Last night, Explosions In The Sky returned to Austin for their first hometown show since the release of their most recent album All Of A Sudden I Miss Everyone (which by the way is excellent!). I was pretty damn pumped to see the show, but apparently so was the entire city of Austin. The show ended up selling out a couple weeks ago, which, for a venue where you can usually show up and just pay cover at the door, is pretty impressive! To put it in perspective, both Isis and Mastodon played this venue in the past few months, and I don't think either sold out until possibly the night of the show. The place was PACKED, but oddly enough it wasn't annoying at all. The anticipation and excitement were pretty thick, and everyone just seemed happy to be gearing up for a great show from the hometown heroes.
The opener was Eluvium, who I had never seen before. Its one guy with a keyboard and a guitar. He would basically repeatedly play a bit and loop it, so that over the course of 10 minutes or so he would gradually layer different piano and guitar parts over each other until it built a wall-of-noise type crescendo, and then he would peel the layers off one at a time to wind it down. Each part on its own would be something fairly mellow, but by the time it reached the climax it was extremely loud and somewhat distorted. He also had a couple songs that were shorter piano-only pieces, and they were actually quite pretty. Overall, it was decent, and it fit fairly well as an opener for Explosions. But it didn't interest me to the point where I would buy it or anything.
Then Explosions In The Sky came on a little after 11pm, to a thunderous greeting from the crowd. Munaf, one of the guitarists, spoke to the crowd for a couple minutes, about how amazed they were with the opening ovation and how much the hometown support really means to the band. Then they launched into their set, which was as follows:
01. Greet Death
02. Welcome, Ghosts
03. With Tired Eyes, Tired Minds, Tired Souls, We Slept
04. The Birth And Death Of The Day
05. The Only Moment We Were Alone
06. Catastrophe And The Cure
07. Memorial
Excellent set! Although I suppose just about any set of theirs would be a great set. They did an amazing job of fading one song into the next seamlessly, I don't know if they ever had an actual complete break during the show. It made it quite a bit tougher to keep track of the setlist, hehe. The sound was amazing, the bass came through very cleanly, and you could hear every detail of the guitar work. The drums may have been a tad on the quiet side, but if so it was very slight, they still sounded fine. Most importantly, the energy was astounding. The band was really into it, and the crowd just fed off that. And the band really rocked the climax of the closing song, "Memorial". Everything came together as a huge crashing peak, it was the perfect conclusion to the show. For a few minutes, the crowd hung in there hoping to possibly get an encore. But after a few minutes, Munaf came back out and told the crowd that they couldn't play any more. He said they were a bit out of practice, since they had spent so much time working on the record and not playing shows, and that they were completely exhausted. He sounded really sincerely apologetic, but he said that in the coming months they are hoping to play a lot more shows, especially with a couple more in Austin. It came off as a very classy move to come out and explain things to the crowd, because he really didn't have to. As it was, they played continuously for about 80 minutes, which if I remember correctly is slightly longer than they had played at shows I had seen previously.
Anyway, the bottom line is that the show completely kicked ass, in every way possible. I highly recommend seeing this band if they happen to come to your town. They are genuinely nice guys who obviously put a lot of work into their music and into really trying to connect with the fans. They definitely deserve all the support they can get.
Tuesday, March 6, 2007
Thursday, March 1, 2007
Isis @ Emo's, Austin (02.28.2007)
So, Isis rolled back through Austin again last night, which was a little unexpected seeing as they just stopped by here in September, on an off night from the Tool tour. As always, I was pumped to see them. However, as it turned out, I was in for a sub-par night.
First, the opening bands. Going on first was Intronaut, as a replacement for Jesu, who cancelled on the tour for some reason. Intronaut was OK, good rhythm section but the guitars and vocals were nothing special. Drummer tore it up though, and a lot of the bass work was pretty cool. After that was Torche, who I'm pretty sure I've seen before but I can't remember for sure. Anyway, I liked them a bit better, they had a good level of energy and, weirdly enough, a guitarist that to me looked just like Kim Thayil from Soundgarden. I may follow up with them and check out an album.
The sound for both of the opening bands was pretty good, but for some unknown reason the sound was absolutely HORRID for Isis. The only thing I could consistently hear cleanly was the drums. The bass was way too low, a couple of the guitars were way too high, and Turner's mic was also way too high. During mellower moments when only the bass or one guitar was doing something, it would sound fine. But most of the time if there was more than that going on, the entire thing would just explode into an overly distorted wall of noise. And the vocals had the same problem, it seemed like the mic was cranked so high that the signal was constantly clipping and the result was really distorted and crappy. I'm really confused as to why the sound was so off. This is the 5th or 6th time I've seen Isis at this venue, and the sound has always been superb. I guess it just happens occasionally.
