The Dead Part of You

So last night was the big anthemic technogaze show at The Middle East in Cambridge. M83 played with The Berg Sans Nipple and Matters and Dunaway.

I was in NO MOOD to go to a show last night, what with it being Monday and all. It was sold out and I told Rob if anyone even offered me face value for the tickets we were NOT GOING. Some Frawnch dude inside the club asked us if we had extra tickets, but by then it was kind of too late, right?

We skipped Matters and Dunaway, who I would actually like to see some day. The Berg Sans Nipple is an assy name for a band, and it was pretty basic sampler and banging on stuff. It wasn't awful, it wasn't amazing, it was pretty good when it was loud.

The show was sold out, and here's an awesome quote from the event's Last.FM shoutbox:

Smelled like a refugee camp down there.

I KNOW, RIGHT? The crowd was quite mixed. It was like 50% crafty hipsters - we saw a girl with a shawl that you know she knitted at a Bright Eyes show, with a pattern bought at a Belle and Sebastian merchandise table. 25% were gay boys and who knew. There was even some bear soup. And the other 25% were frat boys and eurotrash, and they were the ones up front. I think Rob and I were the only people over 21.

I wanted to get up close and we lasted there for about 15 minutes. It was really hot and there was some asshat screaming and people jabbering in all kinds of languages and backpacks and knitting bags, UGH. They came on promptly at 11 though and Run Into Flowers was just beautiful. Then Graveyard Girl. It sounded perfect, but there wasn't a lot to look at on stage. Anthony and another frenchie just kind of posing like the European models they are. A drummer behind a sneezeguard. And Morgan Kibby, who's actually from LA and look s pretty LA. I took a portable telephone picture but can't get it off. So here's Anthony, posing.



We went out back for air (there was none) and water (which was room temperature). Like the Middle East was being all cheap by not putting ice in the free water, and not air conditioning the place. We stayed for the whole main set, which alternated between fist pumping anthems and ambient pieces composed of 2 repetitive chords for 5 minutes. Needless to say, the show's pacing was fucked up and not coherent at all. Do I dance? Chat? Wait, is it time to rock again? It was quite good when it was loud. We did not stay for the encore because we had seen enough and it's not like they were going to do anything different. Would I go see M83 again? THE ANSWER IS PROBABLY NOT!!??!!! I will still listen to and buy their records though!!!!! And I will now think twice about shows downstairs at The Middle East, because they are not air conditioned and I am just too old to be sitting in a fire trap like that with children who don't shower.