Gogol Bordello – Like many Burlington-ites; yes, I used to see front guy Eugene at the local punk rock teen space. At the time it never occurred to me that he would be the one person from that scene to ascend to upper-middle echelon of the music performance biz. I see his success as a testament to globalism, he took something that was getting stale and reinvented it with healthy dose of personality. These guys put on their standard high energy show, for the record their standard show is more fun than a bag full of monkeys.

My Bloody Valentine – In the mid-to-early 90′s this band was crucially influential to me and many of my friends.

WARNING: Nerdy sound talk ahead!
DO NOT attempt to operate heavy machinery while reading the following!

I can say with some audio experience under my belt that fears about seeing this band in a setting like this were indeed founded:

1) Because the whole sound system was at max or there was some compression issue during %60 of the show the sound system was PUMPING. This distinctive sound defect is when the drum hits and then a millisecond later everything gets much quieter, instead of Kevin Sheilds’ wall of noise we were subjected to a rather un-interesting stutter none of which has ever been part of the MBV sound. It may well have been in MBV rider that they had to be 15 decibels louder than every other band on the roster which would have been great if it was tenable.

2) Vocals were inaudible (please don’t tell me they’re supposed to be quite, I know)

3) The bass was sub-audible meaning you could feel it not hear it. This works for some bands sometimes and seems to happen at big outdoor shows a lot not sure why.

4) Outdoor sound systems are missing all kinds of cool frequencies. They basically sound like when you let a three year old play with your EQ settings. Because bass sounds are essentially caused by air pressure it will always be 10 times easier to get better sound in doors. In my experience the best sound comes in established indoor venues that hold roughly 200 – 1500 people.

Perhaps to some people the wailing, warbling moans of the album “loveless” sound laissez-faire. Like a Rothko or Pollock painting if you can’t see the artistry in that particular style no one is going to be able to explain it to you. In short MBV’s sound is delicate.

So, the sound guys fucked it up (in their defense they fucked up something really difficult.) Quite possibly the band also fucked it up. Luckily a few tunes held up better than the others including the seminal “Only Shallow”. Even if the 15 minutes of pure noise at the end of the show wasn’t what kev intended it did piss off a lot of tool-heads and that’s worth something.

Crystal Castles – I quickly made my way to the 2nd stage to catch most of their set. On the way I muttered something about how 99% electronic musicians that play live without live drummers should be shot. To my surprise they must have heard me. I really enjoyed them even though I never heard them before, but I instantly understood what they were up to. Basically suped up 8-bit nintendo songs with a cute ADD chick singing/screaming over top. This was new feeling, yet instantly retro, everyone there was young and having a great time and pretty soon I was young and having a great time too, until I ripped myself away to catch some…

Tool – I watched tree songs and would have been happy to see their entire set had I not had plans. They were solid, but not quite magic. I enjoyed the theatrical aspect of them staying in silhouette as a decent collage of trippy and disturbing video backlit them. During which Maynerd showed us some of his new yoga moves. I don’t know if it’s just me, but songs off of “Aenima” are just better. I don’t know if it’s just me, but every band that claims to be influenced by Tool blows goats, like none of them see the art side of the stadium-art-rock?, well I think they were all there and when Maynard yelled something about “Jersey Kicking some ass tonight!” they all cheered.

So, not sure I’ll pay $130 again until I move to another tax bracket (due diligence: I’d pay $81.45 for the experience).

Norton has never, to the best of my knowledge, called herself a music journo. I on the other hand, have, and am.

Also, who the fuck are YOU?