Anyway, here is the setlist:
01. Wrists Of Kings
02. Not In Rivers, But In Drops
03. False Light
04. Dulcinea
05. Wills Dissolve
06. 1000 Shards
07. All Out Of Time, All Into Space
08. Holy Tears
09. In Fiction
(Break)
10. Celestial (extended alternate version)
Pretty good set, especially the closer. And as bad as the sound may have been, it was still Isis, live, still bringing the energy and power that they always do. And as most of you would probably would agree, even when the sound is off, if its a band you're very familiar with you can still pick out all the good stuff from the noise and have a great time. Well, this worked for about half the show. And then the idiotic moron "I don't want to actually listen to the music I just want to beat the crap out of other people" moshers started up. Moshers??? At a friggin Isis show??? Huh??? It makes no sense that people would get all aggressive and start shoving and punching to music that spends most of the time slowly building up to a climax. OK, getting a little rowdy and pumped up during the pay-off moments, no problem. But running around slamming people during the mellow ambient stuff, that makes no sense. I've never seen that at an Isis show before, it pretty much ruined the middle half of the show. Fortunately, the moshing seemed to fade out by the time Isis got to their last two songs. Also, it appeared that whatever adjustments the sound guys may have been making during the show finally got sorted out, and the last couple songs actually sounded pretty good. Especially the long version of "Celestial" that they closed with. I was really excited that they played that, I haven't heard them play that song since I think the first time I ever saw them. They really brought the intensity on that one and blew the roof off the place. In my mind, that song saved the show.
All in all, not the best Isis show I've seen, but I wouldn't blame it on the band themselves. They still brought the intensity and thunder, which in the end made up for the less-than-ideal conditions.
First, the opening bands. Going on first was Intronaut, as a replacement for Jesu, who cancelled on the tour for some reason. Intronaut was OK, good rhythm section but the guitars and vocals were nothing special. Drummer tore it up though, and a lot of the bass work was pretty cool. After that was Torche, who I'm pretty sure I've seen before but I can't remember for sure. Anyway, I liked them a bit better, they had a good level of energy and, weirdly enough, a guitarist that to me looked just like Kim Thayil from Soundgarden. I may follow up with them and check out an album.
The sound for both of the opening bands was pretty good, but for some unknown reason the sound was absolutely HORRID for Isis. The only thing I could consistently hear cleanly was the drums. The bass was way too low, a couple of the guitars were way too high, and Turner's mic was also way too high. During mellower moments when only the bass or one guitar was doing something, it would sound fine. But most of the time if there was more than that going on, the entire thing would just explode into an overly distorted wall of noise. And the vocals had the same problem, it seemed like the mic was cranked so high that the signal was constantly clipping and the result was really distorted and crappy. I'm really confused as to why the sound was so off. This is the 5th or 6th time I've seen Isis at this venue, and the sound has always been superb. I guess it just happens occasionally.
Anyway, here is the setlist:
01. Wrists Of Kings
02. Not In Rivers, But In Drops
03. False Light
04. Dulcinea
05. Wills Dissolve
06. 1000 Shards
07. All Out Of Time, All Into Space
08. Holy Tears
09. In Fiction
(Break)
10. Celestial (extended alternate version)
Pretty good set, especially the closer. And as bad as the sound may have been, it was still Isis, live, still bringing the energy and power that they always do. And as most of you would probably would agree, even when the sound is off, if its a band you're very familiar with you can still pick out all the good stuff from the noise and have a great time. Well, this worked for about half the show. And then the idiotic moron "I don't want to actually listen to the music I just want to beat the crap out of other people" moshers started up. Moshers??? At a friggin Isis show??? Huh??? It makes no sense that people would get all aggressive and start shoving and punching to music that spends most of the time slowly building up to a climax. OK, getting a little rowdy and pumped up during the pay-off moments, no problem. But running around slamming people during the mellow ambient stuff, that makes no sense. I've never seen that at an Isis show before, it pretty much ruined the middle half of the show. Fortunately, the moshing seemed to fade out by the time Isis got to their last two songs. Also, it appeared that whatever adjustments the sound guys may have been making during the show finally got sorted out, and the last couple songs actually sounded pretty good. Especially the long version of "Celestial" that they closed with. I was really excited that they played that, I haven't heard them play that song since I think the first time I ever saw them. They really brought the intensity on that one and blew the roof off the place. In my mind, that song saved the show.
All in all, not the best Isis show I've seen, but I wouldn't blame it on the band themselves. They still brought the intensity and thunder, which in the end made up for the less-than-ideal conditions.
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