Another Gig...(11/9)

Yet another awesome venue for good music performance. Centred in the heart of Bastille, I was here for Isobel Campbell and Mark Lanegan tonight. Not much any surprise, and the gig was warmly (actually much more than warm in an enclosed salle with all the people) held in good atmosphere. The voice of Mark was still as remarkable as his trademark, and Isobel was more humane on the stage as she looked like in the album photos...

Karmacoma...(8/7)

I would say this is one of the best performances I have ever seen in recent years. If it was not that the vocal performance of 3D was not as perfectly as expected, I would rate this a full-score gig! After close to two decades, I finally got a chance to watch their live. When the group came out as the leading figure of the trip hop movement in the mid 90’s, no one could have imagined how their music would transform powerfully to become totally organic and stardom-rock electronica. Massive Attack played 2 hours in the Montreux Jazz Festival, and while I never configure how their music is categorised as jazz, their 6+ music performers on the stage elaborated the energetic percussion-founded root in their music journey since last decade. With 2 full sets of percussion on both sides of the stage, the show was a transformation of modernised interpretation of trip hop or drum and bass. The stage design and the stage lighting were gorgeous. The visual projection signified the humanitarian message of the music group in their works, and the intensity of world messages Massive Attack brought in front of the stage crucified the world of ignorance…

The joy of listening Massive Attack’s live also came from the re-arrangement of the synthesis of their songs. Ranging from the lively groove bassline, the banging drum hits to the murmuring vocal combination, the live interpretation of Massive Attack’s music world was fully backed with a rich spectrum of instrument sounds and it was truly another level of music journey. The flashing lighting or the visually-loaded messages in words and numbers were a live protest to current politics and human security. When the group played teardrops in front of a silhouette vision of eye, the vivid sound just matched the innocent sense of the hollowing big eye on the stage. It was when a metamorphic release of light beams scattering all over the stage that dignified the world of teardrops. Featuring Martina Topley Bird, Massive Attack also played their unreleased song of invade me. Horace Andy was another star on the stage during the performance. His signature voice simply invaded the music hall! He brought the angel and the spittling atoms into the eardrum divinely. Massive Attack also performed the anthem Karmacoma in the encore session, and the evergreen trip hop classic was a perfect reply to Martina’s Overcome.

Martina is red...(8/7)

Congratulations to Martina’s latest release of solo album in Swiss. I attended her last gig before the official release, and it was a minimalistic session of live performance. Martina has been the kind of diva-vocal to me appearing in great music work of Massive Attack and Tricky etc., and stepping away from the mega-cast, her own project demonstrates some more profound dimension of her music world. With the eccentric use of sound instruments, she takes much advantage of her unique voice to sample the vocal and experiment her beautiful tone as one of the key elements in her songs. The gig was lovely, and the lo-fi set up on the stage simply reinforced her humane music language, not to mention her eye-catching reddish evening dress. It was beautifully touching when she performed 'overcome' at the end of the show. It must be a memorable musical trip for her in the era of Maxinquaye...

40th Anniversary...(26/6)

This marked the 40th anniversary of the Glastonbury festival. Gorgeous alternative farming, and the event has landmarked the glory of stardom generations...

Let's Dance...(9/5)

It's been such a long time since I last went for a concert. Tonight at Bataclan was a sporty one with LCD Soundsystem. Nothing much to describe in words was the direct and groovy night of dance beat music. Echoing their new album was a more subtle experimental sound of drone rhythm. Without giving a moment of break, the long-dominant cells got nerved again. Watch the band's latest MV, and the visual reinforces their belief of fun music with colours, and more colours. Music keeps alive!!

Manicycle emptiness...(26/11)

Culture sucks down words, itemise loathing and feed yourself smiles, organise your safe tribal war, hurt maim kill and enslave the ghetto.

My physical romance...(29/1)

My Chemical Romance at AWE - a gig of defining age and pop.

Eyeball keeps rolling...(19/1)

The Cure at awe...(31/7)

Boys, don't cry...
This was the second gig for me. The Cure was still so young. Unexpectedly the gig lasted for more than 2 hours. A total recall of the 80's beautiful moment...

