Saturday, December 20, 2008

Vancouver (and Seattle)'s best concerts in 08

This was a good year for live music in the west coast. So here's the countdown of my favorite concerts this year:

13. Stone Temple Pilots
Very disappointing return of one of the best bands in the 90s. The concert started very good, but later on they screwed up several of the best songs like Sour Girl and played a jazzy-boring 20 min improvisation half way through that made everyone go to sleep. You could really feel how they did it just for easy money. :(

12. Stereo Lab
Good show but I'm not a Stereo Lab fan so I didn't knew any of the songs. Also the chick that sings is kind of shy to be the front lady of a band, so it was kind of cute-funny how she did all the time this shy dance moves. Don't get me wrong, this was a great concert in comparison with STP, hehe. I think I liked more their opening act, a side project of the lead singer of Stereo Lab called Monade. Even though my pal Michelle doesn't belive me, it was like the french version of the Pippettes, hehe. I had a chance to talk with the bass player after they played and she was really nice, I hope they do good with their new album (I'll post my signed copy scan when I hook up my scanner soon)

11. Metric
Very short show, only for this reason I placed it below Foo Fighters. Metric is to me the best current rock band in Canada. As simple as that. The new tracks they premiered at the show from the upcoming album were their best so far IMO. Hurry up and release that album! its been in the works so long it feels like the Chinese Democracy, haha.

10. Foo Fighters
Dave knows how to work his audience. It was a great show with absolutely all the tunes I wanted to hear from them. They had an acoustic set halfway through that was awesome. I loved how he jokes with the crowd a lot, as in the "you guys want more encores? do you think I'm Billy Corgan playing here for 6 hours?"m lol.

9. Reel Big Fish / Less than Jake
Best crowd I've seen in Vancouver. At last there was a good mix between mosh pit and enjoying the music, as always should be. Both bands were awesome, and the 2 opening acts were great too! Lily and I kept joking about feeling like it was 99 all over again :)

8. Video Games Live
Very interesting concept. The video games themes that they played were really good but of course there were a lot missing :) (would have traded Civilization IV theme for Ninja Gaiden anytime). Mario, Zelda, Final Fantasy all rocked as expected, but the surprise of the day was castelvania medley.

7. Oasis
The kings of brit pop in their more dark and deep album tour yet. I love when bands play live before releasing the albums as some kind of warm up and this concert was one of the best out of the 4 times I have seen them before (second perhaps only to their Here and Now tour)

6. B-52's
I wanted to see B 52s sooooo badly and they didn't disapointed. When I grow up I want lily and I to keep rocking like them. Loooooooove Shack!

5. Motley Crue (Crue Fest)
Second time I see Motley Crue and first time I see the complete original line up. Pretty good show as expected with all the heavy metal cliches (lots of satanic stuff, porn and fireworks). Highlights of the gig Tommy Lee asking all the babes in the crowd to flash their boobs and taping it with his camera.

4. Franz Ferdinand
I'm surprised nobody in Vancouver knows them and that they played in such a small venue after 2 very successful albums and the 3rd one coming in just a month. This is one of those bands that even though I had lots of opportunities to watch them live before I never ended up having the time and I regret not doing it earlier. This guys are extremely good musicians both in studio and live. Lots of bonus points to this gig because of the awesome opening act.

3. Kinski
This is how rock should be, as simple as that. I think this was the surprise of the year, I heard the songs of this guys before but I never thought they could create such an amazing vibe on stage. It was kind of hypnotic watching those guys build up the songs from a very trippy delay intro into a modern orchestration of rock sounds. I hope they never sell out like Sonic Youth. Kinski is no doubt one of the best bands out there right now.

2. Goldfrapp
It was hard to place Goldfrapp on the second spot with the amazing voice of Allison and the really good chemistry of her musicians. Her voice is so powerful that I saw people crying during Utopia. If somebody asked me what is the best female voice ever I think I would say it is her. The live versions of the songs are sometimes very different but still sound amazing.

1. Radiohead
I don't think I need to explain why this is the best concert of this year. This are real musicians, not karaoke posers or rocker wannabes like 90% of the current indie, emo and 'rock' current movement. Every song was performed with heart and the bonding between crowd and artists was perfect. I only wish they had done two concerts to watch them twice.


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