BSP, USA, Spring 2011

[Frau_Blucher]

A friend's pic of the Williamsburg gig. If you like BSP, this will likely be the only tour where you're gonna get 20-song sets that cover every album. It's rousing set. It was also a rousing gig, with as much jumping around as I've done in years (this and the TJF gigs at SXSW). They haven't quite worked out all of the new songs but "We Are Sound" is a new classic imho.

Still, I'm gonna say that I think it's a time for a chage in BSP's direction. It's clear that what they're doing now is attracting few new fans. Every new song (with exceptions - those being the ones I like more) have less and less space to breath, to swell and release, to let the melody in. It's like they're trying to write for 6 instruments rather than to their hearts. It's like the beige analogy a friend mentioned - if there's a poll to paint an apartment lobby, no one picks beige but it's often the second choice. "I want black." "I want red." "I want purple." Well no one universally wants those colors, but they fall back on beige even though no one really wants that either. There's a lack of purity in BSP now - hard to describe. Sometimes it's just too many notes. Sometimes it's just too much bluster. They could shed a couple of band members as well. I don't want a horn and viola in every fucking song. They need to dial down the dials from 11, stop shouting everything, and go back to being the most lyrically intelligent band to come along in many years and go where their music takes them without regard to the public or money or even other band members.

Anyway, I blather. Great gig. I spy with my little eye at least 9 people I know in this photo...

<img src="http://www.trupin.com/Music/Brooklyn-032211/a-DSC6599/1226955349_3Emoh-L.jpg">

[thegoldenyear]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Frau_Blucher[/i]
<br>If you like BSP, this will likely be the only tour where you're gonna get 20-song sets that cover every album. It's rousing set. It was also a rousing gig...

Still, I'm gonna say that I think it's a time for a chage in BSP's direction. It's clear that what they're doing now is attracting few new fans...
[/quote]

Great comments, Frau. I'm seeing them in Toronto tonight. Always a welcome event for me.

Although I didn't like [i]Valhalla Dancehall[/i] much at first, I like BSP and I've hammered away at the record to the point of comfortable appreciation. But I won't do that with just any old act, and I fear fewer and fewer are doing this with BSP. So, I agree wit'cha. And my brother, who has seen BSP twice with me, isn't along for the ride this time.

BSP's built a hearty back catalogue now. But it's predictable. Why not try writing/recording another flavour if this music's losing its taste?


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http://thegoldenyear.wordpress.com/

[Frau_Blucher]

Amen. Enjoy the gig - it really is quite a set. Would. Be interested in your thoughts.

[thegoldenyear]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Frau_Blucher[/i]
<br>Amen. Enjoy the gig - it really is quite a set. Would. Be interested in your thoughts.
[/quote]

Will do! Think I'll break out my [i]Open Season[/i] tee for the occasion.

[thegoldenyear]

Frau, et al:

My review of the Toronto Lee's Palace show from Thursday, March 24, 2011:

http://thegoldenyear.wordpress.com/2011 ... hseapower/

In a nutshell: Hamilton's voice was shot, so Yan sang the entire set, supplanting Hamilton's leads (Blackout, The Land Beyond, Oh Lucifer, Mongk II) with more of his own. Yeoman effort, there. BSP didn't scrimp on songs - if anything, we got a bonus because their buddy Kayvon lives in Toronto and managed to shake a second encore out of them - so they held the stage for 98 raucous minutes.

A couple stage dives during the closing Apologies To Insect Life made up for the fact they didn't dress the set with the usual greenery (it's also winter, it's just twigs 'n' dirt), and everybody seemed to have a good time, except poor Hammy.

Noble greeted people at the merch table afterwards. They're carrying tees, trinkets, vinyl and CDs - including the five-song [i]Valhalla V.I.P.[/i] disc, for you collectors out there.

[Frau_Blucher]

Well done and thanks. I was wondering about Neil's voice even at Williamsburg. At least you got Fear of Drowing and a second encore. I am worried about the 'spark'. Anyway, drop me a PM if you'd like an assortment of 3rd Battalion buttons - the fine article is deserving of one.

[thegoldenyear]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Frau_Blucher[/i]
<br>Well done and thanks. I was wondering about Neil's voice even at Williamsburg. At least you got Fear of Drowning and a second encore. I am worried about the 'spark'. [/quote]

And look at me calling [i]DYLRM[/i]'s second single "Oh Lucifer" all week long. Any music nerd will sympathize. [:I]

I hope Neil's better (the BSP board has nothing from Cleveland yet...don't they like rock music?), because I fear this might be that make-or-break tour for BSP. They've levelled off in Britain (for the first time they look unlikely to add to any of the LP sales cert-top 10 album-top 40 single trifecta), and people over here might be getting shifty feet, too.

But I'm relieved they overcame that sombre stretch a third of the way through the Toronto show. Extenuating circumstances aside, the moment felt like a macabre peek into the future world of BSP, when everybody's stayed home, and Martin Noble's swan diving onto the barren club floor.

