Le Tigre - 10/23/04 - Avalon, Boston, MA
Watching Le Tigre perform live has got to be something like having sex for about an hour and half. Only the other person in the scenario interrupts things about every three or four minutes to talk about groceries.
Why is this beautiful, wonderful, sexy person doing this? You're in the moment, you're there, you're committed and not turning back. It's so so good, but they keep pausing and starting up again in a way that isn't at all fun. Ultimately you leave feeling satisfied, but inclined to give pointers if the two of you decide to do this again.
I may just have typed blasphemy and gotten myself sentenced to several kinds of musical hell-- undoubtedly something with lots of Celine Dion and Millie Vanili-- but hey, it's how I feel. They're one of my favorite bands in all of time and space, but damn do they chat alot.
As a side note, apparently I rarely go to Saturday shows because, yet again, I'd timed things just so I'd miss the opener and get the during the break and yet again I showed up after the headliner went on. So, note to myself and anyone else that may find it useful: on Saturdays at Avalon the headliner goes on at eight p.m. There. Now if I do it again you all have my permission to point and laugh.
However, as previously stated, one of my favorite bands in all of time and space. There is no fucking way I'm not enjoying this show. I practically drill through people to get to the empty areas on the floor and immediately focus all my attention on the stage with the rest of the crowd. People are rather overjoyed to be there and it shows from every corner of the room. Adorable boys with festive scarves are being adorably bouncy. Girls with rather perfectly cut hair are rather stylishly doing the shimmy. All is merry and bright.
The newer songs seem to lack the punch that the older ones do, but everything is played and met with great enthusiasm. KH give a short speech about how "if artists need things to be bad to find inspiration they can just fuck off and find a day job" ...i'm heavily paraphrasing, but it was a nice moment.
Unlike the Death Cab show where the audience obsessively tracked the Red Sox score throughout the night, this crowd seems wholly uninterested. Or, at least there's no one who will admit interest when the band asks from the stage, "So there's some sort of sports thing going on?"
Yeah, it's a different crowd. To say the least.
The thing I'm thinking about now, post-show, is who's coming up through the ranks to replace Le Tigre when they go? What's going to happen next? I love some of the things happening in music today and the directions that bands like Death Cab and Belle and Sebastian or Radiohead are taking things in, but most of this is made up of male voices. They're sweet and posessing a rather modern sensitivity, yes, but the world hasn't completely revolutionized itself overnight either.
Everyone knows the Riot Grrl thing is over, but shouldn't there be some new round of women with things to say-- loudly, and with guitars firmly plugged in-- coming out to a town near you and me?
If you know about some good ones, I want a heads up. Please and thank you.
