mardi 11 Oct 2011, 15h37m

Mon 3 Oct – Wild Flag, yellowfever

Wild Flag does not want to just take their old devoted fan bases down from the shelf, dust them off, crank the wind-up knobs in their backs, and set them to jumping about and singing along and such.

I took myself down from the shelf, dusted myself off, cranked the wind-up knob in my back, and set to jumping about and singing along and such. Guy next to me, front row center, was doing the same.

The singing along took me by surprise. The album had been out for, what, three weeks? "You don't have, to confess, to sleeping in the (mumble mumble)". Well, OK, I know that lyric. But I don't know all of them yet. Especially not in a deep down in my soul way.

Opening band: Yellowfever. I liked them. It was a good set. They are well suited to opening for Wild Flag.

Standout song: Glass Tambourine.

Audience: Enthusiastic, polite, restrained. Cheering and clapping, but not much dancing. This wasn't a wild show or anywhere near one. Oh well.

Questions of an appropriate level of judgment swirl here. It will take time to work it out. This AV Club interview is very good about the issues. The way the album repeatedly talks about artistic re-creation, and I'd add in about the relation of audience and band? It was accidental, not an intentional theme:

AVC: A number of the songs on the album, especially “Romance” and “Electric Band,” are about playing music and being in a band, or at least make reference to it. Did you realize that was becoming a recurring theme?

MT: It’s true. That’s just actually wasn’t a conscious decision when Carrie and I were writing lyrics, but listening back to the record, and also just listening to us play, I began to realize almost every song was about returning, maybe having lost music and returning to it and making the decision, “I can’t leave it, and I love it, and it’s my life.” It’s really weird; it wasn’t a conscious decision at all. I guess it’s just what we were going through.