Tarentel, Explosions in the Sky, & Lazarus at the Bottom of the Hill on December 7.

This show was both good and bad. I walked in just as Lazarus was beginning and the performance was very very poor. I wanted my money back immediately and thought to myself "why am I wasting my time listening to this wannabe artist, concomitantly supporting him?" He had all these self-deprecating lyrics that had the audacity to rub the word "poets" in your face many times. It was similar to really bad teenage "I hate the place I live in" poetry that was probably embellished in order to evoke pity. I dont know why so many females applauded with drool to this indie loser alt-folkster. To boot, his voice was whiny and the accompaniment was sparse. I think it's horrible when artists put their personal lives on the stage without something unique to comment about it. There are plenty of sad, boring people with nothing of consequence to say, and I really dont think it benefits anyone to see these people on a stage. Nevertheless, I furrowed my brow in amazement at how many people flockishly clapped and cheered. I pondered discarding manners and giving the thumbs-down; performers need to know when they are not reaching out to anyone, and mediocrity should not be tolerated. Of course the caveat to all this is that I personally did not like it, and subjectivity is just a boat but not the river.

Next was Explosions in the Sky. Their new material sounds great, but something was missing. The guys did have a lot of energy and seemed to enjoy fleshing out the crescendos and builds and plateaus. Nevertheless, I thought to myself, 'I could listen to this in my bedroom and save my money and time.' I did eagerly want to see this band perform, but i did not have a high-quality live experience, as that provided by Tom Carter or Bardo Pond (see below).

I soon realized what was missing upon Tarentel's set. What was responsible for a weak set by Explosions in the Sky was the lack of multimedia (which unbinds the imagination). Tarentel showed a film and it was incredible and inspirational. It was the clearest quality film that I have seen in a concert setting (sorry, Rachels, Godspeed, Subarachnoid, Sonic Youth). The film was somber and evoked lonliness, it showed waste and industrial ruin. Yet, there was beauty and order and stillness and serenity. This balance was played out even more with the rockdrums/avant instrumentation of the band. Tarentel used more loud, rock drums than usual (I have previously commented on the violence of rock drumming and my distaste for it), but there was a great balance as most postrock drums provide, paving the trail while the guitars and electronics fleshed out the vegetation all around it. There was a sense of hope (as their music always provides) and i felt like there was a real live experience there: thoughts going through my head, emotions brimming, ideas emerging for projects or things I wanted to write about. Overall, I loved it.

Now, I just want to see a band like Surface of Eceyon do something like that. All artists whose music evokes emotion should have film at their live performances. Oh, it was so moving, endearing. Explosions (as I've often thought) could have a powerhouse performance on a parallel with GYBE if they played alongside images that showcased the destruction, hope, abandonment, terror, helplessness, and immediacy inside their music. Any way they did it would have been powerful. But without the extra media, I was left to apply those emotions to my imagination; I am certain that most audience members do not see snare-drummers cadencing a batallion of soldiers in the music, do not see people fleeting through a city ablaze urgently trying to find their families, do not see skies filled with darkness and children reading charred fairytale storybooks in dungeons under ruins of skyscrapers. The immensity of these ideas (highly relevant to today's struggles and fears, despite what dot-com all-Americans like to believe) ought to be conveyed as a vision to be shared (as we know exist from the song titles and album art and interviews associated with Explosions in the Sky). People just bop their heads like indie dorks and thrift-store faux-poor hipsters (waving their digital cameras and smoking superfluous cigarettes), without any countenance of being struck aside by the immensity of this postrock music.