2.19.07: Carnegie Dates, Arcade Fire

The series of Carnegie Hall dates in the first week of February are ready for their post-mortem. I didn’t read the press, the various reviews, except for one piece on Here Lies Love in Time magazine that was sent to me and cheered me as it was by a Philippine writer.

The series sold out — so I was told — even the last one, opposite the Super Bowel on Sunday, so the sales alone made Carnegie Hall happy. I was happy about that too, but maybe moreso that artistically it all seemed to work. People heard things they’d never heard before, in a place they seldom if ever visited. Some of the events will be unlikely to happen again, which was exciting, too. Carnegie has mentioned the possibility of doing something in ‘08, so we’ll see what they have in mind. Apparently there were sound issues on the Here Lies Love night — the usual Carnegie problem with drums or anything of volume. We had worked hard all afternoon and had planned well in advance to beat these problems to a bloody pulp, but some remnant apparently stayed alive, especially for those in the “good” seats.

The other nights had no such problems. In the Dreamland night the artists rose to the occasion, creating an evening with no set changes and with a constantly morphing lineup reflective of a community, and with low volume that could still be heard in the furthest reaches of the hall. It was pretty magical, and it would be logical for some commercial promoter to take a lineup like that on a world tour. [Link to review]

The Knee Plays music-only revival went off well — I added a vocal to "I Bid You Good Night", inspired by others who had done the song previously — Joseph Spence, The Incredible String Band and The Grateful Dead. [Link to reviews]

The last night, One Note, was maybe the most hodgepodge: disparate acts held together by a musical concept — the root or drone note — that many times only musicians are aware of. But in the end the smörgåsbord concept worked — and the sound in Zankel was perfect. [Link to Review]

…

Saw Arcade Fire at Judson Church where they played for a few nights — they were introducing new material. They got slammed for sound issues in the press as I did recently, so at least it wasn’t just me who was getting the sonic criticism. Up in the VIP balcony the sound did indeed suck, so I wormed my way to within a few yards of the stage, in front of one of the PA speakers, and it was wonderful. The new songs are grand, personal, apocalyptic and totally heartfelt. Just to see and hear a band that is so obviously playing from the heart and not making career moves was incredibly moving — but of course the songs and arrangements are good, too. Yes, I could hear little bits of Talking Heads in their earlier material and shows — which was flattering — but now I think most of their influences are pretty invisible. They’ve become what they are.