I Love Japandroids.
”Celebration Rock” has leaked. To me its a record that truly emotionally resonates with me completely. I can name only a handful of records that truly resonate with me on such a level, Bon Iver’s latest, Yuck’s self-titled and American Football’s first release are the ones that come to mind at the moment. From beginning to end this record engaged me. It’s one of those records that you feel in your heart as something so beautiful and pure. The title of the record says it all. It’s celebratory. Of what? I’m not quite sure. Life perhaps? Being alive? Never has punk rock felt this alive, this melodic, this PERFECT.
I Love Japandroids.
Often after any sort of wonderful event in your life it’s hard to explain why said event was so great, the words just sort of escape you. Tonight, after seeing Fun. live, I feel that way. However, I feel that it is such an important concert I must document and reflect on it in some way, which is the purpose of this piece of writing. We’ll see how this goes. It’s 12:30 AM, I’m exhausted.
January 2nd was the first time I heard Fun. A friend posted a link to their song “We Are Young” on Facebook and I immediately fell in love. This is before EVERYONE AND THEIR MOM knew the catchy chorus and it hit number 1 on the Billboard 200. Some Nights wasn’t out yet so I spent the rest of my winter break listening to Aim & Ignite on Spotify at least 50 times. (No Lie) I saw that they had announced a Minneapolis date, which excited me, especially because it was scheduled to be at The Varsity Theater, which has consistently been my favorite venue to see bands at for the last couple years. Unfortunately, it sold out before I could get tickets and my hopes of singing along to “All The Pretty Girls” or “Walking The Dog” were gone. Luckily about a week later they announced that the show had been moved to a brand new concert venue called The Brick in downtown Minneapolis and more tickets went on sale. I asked a couple friends if they were interested and purchased 3 tickets as soon as they went on sale. Less than a month ago news surfaced that the show had moved venues once again to the Myth night club in a suburb, a venue which usually hosts what I’d call “crappy metal shows.” Regardless I was pumped to see Fun., the band that I had listened to more than any other in 2012.
Around 6:40 I arrived at the Myth with Whistler and DeCarlo, my two close friends who I had asked to come along to the show with. The doors opened at 7PM and there were already at least 100 people there, probably more. At the Myth there are 4 entry doors, which was a little confusing, but we decided to stand in the second line being formed outside. at 7 the doors opened and we immediately went inside. I purchased a t-shirt before going into the pit of people, which was relatively small at the time to join my friends, who by then included Loren and Kenzi, who came separately. After a bit of waiting, we decided to sit on the floor for a while and it caught on a bit and some girls behind us sat down and started to play a strange game called “chest hands.” After a while we decided to stand and wait for the remainder of the time until the opening band Miniature Tigers were to start. They were pretty good. Nothing amazing in my opinion, but they were definitely a lot of fun. Whistler made the remark that they sounded like a cross between Jeremy Messersmith and Two Door Cinema Club, which is pretty accurate if you are familiar with those two artists.
I had some expectations for Fun. but I wasn’t prepared to be shocked or amazed at the show. To say the least my expectations were exceeded. They opened the show with “One Foot,” which seemed to get the crow going right from the first few trumpet notes played by keyboardist Andrew Dost. I expected most people to be coming just because they had heard “We Are Young” on the radio, but it seemed that everyone knew the words to every song played, which made the whole experience even better. They continued through a mix of new and old songs until, at a breaking point singer Nate Ruess stopped and said that the show was the biggest headlining show Fun. had ever played. The crowd immediately erupted in cheers. More songs were played, and the middle of the show is a blur, I sung along to some of my favorite songs ever with a group of what seemed like a GIANT amount of people, even if it was most likely around 3,000.
While NO ONE had personal space and everyone was extremely hot the atmosphere was kept upbeat by Nate Ruess. At one point he told everyone to meet someone they didn’t know in the crowd, which was a nice moment, I met Liz, Sam and Zach. During a break in “We Are Young” he instructed the ladies to sing the “na na nas” while the men sang Janelle Monae’s part. Nate and Jack (guitar) pointed out their dad’s who were both in attendance. Laughing and making jokes along the way. They decided to close their first set of songs with a cover of The Rolling Stones’ “You Can’t Always Get What You Want,” a song that I was not familiar with, but quite pleased with, it sounded like Fun. could have wrote it. Their first of two encores (!) started with “Some Nights,” which just seems to get better every time you hear it and an extended rock out of “Take Your Time (Coming Home),” which was just perfect. After they came on stage for their second encore and before the started into a fitting ending “All Alright.” The crown and the band looked at each other for what seemed like minutes, the crowd cheering at the top of their lungs and the band smiling back at us, Nate Ruess’s familiar smile seeming the biggest and most grateful. I think I may have seen a tear in his eye at one point. I imagine that was a pretty great feeling, playing their biggest headlining show yet with such a fantastic response.
Well now it’s 1:06 and I’m pretty happy with what I wrote. There is probably a ton of grammar issues, but I think I’ll post it anyway. Editing can wait. I think I’ll end one the best quote of the night, from singer Nate Ruess, which perfectly goes along with everything that Fun. stands for: “It doesn’t matter who the fuck you are, it just matters that your here.” Oh, and if you were wondering it was a fun show. Pun intended.
