|
poster
Battles Setlist
Tour Dates
10/06 - Imperial, Vancouver, BC, CA
10/07 - Neptune, Seattle, WA, US 10/08 – Hawthorne, Portland, WA, US 10/09 - Fillmore, San Francisco, CA, US 10/11 - Crescent, Phoenix, AZ, US 10/13 - Trees, Dallas, TX, US 10/14 - Mohawk, Austin, TX, US 10/15 - Republic, New Orleans, US 10/16 - Masquerade, Atlanta, US 10/17 - Exit In, Nashville, US 10/18 - Union Transfer, Philadelphia, PA, US 10/19 - 9:30 Club, Washington, DC, US 10/20 - Webster Hall, New York, NY, US Read More
|
Experimental/instrumental rock band Battles recently played First Avenue on Saturday, October 3rd.
Opening up the show was Chicago's Dead Rider, featuring singer/guitarist Todd Rittmann, drummer Matt Espy, keys White Christmas, and a fog machine.
This band is pretty weird, but probably shouldn't surprise anyone who was a fan of the Rittmann's previous experimental/noise band called U.S. Maple.
Rittmann's lyrics are surreal. Here are some sample lyrics I heard: "I went to the lake and got into the water.", "If you could kill with a thought", "The house you came up burned down."
These seemingly flowing thoughts are sung over funky, metal, free jazz music and beats.
The next time you see Dead Rider, tell them you saw them in a dream, in a car, and that you put your hands on the glass. Rittmann would immediately respond by saying, "I am coming to you now."
After Dead Rider left the stage, the roadies came on stage to put together Battles' instruments and setups. When they were setting up John Stanier's drum kit, the audience requested he put the hi-hat as high as possible. It was meant as a joke... but when Stanier came out on stage, he had this "What the f***?" look on his face! Absolutely hilarious.
However, instead of adjusting it, like any normal person, Stanier just kept it the same height and played their entire set like that.
That is the other thing about the instrumental trio, they just deal with it. Another example, their monitors didn't work, they casually mentioned it. Instead of waiting for the sound engineer to fix it, they just soldiered on without a break. Later on, bassist Dave Konopka joked that they should start a Kickstarter campaign to buy new monitors.
Although their set seemed short, each song runs on average about 10 minutes, about three times longer than a typical pop song. It's not surprising to see just six or seven songs written on their setlist.
Most of the song, at least on this tour, is taken from their latest La Di Da Di, including "Dot Com", "FF Bada", and encore song "The Yabba".
Also, I'm not sure if this was a joke or not, but guitarist Ian Williams told us that the very first time they played in Minneapolis (possibly opening up for The Icarus Line at First Avenue in 12 July 2004) that there were only five people in the audience. They were back stage and contemplating on actually playing that night. He didn't finish the story, because someone in the front said he told the story before. I had imagined that he meant to say they were mistaken, that there were really 500 people in the audience that night.... still regardless if there were five people that night, their recent headlining show indicate that those days are long behind them - that they can pull in a good crowd. The fans knew the material well (even for newer songs) and would often jump up and down in unison, losing themselves to the music.
Battles' La Di Da Di album is out now on Warp Records.
|
Dead Rider |
This band is pretty weird, but probably shouldn't surprise anyone who was a fan of the Rittmann's previous experimental/noise band called U.S. Maple.
Rittmann's lyrics are surreal. Here are some sample lyrics I heard: "I went to the lake and got into the water.", "If you could kill with a thought", "The house you came up burned down."
These seemingly flowing thoughts are sung over funky, metal, free jazz music and beats.
The next time you see Dead Rider, tell them you saw them in a dream, in a car, and that you put your hands on the glass. Rittmann would immediately respond by saying, "I am coming to you now."
John Stanier
|
However, instead of adjusting it, like any normal person, Stanier just kept it the same height and played their entire set like that.
That is the other thing about the instrumental trio, they just deal with it. Another example, their monitors didn't work, they casually mentioned it. Instead of waiting for the sound engineer to fix it, they just soldiered on without a break. Later on, bassist Dave Konopka joked that they should start a Kickstarter campaign to buy new monitors.
Although their set seemed short, each song runs on average about 10 minutes, about three times longer than a typical pop song. It's not surprising to see just six or seven songs written on their setlist.
Most of the song, at least on this tour, is taken from their latest La Di Da Di, including "Dot Com", "FF Bada", and encore song "The Yabba".
Also, I'm not sure if this was a joke or not, but guitarist Ian Williams told us that the very first time they played in Minneapolis (possibly opening up for The Icarus Line at First Avenue in 12 July 2004) that there were only five people in the audience. They were back stage and contemplating on actually playing that night. He didn't finish the story, because someone in the front said he told the story before. I had imagined that he meant to say they were mistaken, that there were really 500 people in the audience that night.... still regardless if there were five people that night, their recent headlining show indicate that those days are long behind them - that they can pull in a good crowd. The fans knew the material well (even for newer songs) and would often jump up and down in unison, losing themselves to the music.
Battles' La Di Da Di album is out now on Warp Records.
|
Battles at First Avenue, Minneapolis (03 October 2015) |
Recent Comments