So we show up apparently way too early, even though the Echoplex website said that there was a band going on at 8. We got there around 9, and there was this craaazy line outside. What the hell? If there really was a band playing at 8, the Echoplex gave them the shaft.
Anyway we finally get in after being sandwiched in line between the two worst groups of LA stereotypes ever: The burnout ex-something that doesn’t know how to joke to his square buddy with the jeans and dress shoes at a gossip volume, and the girl that can’t stop talking about her raver years and how she’s now running marathons. Wow, two big walls of shut the hell up.
We get in there, and this was my first time at the Echoplex. Nice place, great stage good sound. We look around and there’s this shirtless dude DJ’ing behind the sound booth with an apple laptop, similar to what most wedding DJ’s are doing now. Turns out this shirtless laptop DJ was Anton Newcombe himself. No one seemed to realize it was Anton until later in the night. I went over and asked him about some song he was playing and we exchanged a few sentences, it was pretty awesome.
Dimmer took the stage. They’re this drone-rock 4 piece from New Zealand. They came on strong with a cool instrumental, and then followed up with a solid dreamy/bass heavy tune. From there things got a little indie predictable and most of the crowd lost interest.
After they were done, Anton continued to laptop-DJ for like 45 minutes. Eventually he left the sound booth (which was right in the middle of the crowd by the way) and it still took him a good 15 minutes to get on stage. The crowd started revolting, someone yelled “C’mon Axl!” It seriously took forever for them to get on stage, and they had this awful horroresque sampled ambient music playing while the lights were low. People yelled “you suck” over and over, and “play some f’n music!” Eventually the Brian Jonestown Massacre took the stage, but it was a slow start. Someone yelled again “play some fuckin’ music” and that’s when it looked like we were watching Dig! live and in person. Anton berated crowd members throughout the night with such gems as:
“You’re a little punk, I don’t have a boss or daddy to answer to, you on the other hand are in trouble”
“You’re gonna get a fist to the back of the head and I’m not even going to lift a finger”
“I’m tired of these poseurs moving here and raising the rent for the poor people.”
And it went on and on. This unfortunately was the only entertaining part of the show. Anton asked that his mic reverb be turned up, and it was impossible to listen to. I’m sure that clips of these rants will be on YouTube tomorrow as I saw a lot of cameras up recording it. I’ll post them here when they go up.
People left the stage area in droves. The band jammed, and usually I would be into it, but when it came down to it, it wasn’t the Brian Jonestown Massacre, it was Anton Newcombe and a bunch of hired hands. I’m pretty sure everyone was really upset that Joel didn’t make an appearance, since he made a cameo at a BJM show just a few days ago. Some annoying girl with an afro brought her own tambourine and was banging it through the whole show. It wouldn’t have been so bad if she couldn’t keep a friggin’ beat.
Anway, what’s the deal with the bathroom attendants at the Echoplex? They need to go.
Anyone else go and have an opinion?
2 responses so far ↓
1 // Sep 4, 2007
Spot on, great review. Way too much reverb, I couldn’t enjoy his rants because I couldn’t understand half of them. I heard that he acted the same way the next night, though not quite as bad. That show requires a couch.
2 // Sep 4, 2007
Sounds very similar to the experience in San Francisco last night, except we had to wait 3 hours even for the opening act to start. One guy was harrassing Anton and Joel, and Anton started off on him. I didn’t like the live set as much as the records, which is sad, as I was expecting much more.
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