New gangs of four...(18/12)

It’s always interesting in discovering new sound around us, and simply by chance on myspace, I came across a new French group named Nelson last month, and tonight I joined their debutant live show at Nouveau Casino...the venue always projects to me a scene of the underground atmosphere of indies. Minimalist, the decoration of the concert salle is a mix of modern design and garage layout. The performance of Nelson was good but less than perfect as of my expectation. The group was driving in a resembling tone with the contemporary New York post-punk groups like the Strokes, Interpol or the Raptures. The four guy with three harmonising vocals are potentially powerful. As a newcomer, their show was not bad, but I see that their sound could be further polished with some soft integration of guitar effect or keyboarding. The drumming was nice too.
There was a supporting group, aswefall, who performed in the first half of the show…rather than talking about their green performance, it was the video projection of Samuel Beckett that arose my interest and attention.
see also http://zirhc.blogspot.com/2006/11/over-song1211.html

A muse of absolution...(14/12)

Perhaps they are having the heritage of Thalia, and rather than holding any ivy wreath or drama mask, they play their idyll with guitars and piano...rockabilly...the band amused the waving crowd tonight with a presentation of 'muse-ic'. To me, Muse is having their peak moment in their music career. Their two last albums were the insignia of the contemporary art rock. Indeed Matt is a talented musician and singer and his profound training on classical music and magnificent angel falsetto vocaling offers the group a unique sound of rock in baroque. The trio combination on the stage ignited tremendous energy to the stadium, and this was the momentum when audience achieved a sense of muse. Muse would easily be taken to compare with another trio group Placebo in UK, but I think Muse is more art-rock-originated with the structure of their songs and the affluent music arrangement they compose. The Omnistade was fully occupied tonight at Bercy, and the snapping thunder of their performance drummed the bottom and the top. The stage design was a gorgeous one for this show, and the production of the concert was nicely arranged. It's touching to witness the stadium lighted with audience's lighter fire and fluorescent mobile phones. The video projection was colourful enough to stimulate the visual sense. Imagine that giant balloons fell from the ceiling in the middle of the concert, and it was exactly an echo to the foaming bubble I was following the day before. The band played a few songs of the album of absolution. A conditional reflex is found inside my mind between Absolution and Haruki Murakami's Kafka on the shore, conscious and unconscious correlation, and sooner or later, a 'Kafka'-style exiling journey matches perfectly with the tunes of Absolution. It was a wonderland. The dreamy effect was magnified with a live performance and improvising. I was too much expected, and so disappointed of the latest black holes & revelations, but indeed all the new songs are very good beats for live performance. It was simply too great.

So young...(13/12)

ages, decades, live, life, turning around, a hamburger, ufo, without a focus, just a motion, an eye on the world, a bug, a reddish nurse, metamorphosis, music, long life, art rock, noise punk, avant-garde, herbs, just some herbs, a crowd, the dinosaur, a junior one, temperature, heat, wave, drumming, the heart beat, pure music, only what is named the hall of fame, it is sonic youth, at the zenith, an evening, my third RDV, always a classic...

La belle et la bête...(13/11)

The live of the Babyshambles at Elysees Monmartre tonight was basically a show performance of Pete Doherty. The concert induced a sensation of an idol band like Pete's I missed for long time on the stage...tonight, it was a concert of atmosphere and passion, or I would call it the great escape of the babyshambles, and yes, part of their sound recalls me about the good old days of blur as the idol king of britpop sound. The music of babyshambles was somewhat imperfect and rough. Their sound was off-key and the absurd combination of sound in their songs, however, forms a magic harmony of a distinct new wave sound. As unique as a frontman like Pete in the current music scene, it is him who can play in such freestyling with primitive rhythm and murmuring voice. Everything could be revealed from the holes on his shirt and jeans on the stage tonight - the beauty of imperfection. Always accompanying Pete was not only the black hat on his head but also the cigarettes and the alcohol on his hand. The band was always the crux of hype on UK's music magazines and the high profile of the band in relation to no matter drugs, love with Kate Moss or new interpretation of rock'n'roll simply reinforce its fellow crowd by the stage, and this explains the mania with screaming applauses and interactive reactions from the fans beside the stage. Basically all kind of souvenirs were put (or threw) onto the stage, be it a bra, a UK flag, an album, a lighter, a bottle, a brunch of flowers, a scarf, you name it...the music of babyshambles was not something most important (though quite a few slow beat melodies were nicely played in the show), but it was the every gesture of Pete on stage that counted. To me, the guitar solo of Pete echoing in numerous songs performed this evening was the greatest moment. I must admit that the separation between Carl Barât and Pete Doherty from the Libertines is a real pity...life goes on, and soon we will see how babyshambles and dirty pretty things would go.