-Eliot Larson April 13th/14th, 2012
This weekend I’m off to my grandfathers’ house in Branch, Wisconsin. I’ll be spending a lot of time outdoors, listening to music and reading books. He lives on a river (about the size of a creek) and has a few acres of woods. Even though there is internet at his house, I’m deciding not to bring my iPad or any other internet related device, so I can be more in the moment and better enjoy my time there. These are the albums I’ve decided to put on my (Throwback!) 2nd Gen iPod Nano for the weekend. These are just a compilation of random albums, some stuff I need to listen to more, some old favorites, and some stuff I haven’t listened to in years. In no particular order:
- The Social Network Soundtrack (Trent Reznor & Atticus Ross)
- Le Voyage Dans La Lune Soundtrack (Air)
- Drive Soundtrack (Cliff Martinez, etc)
- Hurry Up, We’re Dreaming (M83)
- End Serenading (Mineral)
- Rise Ye Sunken Ships (We Are Augustines)
- Stereo (Christie Front Drive)
- David Comes To Life (Fucked Up)
- Lenses Alien (Cymbals Eat Guitars)
- Citrus (Asobi Seksu)
- Some Nights (Fun.)
- The End Of Ring Wars (The Appleseed Cast)
- Loveless (My Bloody Valentine)
- Souvaki (Slowdive)
- Ceremonials (Florence & The Machine)
- Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place (Explosions In The Sky)
- A Gentle Reminder (The Jealous Sound)
- Attack On Memory (Cloud Nothings)
- Nothing Feels Good (The Promise Ring)
- Hold Time (M. Ward)
- Voyageur (Kathleen Edwards)
- New History Warefare Vol. 2: Judges (Colin Stetson)
- Bon Iver
- New Blood (Peter Gabriel)
- Hardcore Will Never Die, But You Will (Mogwai)
- Champ (Tokyo Police Club)
- American Football
- Riceboy Sleeps (Jonsi & Alex)
- Boxer (The National)
- Fordlandia (Johann Johannsson)
- A Fever You Can’t Sweat Out (Panic! At The Disco)
- Days (Real Estate)
- Visions (Grimes)
- Towards The Sun (Alexi Murdoch)
Odd Future Pop-Up Store, Minneapolis 3.13.12
a real hero
When can we get together again?
Nevermind, I’ve lost you.
I’ve found myself listening to a lot of music that came out 10-20 years ago during these first 2 months of 2012, but I have purchased/listened to 4 pretty rad albums from this year. I’ll hopefully get around to reviewing them in detail, but for now I just wanted to put down a bit of my thoughts on each of them. All are highly recommended.
Click on the album covers to hear a track from each record.
Cloud Nothings / Attack On Memory
For fans of: Fugazi, Sunny Day Real Estate, Jawbreaker
20 year old Dylan Baldi is the brains behind this band who’s new album is a trip back to the early 90’s Post-Harcore and Emo, where sceraming, shouting and dissonance rule. Produced by Steve Albini who apparently played scrabble on his iPhone during recording sessions.
The Jealous Sound / A Gentle Reminder
For Fans Of: Death Cab For Cutie, Foo Fighters, American Football
When an album is recorded in Dave Grohl’s garage and bass provided by Nate Mendel could anying go wrong? No. After a 9 year hiatus The Jealous Sound return with a great collection of chilled-out catchy tunes that occasionally leaning toward modern shoegaze.
Kathleen Edwards / Voyageur
For Fans of: Lucinda Williams, Rilo Kiley, Bon Iver
Justin Vernon’s girlfriend Kathleen Edwards is as talented as he is in writing catchy tunes. Produced by Vernon, who guests on almost every track, Voyageur is an album telling the story of Edawards’ divorce from producer and long-time collaborator Colin Cripps. Brian Moen from Peter Wolf Crier and Norah Jones also appear on this soon to be Country-Rock classic.
Fun. / Some Nights
For Fans of: Cold War Kids, Vampire Weekend, Hellogoodbye
Fun. have changed up their sound a bit on their sophmore release Some Nights, which finds them stepping into a new territory that most rock bands tend to stay away from: drum machines and auto tune, a trick only a handful in recent memory have been able to pull off. Long time Kanye West collaborator Jeff Bhasker produces.
Excited to hear what the next 10 months of the year have to offer!
-Eliot Larson, February 16th, 2012
This is a good friend of mine, Julia Kindall reading one of her poems called “Welcome Home.” It’s amazing. I’m not a poetry expert, but I think this poem is just wonderful. There’s so many images that pop up in my head. Listen to it.
-Eliot Larson
(Source: joolabee)
Emotive pop-punks Cloud Nothings have a new album out January 24th via Carpark. Attack On Memory was produced by Steve Albini and supposedly takes the band in a new direction, although you can hardly tell with this song. The distorted guitars, short length and catchy hook sound simiar to their 2011 debut record. I’m loving this track quite a bit, looking forward to this record. Check out the MP3 below. -Eliot
