Benchmark Blog 18: 102.9X Exclusive, The Living Things, April 2009
So this was a really great week for me. I celebrated my 13th wedding anniversary and won tickets to an exclusive viewing of "The Living Things" and won tickets to The Crawfish boil, in addition to seeing "Cold" on this coming Sunday. So I was completely unfamiliar with this band, but was excited to check them out and especially to check out the venue, Twisted Martini. They have ads on the Planet all the time and there is not much better than a good martini.
The Radio Staff:
We were told that the show started at 11, so we arrived to The Landing about 10:30, since we were not really familiar with where Twisted Martini was. We get there right before 11 and the radio staff is disorganized to say the least. They find my name, although with the lousy turnout, anyone could have shown up for the show and been admitted. When Jagger got up to intro the band, his lack of enthusiasm was blatant. During the set, he did not even try to hide his boredom. It was truly appalling, even considering the band's performance, which I will get to later. Part of his job is to promo the bands that come in. If this band tours with someone bigger and says what jerks 102.9 DJs are, then we are directly affected when the bigger band chooses not to come here. Suck it up Jagger, and do your job. The rest of the radio staff was courteous, if a little harried.
Grade: Jagger: D, Remainder staff: B
The Venue, Twisted Martini:
Intimate does not even begin to describe this venue. It appeared to be divided into two sections, one along the Landing walkway and the other more interior space with the stage, couches, and semi-private sitting rooms consisting of decorative high-back plush bench seating, low coffee-style tables, and sheers. It was a rather interesting set-up and probably would be really cool at night with the band playing. We sat at a high-top table directly in front of the stage (less than 5 feet, literally). There was a couch set-up between our table and the stage, which was occupied by a Midwestern 50ish woman who enjoyed the band way too much. This was not head-banging music and she was throwing her head around like it was Metallica in their heyday. She also had LSP (Life Story Paranoia: a disorder originally diagnosed in my mother, by my sister and I, where the person talking believes that everyone from strangers to the grocery store cashier wants to know minute details from your life). Since she was stretched out on the couch, she kept talking to us until the band started the sound check. That is the only real drawback that I could see to this venue. It can be really hard to avoid someone when it is that small.
The wait staff was on the ball. The food provided (not sure by whom) was edible, but not great. It ranged from bruschetta to cheese quesadillas, all appetizer-style finger foods. Chris had a Czechvar (sp?) and enjoyed it. I had their signature Twisted Martini and LOVED it! I have to figure out how to make it. The drink tastes good, but the presentation is stupendous. It has three distinct layers and the engineer in me totally geeked out. I can definitely recommend going to this venue, especially if there is a band that you want to see.
Grade: A
The band, The Living Things:
Again, this is not a band I was familiar with and I do not recall ever hearing their music even on 102.9. I listened to some of their music on Pandora. It was softer than what I like, but did not sound horrible. It is not something that I would choose to listen to though. They take the stage and it is immediately obvious that 3 of the 4 members are brothers, which I knew from Wikipedia. The two guitarists and lead singer have a resemblance. All of them are wearing skinny black jeans, have bedhead, and a really scrawny look. The drummer is the odd man out having a stocky frame, shorter curly hair, and obviously shorter. Come to find out at the end of the set, the lead guitarist is the unrelated childhood friend. It was quite a shock.
They start singing. The background music is too loud. The vocals are not loud enough. I am sitting less than 5 feet from the stage and the vocals are drowned out. The sound guy messed with the volumes a little after each song, but even after they finish their 3 song "set", the acoustics are not right. This "exclusive preview" was nothing more than a sound check for the band. I would say a failed sound check at that, because they failed to even get the sound right before they decided to quit playing.
The songs were bad. The lyrics were awful. The worst one was to the song "Bom Bom Bom", even the title is stupid or they cannot spell "bomb" properly. "Oxygen" was one of the other songs that they played. The song consists of four lines other than the chorus. It was not even good. They have been dubbed as "unpatriotic" and I completely buy it. Some of their songs try to be political in nature, but ultimately just seem like whining. None of the three songs they played were good. The lyrics that we could make out were infantile and the lead singer had a strange stage performance. I really cannot see that this band is headed anywhere.
The one good thing that I can say about the band is they were very down-to-earth. They came off the stage and met nearly all those attending and told the radio station that everyone there could get in free to their show that night. Pretty cool of them, but I am not sure that they convinced us to come with that performance.
Grade: D, (Music: C, Sound System: F, Songs: F)