Last week, for whatever reason, I really found myself jonesing for some live music (or as close as I could get.)
I guess it actually even started the weekend before, when Denise turned me on to a short concert Erasure did a day or so earlier for BBC's Radio Two. Referred to as "Live at Home", the concert was a little more than a half hour long, and featured Vince Clarke playing from his home, and Andy Bell and his backup singers singing from Bell's lovely English garden.
This was followed by a pre-taped "concert" (of sorts) by a DJ/music producer who I later learned was named Ellen Allien. Allien and a male friend (who looked like every caricature of a douchy club guy you could ever imagine) danced their little tushes off on her Berlin rooftop as she programmed her various gizmos to play a whole bunch of techno. I'm usually not into that form of music at all, but for some reason, I enjoyed this. (I even picked up a copy of Allien's latest LP, Auraa a few days later.)
So anyway, after this musical doubleheader, I went actively hunting for some more this past weekend. I came up with two possibilities. One was a live concert by Screaming Orphans that could be watched on their Facebook page, scheduled for Saturday at 5PM. (I found about this because I'm on their mailing list, and they sent me an email.) The other was The Best of the Pitchfork Music Festival, which was scheduled that same day at 7PM on YouTube. I figured that the combination of these two events would scratch my live music itch. I was half right.
Screaming Orphans are an Irish pop/Celtic band comprising four sisters. They're not actually orphans -- originally, their parents were involved in the band, but when they dropped out, the girls kind of felt like orphans. Apparently, they've been doing a series of online concerts during the COVID, playing live every other week and challenging themselves to dig deep into their repertoire by refusing to repeat any material from one concert to the next, all the while dodging the fascist FaceBots, Facebook bots that troll live Facebook broadcast to make sure no one is playing cover songs. (The girls were actually able to play cover songs, but they couldn't name them -- the bots recognize spoken words instead of music.)
Anyway, although they probably talked a bit too much between songs (see my review of the Mree concert a couple of weeks ago), the ladies put on a very enjoyable show. I guess they've been sheltering together (?), because they were all squeezed into what appeared to be a living room together. Highlights of the show included "You and Me" from their Lonely Boy LP, a cover of the Buffy Sainte-Marie song "Black Black Black" (but don't tell the bots) , "Finally Free" from their Toy Theatre album, and a cover of the Paddy Reilly classic "The Fields of Athenry" (but again don't tell the bots). In all, the concert ran an hour and forty-five minutes. Although I've got financial issues of my own right now, I gave them a small tip through Paypal, because these gals are primarily a performing band and usually make their living by playing showcases and Celtic Music Festivals the world over. Of course, those have all been cancelled by the coronavirus.
The timing was perfect for me to then move from one event to the other. But unfortunately, the other event was less than perfect.
Pitchfork is a web-based music publication that originated in Chicago, but is currently based in New York. They host a yearly summer music festival (which I always thought took place in Brooklyn, but apparently actually occurred in Union Park in Chicago.)
Naturally, like everything else involving crowds, this year's festival was cancelled. So they decided to put together a Best of the Pitchfork Festival event, and to debut it last Saturday at 7PM. Most of the artists involved aren't people I typically listen to, but they did list Beach House as being one of the bands involved, so I figured it was worth a shot.
Unfortunately, not so much. The tape started with a live performance by Grimes. OK. But the damned thing kept freezing and reloading to the point where it was unwatchable. But the time I clicked a few buttons to try to watch it on my Amazon Firestick, Grimes was finished and there was some hideous rap group playing. This was followed by an ad for the left-wing social advocacy group Movement for Black Lives. After a summer of protests and riots, I was in no mood for this, so I ditched the concert and switched over to the UFC Fights.
So Screaming Orphans si, Pitchfork Music Festival no.
