I am bad at writing show reviews, especially when they are this good.  But briefly here are some thoughts about last night’s Radiohead show in Camden:

Awesome.  2nd Row Tickets. Lots of lights.  Where did they put those cameras? Loud. Soft. Civilized crowd. LOTS OF SONGS FROM THE BENDS!!!!!! and just a freaking amazing show…

Here’s the set list.

01. 15 Step
02. There There
03. Morning Bell
04. All I Need
05. The National Anthem
06. Videotape
07. Weird Fishes/Arpeggi
08. The Gloaming
09. Where I End And You Begin
10. Faust Arp
11. No Surprises
12. Jigsaw Falling Into Place
13. The Bends
14. Idioteque
15. Climbing Up The Walls
16. Nude
17. Bodysnatchers

Encore 1
18. House of Cards
19. Lucky
20. Go Slowly
21. Just
22. Street Spirit

Encore 2
23. Reckoner
24. Planet Telex
25. Everything In Its Right Place

Coldplay put on a very entertaining, but slightly brief, show on Friday night at the Wachovia Center here in Philadelphia. We arrived in time for Philly’s own Santogold, whose outstanding album sounded fun in a live setting, but would have played much better at the TLA or Troc instead of the arena-sized acoustics. But thus is the way of the opening act.

Coldplay have mastered the concept of playing arenas, as the band has a mini side stage, catwalks for Chris Martin to prance around, magical spheres featuring state-of-the-art projection technology and even popped up in the middle of the crowd at one of the concourse entrances for a two-song acoustic set. The band was in fine form, their set was a mix of crowd pleasers and the best of the new record, as expected. For a band that plays arenas and charges as much as they do for tickets, they should be able to play more than an hour and a half set at this point in their career though. The final encore was a nice, loose surprise though. And it must be said that with his silly jibes at Genesis and Fox News, Chris Martin is still one of the funniest frontmen around

Setlist:

Life In Technicolor
Violet Hill
Clocks
In My Place
Viva La Vida
Yes
42
Fix You
Strawberry Swing
Chinese Sleep Chant (side stage)
God Put A Smile Upon Your Face (side stage/techno version)
Speed Of Sound
Yellow
Lost!
The Scientist (Acoustic)
Death Will Never Conquer (Acoustic)
Politik
Lovers In Japan
Death And All His Friends
Green Eyes
The Dubliners (new song)

Hello Y-Rockers,

 Wow, we’ve had this blog for quite some time, and this is my inaugural post.  I can’t believe what a slacker I am.  Ehh actually I can.

I’ve decided to get off my bum to share a picture with you.  A friend of mine recently took a trip to Israel, and he just showed me the pictures he took.  I was thrilled and proud to see that in some of the shots, he’s wearing his brand new Y-Rock t-shirt!  He informed me that there are now several elderly Israelis who are installing WiFi on their mules so that they can listen to Y-Rock all day!

 Enjoy

Cat

All of a sudden there’s a market glut of great indie-dance coming not out of the U.S., Britain, or France… but Australia, of all places. This might have something to do with a cool little New South Wales label called Modular that most of these acts call home, but hey, keeping it in the family is cool, too.

(more…)

Setlists! Video! Eddie Vedder and Johnny Marr!

(Sorry, I missed the National’s set, and I’m not sure where to find the setlist online…)

R.E.M. set list (with some commentary):
These Days
Living Well is the Best Revenge
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
Wolves, Lower (second time played on this tour…the band has been mixing in 4 of the 5 Chronic Town classics…)
Man-Sized Wreath
Turn You Inside-Out (first appearance from the second-hardest rocker on Green)
Imitation of Life
Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance (unreleased song! It was played during the Dublin rehersal gigs last summer and possibly recorded for Accelerate, but didn’t make the cut…this was the first outing of it since then.)
Ignoreland (staple of the entire North American tour, after not having been played EVER, despite dating back to Automatic For The People)
Bad Day
Hollow Man
The Great Beyond
Houston
Electrolite
Walk Unafraid
The One I Love
Find the River
Let Me In (another ‘08 tour staple, totally redone as a campfire elegy instead of the mournful feedbacky song it originated as on Monster)
Departure
Life and How to Live It
Orange Crush
I’m Gonna DJ

encore:
Supernatural Superserious
Losing My Religion
Begin the Begin (with Eddie Vedder!! I had theorized for weeks that he’d make a cameo, since Pearl Jam play Camden tonight & tomorrow and the bands are longtime friends. Apparently all of PJ was in the house, Eddie came out in disguise with glasses and a baseball hat and danced around like a happy fool when not rocking out.)
Fall on Me (with Johnny Marr…he started joining the band for the end of the encore about halfway through the tour)
Man on the Moon (with Johnny Marr)

