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(COOLLIST) Everything But the Concert Review
First, I'm back in Austin after a great trip back home for
Thanksgiving. My flight came in Friday afternoon with no problems; I
was happy to see Charlie, Heather, Gail, Arnzen, and V while back in
Georgia. I'll be back at Christmas-time, although I'm not sure yet
for how long. :)
The main reason for this mail is to tell you all about the concert I
saw last Friday night, a little over a week ago. Longtime readers
know that deep inside, I'm a rock critic. No, that technogeek
exterior is just a front; music reviews are my real passion. <GRIN>
So, last Friday I found myself at the Austin Music Hall where
Everything But the Girl and Frente! were playing. EBTG (see
www.ebtg.com) is a British duo that have been around since the
mid-80s. Originally, they sounded a lot like the Cure, steadily moving
towards a jazz-pop sound typified in their 1989 release _The Language
of Life_. That album got some stateside airplay due to the VH1 hit,
"Driving".
In 1992, Ben Watt, EBTG's male lead, got very sick with a stomach
illness and came very close to dying. After his recovery, they got
back together and produced the sensational album _Amplified Heart_.
It was mostly ignored here until a remix version of "Missing" started
getting club play. That version hit the US top 10.
So, in 1996, they released their current album _Walking Wounded_. It
is outstanding, showing a strong jungle and house influence on their
work. They took the elements that made the "Missing" remix so popular
and worked it into most of the songs here.
In concert, they sound a lot like their albums, at least the recent
ones. The only rearrangement was their updated, danceable version of
"Driving". Still, Ben, Tracy and company did a very good job of
translating the highly produced sound of their recent work into a live
experience. I was a little disappointed in their selection of songs.
With the exception of a Massive Attack song, "Driving", and on of the
songs in the encore, all of their performances were off their two most
recent albums.
Frente! is an Australian band. They did the cool acoustic version of
New Order's "Bizarre Love Triangle" from a few years ago. Their first
album, "Marvin the Album", is a nice listen. Their stage performance
was lacking. They didn't add anything, and their sound was poorly
mixed. Apparently, they have a new album out... nothing they did on
stage convinced me to run out and get it, I'm afraid.
Before either act, Ben Watt came out and DJ'd a 45-minute long set.
He did a great job, and it really was danceable. However, the sparse,
well-lit environs of the AMH meant that no one got up and danced. I
just was content to sit on the concrete floor and sway. It was very
relaxing, at least.
TTYL,
--
Benjamin L. Combee (combee@techwood.org) <URL:http://www.yak.net/combee/>
that public-access-TV-making, video-game-collecting, cryptography-pushing,
World-Wide-Web-explaining, fem-music-loving, bad-pun-creating guy in Austin
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