Saturday, November 16, 2013

Live 105 “Not So Silent Night” – December 7, 2013

     Each year, a San Francisco radio station (“Live 105”) hosts a December concert referred to as “Not So Silent Night.” This year, there are two nights with lineups that do not include any overlap. We have seen five of the six bands in the Day One lineup this year, so we opted for Day Two, which features Arcade Fire, Phoenix, Alt-J, Lorde, Bastille and Neighbourhood. A local band will be added at the conclusion of a “Local Band Search.”
     From a number of different angles, Day Two is an interesting lineup of bands. Six bands representing three continents and five different countries. From North America, there’s Arcade Fire (Canada) and Neighbourhood (Southern California). From New Zealand, Lorde represents a continent. And Europe is represented by Phoenix (France), Bastille, and Alt-J (both from England).
     Here are some of the songs we look forward to hearing.

     Arcade Fire will be the headliner, so we start with a showing that we easily crack under pressure. We like the band's current single, but not as much as other songs by Arcade Fire. Moreover, we are not fans of the video, but there isn’t any Soundcloud stream for "Reflektor." Still, we cave to anticipated complaints and give you the "Reflektor" video (oh, the shame of it all):

 In an attempt to save face, this is our favorite song by Arcade Fire – “Keep the Car Running.”

     "Ready to Start" by Arcade Fire - three songs from three different albums


Phoenix is likely to be the band before Arcade Fire. In a manner similar to our approach for Arcade Fire, we’ll start with a 2013 song and then go back to previous work. 
“Entertainment”

“Lisztomania" - a volume adjustment may be helpful to the next two songs.

“1901"


     The name Alt-J is a reference to a triangle. On a Mac, if the “ALT” and “J” keys are depressed at the same time, the symbol for " mathmatical delta" is generated. The symbol is a triangle. 
     Initially, we didn’t see the reason for all the attention given to Alt-J. However, we are there now. In our circle, the quick reference is to identify them as a “fingernail band,” because they grow on you and you’re happy they are there.
"Tessellate"

"Fitzpleasure"


     Lorde exploded on the scene this year. She turned 17 earlier this month (November 7). If you are a fan, it’s difficult to say anything new about the lady. So, we will instead add a video showing Lorde competing in a high school band completion under her given name of Ella Maria Lani Yelich-O'Connor. The best part of the video is the interview of the band at the end. Ella was 12 years old at the time.
"Royals"

"Tennis Court"

The interview starts at 7:58 


     Bastille is a band Indie Obsessive has referenced often. For details about the band, just enter the name of the band in the search box at the top of the column to the right of this entry. We have seen them twice and enjoyed both performances. Note: like Alt-J, they have a triangle-based logo. OK, who cares.
"Pompeii"

"Bad Blood" - sorry, it's just a snippet of 1:30


     The first band to hit the stage (after the winning local band) will be Neighbourhood. Don't worry, we won't point out that the band's logo of an upside-down house predominantly includes a triangle.
"Sweater Weather"

"Female Robbery" - Note: this one is freely downloadable, but in  a .wav format instead of .mp3

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