Every once in awhile, a show comes along and completely blows your mind by the sheer randomness of it. When I saw bauhaus back in 1998 at what was once known as the Warehouse, a muscle-bound freak started random fistfights with everyone around him (women included), a future boyfriend’s watch was smashed in, and management confiscated the camera I had smuggled in. Last night’s Atlas Sound show had a few medical emergencies, a beyond sold-out crowd, and most memorably, my encounter with Bradford Cox.
The evening started off innocently enough. The Selmanaires, another Atlantan outfit invited out to support and back Cox in his Broadcast leg, opened up the show right at 10:00. Having known nothing about them prior to their set and contemplating skipping it altogether, they impressed me with their Primal-Scream-esque dancey psychedelia beats. The only thing they have to work on now: vocals and choosing other Georgian bands to cover (hey, the B52’s were great but everyone was sort of puzzled as no one could recognize the tune they chose). Also, this is another up and coming band that has an Asian…and Ricky, I believe he’s of Chinese descent. Tommy Chung sings and provides bass guitar, so there’s another one to add to our list. The real draw for me however (and there is absolutely no surprise here), was their Colombian ultra-babe percussionist Mario Schambon. This guy ripped up those bongos and you could just tell he exuded a genuine joy in being able to percuss onstage, toothily grinning to his bandmates the entire time.
Alright, this is going to be biased and unbalanced because for me, this was the show of the year. I’ve been talking about Logos and this show since the summer because I am so impressed that all of the Deerhunter guys are still on speaking terms with the rate of touring and recording they do. Prolific is kind of an understatement, and while I hope they keep going forever..even if they stopped tomorrow they’d have the same sort of 3-album opus effect that bands like Galaxie 500 and Joy Division had. Floodlight Collective and Logos are two albums in particular that I’ve singled out as the best of 2009. Most of Logos consists of duets, which Cox cranked out into a series of acoustic interpretations clad with a harmonica and people towards the back of the room asking “When is this guy going to get off?”. Best: Shelia, My Halo, Criminals, conversation with audience about chemical warfare. Basically, he did whatever the fuck he wanted during his set and it’s nice to see he knows how to work a crowd. When Deerhunter was here back in October there was no 1-1 with the audience. If anyone can provide me with a setlist I’d appresh.
While I was on my way to pee before Broadcast’s set, I ran into B. Cox in the stairwell. Seeing him up close and in person was a surreal experience for me because I consider him the 2000’s experi-dreamy answer to Robert Pollard, but I managed to segueway myself into getting my copy of Let the Blind Lead signed by telling him Logos and Lockett’s album released under Lotus Plaza were both in my top five of 2009. He was so touched he did a leap-hug, we hugged for awhile, and he said “Aww, that’s so sweet”. On my way up the stairs I could hear him saying “Everyone is so nice”. That made me feel good.
Alright – by now even I can sense that
So I’ll wrap up by saying that I wasn’t avant garde enough to appreciate Broadcast‘s set. I did recognize Black Cat and the last song they played got really distorted and fantastic (B. Cox watched from the audience for this one like a regular fan), but a lot of the redeeming qualities about their set came from the awesome projection screen and graphics they had reeling through and not from their stage presence of musical performance. Could’ve used less tinkering with the notebooks onstage though I’ll admit I was mostly thinking about how this would forever be the night that I met Bradford Cox.
Selmanaires:
Atlas Sound:
Broadcast (remember that I lack sophistication):