Just Noise
The opener for Built to Spill and the Meat Puppets last night at the 9:30 Club was the Drones, a noise-rock quartet from Melbourne, Australia. The audience loved them; I’d never heard of them. Nor did I love them. Too much of what I heard last night was just noise, plain and simple.
I’m not anti-noise by any means. I have those requisite Sonic Youth albums; I’ve seen shows at 611 Florida; hell, I used to have my CD player/alarm clock set so that I woke up to Lightning Bolt’s Wonderful Rainbow. But The Drones’ stage set last night wasn’t noise in the “experimental” sense, or even the “confrontational” sense. It may have been “passionate,” at least on the distributing end, but the passion wasn’t terribly contagious. No, it was noise for noise’s sake, just another layer to the arrangement that didn’t have any purpose other than to fill out the sound. I’m not sure why, since some of the songs weren’t too bad by themselves (the last one, whose title I know not, was actually pretty good).
But while I start in again to bashing myself for getting old, I’ll also point out that Built to Spill kicked ass playing Perfect From Now On, and though the BTS-loving friend who accompanied me will surely disagree, the Meat Puppets stole the show.
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11:00 am
Meat Puppets did not steal this show.
Dude performed in sweat pants.
11:08 am
I didn’t realize wardrobe was such a deal-maker or -breaker. See? I’m not only old, but tragically unhip.
11:15 am
GWB came in a suit… does that mean he stole the show? Or was it just his torn-off head…
11:23 am
the meat puppets were TERRIBLE. next-level awfulness. like some bad van halen cover band. embarrassing and sad. agree about the drones, angsty shouting + lots of noise but they should try to write a song instead of just ripping off minutes 7 through 11 of a crazy horse jam over and over. built to spill sounded pretty excellent but i had to motor over to the BC after 8 songs to catch the points, who were, of course, better than all the other bands combined.
11:34 am
anybody else hear any “bad van halen cover band” cause i didnt. come on… tennessee stud to tomorrow never knows cowpunk style! pure meat puppets.
12:15 pm
David,
How was that Points show?
1:14 pm
Awesome, as always. The new bass player reminds me of Jay Reatard’s bassist. That’s a good thing. The four-piece lineup gives them a bit more oomph. Surprisingly low turnout, which was too bad. I guess they’ll have to break up then get back together in a decade, then they’ll be assured of a sell out.