the crowd is like and who is next to you and what are they talking about and how are they distracting you from listening to music and distracting you from coming up with a perfect review in your head. Because there is a perfect review. Somewhere.
I checked the internets before I came to write about Final Fantasy’s show last night, but there isn’t much more than what was already posted on Brooklyn Vegan and some pictures on Flickr. Although, on a side note, okay, not really a side note this TOTALLY has to do with what I’m trying to get at, and that is personal experiences at shows. The snippet that Brooklyn Vegan posted about the show happened to be from the girl that was standing right next to me at the show. She wrote about a conversation (if you follow to her LJ) she had with another concert goer who was taking photos/video and how she wanted to know when he was going to post them, etc and how he kinda blew her off saying, basically, when they’re posted, they’re posted. Not promising anything. And she was taken back by his answer, so she posted some snarky remarks about him which were kinda funny and dead on and I’m kinda glad she posted it because that was what stuck out about the show for her (and because I witnessed the conversation first hand and it was hysterical). Not how awesome Owen is… because we all know that he is and repeating it over and over, review after review gets kinda played out after a while. We can post all the pictures and videos and ooohs and ahhhhs that we want, but aren’t there other worthwhile things to be mentioned?
For instance, what about the group of people from the Netherlands who kept asking me questions about the venue before we got inside? How about the die hard fans that show up super early to the show and have to wait through two acts that they may or may not just to get to why they came? (Doors open at 7 and Owen doesn’t go on until about 10. That’s a long wait, especially if you want to be up front and all. That’s a lot of standing around) How about the girls beside you talking about comfortable silences when they in fact have none the entire evening? Funny, these things. All part of the experience and they usually get left out.
Maybe the show itself is more important than these other goings-on. Because, seriously, when he (Owen) steps on stage, these things tend to melt away into the background somewhere and your attention is all his. (Or whoever else it might be, but I think that Owen Pallett has a fantastic way of doing that.) It’s great to watch the audience just staring and totally captivated.
Anyway, I don’t have a set list and I don’t know what kind of pedals he used and I’m not going to compare him to any other shows I’ve seen, but I will just say that I will make it a point to see him every time he is in town. That should be good enough, right? And if it’s not, here are two videos I shot:
This is the Dream of Win & Regine (best parts: the opening banter, when he disappears out of the shot for a brief second or two and 3:23/3:37 minute marks)
The CN Tower Belongs to the Dead (best parts: when I can’t get that damn glare from the lighting out of the video in the beginning, 1:38 and on — it gets intense)