I re-read what you wrote after Williamsburg, and you're totally right about space in the songs. I like Aby and Phil, but even in '08 I wondered why BSP felt the need to expand by 50%. That kinda move almost capsized Go-Betweens 20 years earlier.



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http://thegoldenyear.wordpress.com/

[Frau_Blucher]

Message from the very kind Tim J with the Marfa Book Company:

"Mike,

Due to the continued danger of existing fires in our area, as you've
probably seen on the news, and the uncertainty of travel conditions
in our general area, we've had to cancel the British Sea Power show
for tomorrow.

We had hope to do it until late this afternoon, when FEMA declared
Fort Davis and the surrounding area a disaster zone, and that two
fires have broken out just north of Marfa in the past few hours.

It's just too dangerous to ask anyone to come here at present.

I will very gladly refund your tickets and do my best to help with
hotel cancellations, if that's necessary.  I'm very sorry to have to do
this, especially for people coming from so great a distance.  I hope
you'll understand.

Tim"

Ouch.

[coop41]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Frau_Blucher[/i]
<br>Message from the very kind Tim J with the Marfa Book Company:

"Mike,

Due to the continued danger of existing fires in our area, as you've
probably seen on the news, and the uncertainty of travel conditions
in our general area, we've had to cancel the British Sea Power show
for tomorrow.

We had hope to do it until late this afternoon, when FEMA declared
Fort Davis and the surrounding area a disaster zone, and that two
fires have broken out just north of Marfa in the past few hours.

It's just too dangerous to ask anyone to come here at present.

I will very gladly refund your tickets and do my best to help with
hotel cancellations, if that's necessary.  I'm very sorry to have to do
this, especially for people coming from so great a distance.  I hope
you'll understand.

Tim"

Ouch.
[/quote]


wow. unbelievable. sorry man

[Frau_Blucher]

Biz finds me in DC next week. Heading to the DC and Philly gigs. If anyone is around, PM me. You'll find me at Black Cat and Johnny Brenda's with a drink ready for ya.

[schwenko]

[quote][i]Originally posted by Frau_Blucher[/i]
<br>Biz finds me in DC next week. Heading to the DC and Philly gigs. If anyone is around, PM me. You'll find me at Black Cat and Johnny Brenda's with a drink ready for ya.
[/quote]

No Billyburg?????????????????????????

[Frau_Blucher]

[quote][i]Originally posted by schwenko[/i]
<br>[quote][i]Originally posted by Frau_Blucher[/i]
<br>Biz finds me in DC next week. Heading to the DC and Philly gigs. If anyone is around, PM me. You'll find me at Black Cat and Johnny Brenda's with a drink ready for ya.
[/quote]

No Billyburg?????????????????????????
[/quote]
They already did that at the beginning of the tour. Bowery Ballroom will end the tour Thursday. Not sure I can make it, but an outside shot.

[Frau_Blucher]

Black Cat was great. Not lopp-your-head-off mental...maybe professionally energetic? Stood on Abi's viola side rather than my usual Nobby's guitar side...but that has its benefits. Great closing freakout at the end of the set, one of the best I've seen. Nobby in the audience and some of the opening band on stage. Got my Marfa gig poster signed, which bemused the band. Johnny Brenda's tonight and, yay, Bowery Ballroom tomorrow! [:p]

<img src="http://blir.smugmug.com/photos/1258735633_sCxvrpZ-X3.jpg">

<img src="http://blir.smugmug.com/photos/1258735649_cNvQLS2-X3.jpg">

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[coop41]

hopefully they stopped at the laundromat at some point as they are wearing the same clothes as the Tempe show....

[Frau_Blucher]

With friends and BSP members in Brooklyn's narrowest bar. The time stamp on this pic says "5:14 AM"...that shocked me. They closed the steel roller shutters with us in it so no one would know the bar was still serving until about 6:30. Breakfast came a bit after that. Thus concluded what was very likely the greatest night of gigging of my entire life and re-cemented that BSP are head and shoulders the greatest band in the world...to me. [:I]

<img src="http://blir.smugmug.com/photos/i-pRzXBXL/0/X3/i-pRzXBXL-X3.jpg">

Roll back the clock 5 hours to the Bowery Ballroom...out on Delancey St with the wonderful folks from A Classic Education:

<img src="http://blir.smugmug.com/photos/i-QD9BZRm/0/X3/i-QD9BZRm-X3.jpg">

And then even further back into the evening with a show-ending freakout and stage invasion that was as good as any from the ole days. The site of Eamon rejoining the boys to thump his drum around the venue warmed my heart. The glow of this evening will hopefully last until their next return...whenever that might be...

<img src="http://blir.smugmug.com/photos/i-M7VS8th/0/X3/i-M7VS8th-X3.jpg">

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