Modest Mouse set list:

The View
Satin In A Coffin
Dance Hall
Fire It Up
Dashboard
Bukowski
Trucker’s Atlas
Here It Comes
We’ve Got Everything
Paper Thin Walls
Spitting Venom
  > I Came As A Rat

And as a bonus, some video of Vedder on stage during “Begin the Begin” (after the jump):

(more…)

Gizmodo has a terrifying video up this morning - a cover of Radiohead’s “Nude”, created by a gentleman named James Houston. Mr. Houston assembled his robot chorus out of an old scanner, a dot matrix printer, and an array of hard-drive speakers to give you an idea of what music will sound like when all the humans are dead.

Resist the tempation to close your browser after the first 60 seconds of this turns out to be nothing but a squealing 56k modem. You will be rewarded for your patience when the spinning disks and clunky flatbed scanner sync up to make beautiful music together. Not since Beck’s Gameboy Variations has anyone tapped our nostalgia for obsolete technology so effectively.

Besides the awesome J.U.S.T.I.C.E. and Daft Punk,

I like to YELLE!!!!

 Yrock Internacional - Saturdays - 5-7pm

We all have worked quite a few shows promoting Y-Rock on XPN over the years. Concerts, movies, street festivals, you name it. However, my day on Saturday at Festival Pier for the annual Jammn’ on The River was by far one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever had.

The day started off normally - we set up the tent and hung up our Y-Rock signs around noon. Then the gates opened and we signed people up to win tickets for The Roots Picnic. However, by 10 pm that evening fellow dj Andre and I would be dancing on stage with The Flaming Lips - dressed up, of course, as Iron Man. How did this happen, you ask? I’m still trying to figure that out, but check out this pic …

Andre deserves much of the credit for our Iron Man experience. He actually challenged various band members to rock paper scissor showdowns, too, but I’ll let him discuss that in another post.

We danced on stage for the entire show as The Flaming Lips rocked out and shot confetti in to the crowd. If you attended the concert, you know that there was also one other “unique” thing that happened involving four young women who danced on stage during a song. I won’t get in to that, either!

But what I WILL say is that The Flaming Lips are both a great band and a great group of guys. I ended the night by giving Wayne Coyne a big hug after the show, thinking about the day I had and how badly I probably danced in front of thousands of people. In the end, though, the dancing wasn’t the point, nor the confetti, inflatable Santa Claus, nor Iron Man … it was all about the communal experience and interaction the band shared with the fans - that’s what made it special, unique, and such an extraordinary day. Jam on.

Just had a good chuckle over Weezer’s new video for Pork and Beans. As if Rivers’ cowboy mustache wasn’t enough, the video features =w= teaming up with a whole bunch of internet sensations including my fav…TAY ZONDAY!

UPDATE: Now we find out if the new Weezer CD will blend…

XPN’s Artist To Watch for May is an old friend of the Y-Rock world: Santogold aka Santi White. I’ve been a fan of her work for a long time. Back in 2003, Y100 ran a local band contest to pick a group to play the side stage at Lollapalooza. White’s old band Stiffed was one of the finalists, and though they didn’t win, I thought they should have and was really impressed by their ska-influenced hyper-punk rock. I dug their EP Sex Sells and their final release, 2005’s Burned Again. Santi visited the old Y100Rocks.com bunker 3.0 and recorded a really cool little acoustic session at the time, with Philly icon Chuck Treese on makeshift percussion. In fact, here is a treat for you: Stiffed - A Day With Andrew (live at Y100Rocks.com)

Last year, White resurfaced under the name Santogold. First on Mark Ronson’s awesome Version record, covering The Jam’s “Pretty Green.” Then the blogs starting hyping her new solo career, as she collaborated with Spank Rock, another artist with Philly roots. Her long-awaited debut landed in stores this week and it’s damn good. Santi jumps with ease from Strokes-ish guitar anthems (”L.E.S. Artistes”) to dub reggae (”Shove It”) to New Wave melodies (”Lights Out”). “Creator” draws obvious comparisons to M.I.A. (and ended up in a beer ad last month) while “You’ll Find A Way” and “Say Aha” defy classification. Santogold truly lives up to the hype and is one of the most energizing new releases in 2008. And it’s good to see Philly (via Brooklyn) represented nationally with such a unique talent.

Santogold will be a part of the Roots Picnic at Festival Pier in Philadelphia on June 7.