Wednesday, December 06, 2006

Panic! in San Jose

I'm not feeling actually hungover today, more just like that ugh sort of morning feeling after staying out too late, drinking on an empty stomach, and waking up way to early. I need some food I think. Like eggs... mmmm, I could definitely go for a bacon and egg sandwich. Back when I was working in the film industry I used to eat those for breaky every morning, I mean you can't have breakfast burritos every day...and really when you're feeling like I do now, huervosrancheros., with all that salsa, is maybe not the best thing.

Ok so obviously I don't have my head together too much right now. Last night I went down to San Jose to see Panic! At The Disco. It was an interesting show. Solid, but a bit too scripted for my tastes. They had this extremely 'produced' stage show to accompany their performance; a whole circus theme, and it left them almost zero time to do anything other than follow the script. Granted the production quality was very good. They had a great circus set on stage with risers, secret entrances and other mechanical effects built in. They had a really great lighting rig suspended in a big top tent. They had two extremely large monitors on either side of the stage showing what was happening as filmed by no less than a 3 camera set up, with transitions inlaid and everything. And all of that is aside from the 6 circus performers running around on stage in a semi-choreographed manner doing back handsprings, contortionisms, stilt walking, ribbon and veil dancing, and other circus sideshows. So, like I said, very high production value, but it was also a bit cold, a bit too staged.

Production values aside, or actually maybe partly because of them Panic! actually managed to almost FILL the HP pavillion. That's a hockey arena! How the hell did these guys get so big? Have you seen their big single? wait... here



I mean its generally speaking totally fine in a kinda mainstream engineered alt-poppy way, but I just don't get what made them such a huge draw. The crowd skewed young last night, like 16 year old young, but that was ok, cause they still had alcohol and I could see over heads at least. Maybe I don't understand. I definitely felt like yeah, this is a band I like, but not a band I really would normally go out of my way to see. I was actually a bit surprised to hear how good they really were underneath everything though. If these guys were to drop some of the gloss, get a bit more down and dirty they could really make some interesting music. They really have a lot of skills, and I 'get' that they might want to be popular. But the music was a bit light on the things that I want.

Its like they sat down decided to become like the modern day Green Day, only without the leg work of being a real, and honest band first. Hopefully they'll shake things up as their career goes on.

I didn't know this until I got to the pavilion last night, but apparently they were supposed to be playing with Bloc Party. Yes for reals! Bloc Party is a band I would definitely go and see. In my head I thought Bloc Party was somehow bigger than Panic! but really I think I must've just assumed that because they are such a better band. Even though, as far as I know, they haven't had any big singles. All that is moot though, because Bloc Party didn't show. I don't know if they left the tour, (not to spread rumors - but...) someone said that maybe they heard they had actually broken up. Don't take that from me though, cause I can't find anything about that online.

Overall the show was decent, if a bit static. I mean it was interesting visually, an not offensive to the ears, but there wasn't really that spark that I was hoping for. Good but not great.

I need some food...

1 comment:

Unknown said...

Bloc Party is definitely a superior band. Panic at the Disco makes me want to shoot myself. =)