Stereolab 3/28/2006

[€uroMeinke]

Here are my thpughts on the evening cross-posted from my Live Journal:

Stereolab
The year continues to be a music-intensive one, last night we say Stereolab in Hollywood. Yes it was a Tuesday night, work the next morning and all that. And Yes it was a rainy night – which for us meant our normal 30 minutes to get to Hollywood turned into an Hour and 30 – It’s amazing how crippling rain can be the freeways here. None-the-less, we went and had a great time.

I was a bit nervous about seeing them live. Their albums are so produced I had to wonder just how much you actually see them do. Usually bands are much better live, but I’ve had a few experiences where the live band just bored me – and there’s nothing worse than being bored at a concert.

Stereolab is great live. In this day and age where everything is sampled, it’s a delight to a group of musicians assemble this sound from scratch. I commented to Lisa during the show – I don’t think I’ve ever seen French horn being used in a pop concert before. But that was only the beginning. Lætitia Sadier, the lead singer, had a box of various purcusion instruments that she’s grad things from, but as the concert progresssed we watched her, sing, play keyboards, and then seeminly out of nowhere pull out this trombone. I will forever have this image in my mind of her belting out a song, left hand on a keyboard, right hand clutching her trombone. It was amazing, and their raw live sound was spectacular. Now I will have to search for any live records that exist out there