Random Thoughts This Weekend

1) Congratulations to Brad and Eileen on the birth of their daughter Lillian!  Wishing you all the best!

2) To all the overweight, middle-aged men cutting their lawn shirtless on their riding mowers - stop it, you're scaring my son.

Okay, you're scaring me.  It's like 75 degrees out, be a man and tough it out.

3) I'm fairly certain that a Girl Scout troop could do a better job of protecting Aaron Rodgers than the Green Bay offensive line.  They'd probably tackle better than the defense as well.  I would like to see the all-Girl Scout team idea instituted within the next few weeks.

4) Before a govenment declares war I think everyone involved in the decision should be forced to listen to Chromeo's "Bonafied Lovin" for 24 hours straight, then immediately decide.

5) Speaking of Chromeo, their Fancy Footwork album should similarly be used as a kind of music appreciation reprogramming.  It's not that it's great, just a great bassline (Thank you, thank you! I'll be here all week)

Last Night's Show

Saw Sigur Ros perform at the Chicago Theater last night. A little torn about the show overall. The band played very well, no denying it, but I wasn't terribly thrilled with the set list or the arrangements. It's strange, they have just released their brightest, most organic album, but the arrangements were MUCH darker than previous shows and very few songs from the new album were included in the show. Visually the show was a little flat as well, I'm not a big fan of projections of the band playing (especially when visuals have been so powerfully used in past shows). I think what was missing most, however, was their regular opening act and collaberators, Amiina. You don't really realize how important strings are to the arrangements of many of SR's songs until they are missing, and the lack of any back-up help is what really pushed the overall feel of the show into much darker territory than normal.

Like I said though, the band performed very well and there were several incredible moments. When the band finally got around to the new album's first single (Gobbledigook) as the closer of the set it was a truly joyous and transcendent moment witht the band and crowd wound up to giddy proportions (and a confetti explosion straight out of a Flaming Lips show). It was a stunning moment and really makes you wonder how much more could have been done with this show and their new material. I don't know if they trust the material live yet, or what, but it just really seems like a missed opportunity. It was a good show, it just seems like it could have been much more.

More testing

Testing some more software right now, hopefully will simplify posting to the blog for me and all that jazz.  More updating coming, no, really there is.  I just gotta get some stuff straight first