we were right in the front, only one row of people away from the stage. and
when the roadie put down the set list, i excitedly tapped my friend henlee
on the shoulder and pointed at the songs. he peeked and gave me an approving
thumbs up. every song on the list was a favorite!
luckily our prediction proved right, as mogwai's show was incredible - perhaps
the only let down was the intro choice of fear satan. it being my favorite
song, i was expecting only bliss, and although good it didn't have the oomph
on the album. probably owing to the dismal volume levels of barry's flute
playing. (the flute, man, mfs is all about the flute!) the sound crew didn't
equalize it right (obviously they hadn't listened to any of the albums as
stuart looked angrily and pointed at them later on during cody, cos his mic
was set so low the voice got lost).
problems aside the rest of the show was amazing. playing small children
right after fear satan, definitely bridged nicely into jesus. and was it me?
or did the songs on "rock action" sound much better during the nyc show than
on the album. especially 2 rights, which i argue was the best song that
night. though it definitely did have competition. i was floored when they
moved from a blissful cody, to helicon 1, and then to 2 rights. just utterly
amazing, like having a lighted firework thrown into your eye. again x-mas
step was funny cos dom surprised stuart was some bass - heh tricky lil'
devil.
sine wave with its martin luther king "i have a dream" speech feedback was
great. it really meshed well, definitely better than football on cody. makes
me wonder why they didn't give it the treatment on the album. and jewish
song was-ummm.long. heh, they revved up the crowd for 27mins, before finally
leaving the stage with the music still playing. i think they looped some of
the feeding back. i was cool, how they each walked off one by one, and the
music only stopped when the roadies pulled the plug.
on two sides notes, mogwai all seemed happy. except for stuart who looked
kind of tired and really serious - though he did crack a smile occasionally.
and the crowd was amazing for this show. thanks all for being good. it was
so nice. we all had about 2 feet of room to move throughout the entire
show-no one pushed up into the front. and everyone was courteous.
and on one last finally note ( i promise!) i met barry and john outside
before the show. it was soo funny, cos we didn't have anything to give them
to sign. i winded up giving them the back of my salonist's business card.
and my friend gave them a radiohead single he had just bought! they
were supernice though, and laughed at the whole thing. they even say, "oh we're a lil' late"
but hung around to chat with us for a bit. these guys are
great, musicians and as people. good job guys, you'll own the world soon if
you continue like this.
the first day wasn’t as good as the second though.....which was an amazing
show....the best i’ve seen mogwai....they were amazing. i got there early and
barry and john were signing autographs for some kids that were there....i
gave barry a few pictures i took from the philly show...he seemed to
appreciate the gesture....saying..."aye tremendous"....
but the show was amazing....everyone from mogwai except for john came on
stage for the last bardo pond song..."the scottish guitar army" i think i
heard the girl say....but that was amazing....5 guitars....one bass....two
drums...and one female vocalist....it was the heaviest thing i’ve ever
heard...like a wall of sound....the crowd was going crazy!
they were doing some interesting things during the 'jewish song' (which they
closed with both nites). the first nite stuart cut all his strings off his
guitar and stood it up against his amp then did some weird things with his
effects pedals....then put on a pair of headphones (which he was wearing for
all the songs he sang) and started screaming or chanting into the mic while
he was manipulating his effects pedals....and then john starting going crazy
with his guitar and twisted the tuner knobs on all his strings until the
broke....(at one point before all this but during the jewish song on the
first nite i noticed stuart signal up to their personal sound tech to turn
everything up....so i guess they wanted to go as loud as possible) but again
the second nite was much more memorable....at one point (i forget which
song) but it was all quite except for stuart playing softly when all of a
sudden dominic came in with the bass extremely loud....and it scared the
piss out of stuart ...the crowd and the band were all laughing....his
expression was the funniest things i’ve ever seen.....
also stuart put a new sticker on his guitar....is reads "don’t mess with
texas” and they had some weird things on the stage ..such as painting of a
clown and a huge plastic beer bottle with the cubs logo (an american
baseball team from chicago) on it.....
i dunno its sad that they left the states and probably wont be back for
awhile but it was amazing while it lasted.
they had a ton of tour eps on sale at the show
as well as a new tshirt which had drawings of animals on it and read "i
will/will not eat my friends"