All about the divine comedy...(19/10)

When I was in Olympia this evening, I recognised that the divine comedy was such a familiar group to me that I would use to buy their every CD since over a decade ago...still recall years ago when I first listened to their music, I thought that if I had a chance to watch them playing live, I would have to go. They were not the kind of radio-favourite bands which play always under spots from everywhere, they have no million-copy sales. Their debut album was sold with a few thousands copies only in UK, and similar number for their second one. They are always the example of how an indie band does its music at the other side of the music scene. And now, they are a 17-year-old band. Still recall the time when I looked for their CDs and special editions in UK and France, a treasure of finding the specialties, and that was fun. A moment appears when I was listening to national express on a TGV in 1998. Images blurred outside the window, and the reflection of me was staring to me. It was 'fin de siecle' but it was also those good old days. The band had their mini album released actually before they had fin de siecle in 1998. Romantic enough, this mini album was called 'a short album about love', which reminds me a lot 'a short film about killing' of Kieslowski. Both are mini work for big idea...
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My first encountering about the divine comedy was in a history class. I bought my copy of Purgatorio ironically in Beijing in 1997. It was part of the episode, and the paperback is in Italian, I just keep it well on my shelf for long time. I bought another book about the illustrations of the divine comedy in the same bookstore, but again I leave it so comfortable on the shelf for ages...though it was not the cocytus where things remain frozen and imprisoned.
Some childhood dreams appeared like the scenery of purgatorio...a confluence to the Buddhist’s regeneration cycle?!
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The band has picked a name with infinite imagination. Their music is not the dark one, but their songs are filled with a sense of French romanticism. They are the one to have orchestra music playing in their band song too before the brit-pop era. Neil Hannon, the frontman of the band, has always a college-gentleman like icon with much charisma. Surprisingly the band is quite popular in France. It's maybe their music style, their pro-renaissance lyrics rich of beautiful vocabularies and stories. Their live tonight was nice. They played songs mainly from the latest 3 albums, and when they played generation sex, it was the tout le monde chorus moment. When they had national express in the encore section, I felt like well stepping back to the summer of 1998...
The concert ended by the song sunrise, a metaphor of Dante's journey probably?

Placebo live @ bercy...(3/10)

Was not expected too much about the concert of Placebo in Bercy. Perhaps this was due to the fact that I saw the band playing live twice already in Hong Kong and Versailles before. However, there was always surprise...it is a very affirmative feeling that the band goes on its stardom rock. They managed very well the combination of sounds on the stage and they played excellent songs. Having more and more acclamation and fame, the concerts were well supported in Paris. I went to their second show and the concert hall was nearly full. The stage lighting design was simple but good. Spotting lights from the stage skretched collective silhouettes of the crowd in front of me with mirage landscape. Videos and projections were inserted from songs to songs, and it provided an additional visual enjoyment to the audience. Among other beautiful evenings, music moved this evening as it always be.

Rapture the ecstasy...(26/9)

The three golden letters written as D.F.A. - a never-disappointing brand of dance and fun...the Rapture played live at Batalan tonight shortly after their release of the 2nd album, but instead the group played quite a lot songs from their Echoes. The show reminds me the performance of another DFA fellow LCD Soundsystem. Full of raw and punky elements, their music simply pushes the cells to ecstasy high.


The show was attended by a few hundred audience though, the energy and atmosphere was magnificent. When you saw Gabriel Andruzzi playing stagediving himself, Vito Roccoforte performing his stylish dancing saxophone and percussion or Mattie Safer rebounded fiercely from the kaleidoscopic drums, you have to admit the power of music.

Immortality...(11/9)

After years, it is Pearl Jam who remains the pick in my musical box...
During the golden era of Seattle grunge movement, the raw and primitive sound of rock'n'roll dominated the US music market. No one could imagine the albums of Nirvana were brutally sold in millions copies. Focus at the moment was put on the two giant groups - Nirvana and Pearl Jam. That was the time when youth conquered the speech. It was the tattoo of the age. Losing the fate on the burdening tour life and dullness of the perceived world, Kurt Cobain committed suicide in 1994, and Nirvana ended its legendary life. Suddenly Pearl Jam seemed to lose its ground as the only pillar of the grunge movement. Media stated that 'the grunge is dead', and shortly after Kurt's death, Pearl Jam released their important album Vitalology. It was the time when I fell in love with the band, a sensible transformation to its post-grunge musical world.

The group had their live concert at Bercy this evening to demonstrate its 1.5 decade about the beauty of rock. Powerful and groovy are the trademark of Pearl Jam, and varied from its debut raw sound of grunge, the band plays very skillful and structural melody of hard art rock. Accompanied with a set of decent lighting effect throughout the concert, the music of Pearl Jam never stopped. It was touching when they played songs like Better Man...when you see all the thirty-something fans wearing T-shirts of Pearl Jam from various stages and the harmonised dance of the crowd, you simply get the rhythm of a stagnant eternity since the past. I was listening again to the song 'indifferent' from their debut album Ten, and this is what to be called 'immortality'...