Big Jump for Me
I enjoyed a fantastic Gang of Four show last night at Irving Plaza, the first of the band's two-night stand there. Without a ticket, I arrived just as the band was starting and within five minutes, I bought an extra ticket from a cool guy for under face value ($20) and in the door I goes! (I did the same for Westerberg as well a few weeks ago - maybe I will no longer buy advance tix?).
The band looked great - singer Jon King all thin and wiry and strutting and banging his way round the stage, riffmaster Andy Gill looking enigmatically cool at all times; bassist Dave Allen craggy and hirsute, and drummer Hugo Burnham looking like Black Francis. Together they walloped the crowd with their bass-thumping sound. Even the pink-haired mohawked guy upfront was dancing all over.
Awesome light show (excellent use of strobes), clear sound, cutting guitar, robotic drums - it felt great to see them. I'm among the (ahem) more experienced rock vet set who saw Gang of Four back in their earlier heyday ('79/80), at Chicago's Aragon Ballroom, with Pylon opening, and still clearly remember King playing the melodica on "It's His Factory."
Highlights were "To Hell with Poverty", "We Live as we Dream, Alone" and "Damaged Goods." To my surprise, I found the jagged art rock numbers like
"Anthrax", "Paralyzed" and "At Home He Feels Like a Tourist" more satisfying that the more traditional punk slammers like "I Found that Essence Rare".
Ran into old pal Nadine (looking great!), said hi to Michael Azerrad and a few others. If you can see the band tonight, DO IT!
Brooklyn Vegan's already got snaps from the band's late-night gig (1:30am!) last night at Tribeca Grand! And you can read about the band's Boston show the other night as well.
UPDATE 1: Central Village has great pix of the band at its Flickr site.
2 comments:
I was so thrilled to have this opportunity to see the boys all together on stage. I was especially pumped to hear the bass licks of Dave Allen, a guy I saw several times with Shriekback.
There was no disappointment that night...the show was awesome. My fave was Natural's not in It, followed by ....Essence Rare. Such a fun night. Please come back to NYC again.
Help me Dude, I'm lost.
I was searching for Elvis and somehow ended up in your blog, but you know I'm sure I saw Elvis in the supermarket yesterday.
No honest really, he was right there in front of me, next to the steaks singing "Love me Tender".
He said to me (his lip was only slightly curled) "Boy, you need to get yourself a shiny, new plasmatv to go with that blue suede sofa of yours.
But Elvis said I, In the Ghetto nobody has a plasma tv .
Dude I'm All Shook Up said Elvis. I think I'll have me another cheeseburger then I'm gonna go home and ask Michael Jackson to come round and watch that waaaay cool surfing scene in Apocalypse Now on my new plasma tv .
And then he just walked out of the supermarket singing. . .
"You give me love and consolation,
You give me strength to carry on "
Strange day or what? :-)
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