Feist

TUESDAY
Architecture In Helsinki/ Glass Candy/ Panther @ Troubadour
Ahmad Jamal @ Catalina Bar & Grill

WEDNESDAY
Architecture In Helsinki/ Glass Candy/ Panther @ Troubadour
Ahmad Jamal @ Catalina Bar & Grill
Barrington Levy/ Kontiki & J-Boog @ Crash Mansion LA/a>
The Hold Steady/ Art Brut @ Henry Fonda Theater
The Hives @ Avalon Hollywood

THURSDAY
Ahmad Jamal @ Catalina Bar & Grill
Ween @ The Wiltern
Maroon 5/ Phantom Planet/ The Hives @ Staples Center
Madlib, Peanut Butter Wolf, J-Rocc Percee P @ The El Rey Theatre
Culver City Dub Collective & Surprise guests @ The Bordello

FRIDAY
Ryan Adams on Morning Becomes Eclectic
Ahmad Jamal @ Catalina Bar & Grill
Lee Burridge @ Cinespace
Joanna Newsom @ Walt Disney Concert Hall
Ben Harper/ Piers Faccini @ Orpheum Theatre
Of Montreal/ Grand Buffet/ MGMT @ Avalon Hollywood
M.I.A./ The Cool Kids @ The Wiltern

SATURDAY
Jens Lenkman/ Throw Me The Statue @ Troubadour SOLD OUT
Ahmad Jamal @ Catalina Bar & Grill
Koop/ Mocean Worker/ Alice Russel @ Barker Block
Martha Wainwright/ The Swell Season @ The Wiltern

SUNDAY
Sea Of Cortez/ Archways @ Viper Room
The Walkmen/ The Subjects/ The Hugs @ Troubadour

MONDAY
Stars on Morning Becomes Eclectic
Sondre Lerche/ Dan Wilson @ Troubadour
Feist/ Spoon @ Gibson Amphitheatre
Spiritualized/ Simple Kid @ Vista Theater

Daft Punk (from Coachella 2006)

“Daft Punk is playing my house.” The hook from LCD Soundsystem’s homage to the French DJ duo repeatedly spilled from my lips in anticipation this past weekend, like an intoxicated Rain Man. But could it really top 2006’s revelatory finale at Day 1 of Coachella, arguably the best performance of any group that year, many of whose witnesses walked away saying it was one of the best shows they had ever seen? Suffice to say, the bar had been set precariously high. And the venue, the LA Sports Arena adjacent to Memorial Coliseum, seemed rather uninviting as well, especially compared to the blissful Coachella Polo Grounds. Not that it stopped anyone from snatching up as many tickets as were available.

But I’ll admit that as excited as I was, I was expecting that I was only in store for the second best Daft Punk show ever. When the all-too-seldomly seen Battlestar Galactica fetishists appeared onstage atop the same pyramid-shaped DJ booth, whose surface area was covered (along with the wall behind it) in an ever-evolving collage of sci-fi gemetric patterns and starscapes, flanked by 2 giant screens that offered close-up shots of their signature space robot helmets, I thought, “Well, maybe it could be as cool as last year.” But it couldn’t be better, right? Because that would be just too much for our terrestrial little minds to handle.

First, I must add that we were down in the GA floor section which, (it also should be noted) was quite a pain in the ass to sneak into. And I say that with a begrudging respect to whoever devised the fiendish separate entrance system they attempting to employ to keep all floor and balcony ticket holders apart, because they clearly had experience with gate-crashers and had invested a lot of time and efforting implenting said plan. However, it most certainly should be noted that ultimately the desire of concertgoers to have a closer view vastly outweighs that of the underpaid staff entrusted with keeping them at bay, and it simply resulted in some extra stress for both sides until finally arriving at the invariable result.

Point being, we were down on the floor where there were no chairs to speak of. Not that that mattered, since it seemed that even those above us in the upper levels chose to stand as well — the entire show. So if you can imagine how hyped a crowd of 17,000 dancing fools were already when suddenly, midway through the show, as if the onstage light and sound display wasn’t enough, a bright ring of light running the entire circumference of the arena at about eye level (to those of us on the floor) burst on in sync with a song’s climax. For the first time since the lights first dimmed and the music began the whole crowd was able to look around and see, “Yes, everyone else in here is going just as fucking nuts as I am.” And at that point, well, to paraphrase what I said a dozen years earlier to Dave Zuckerman on his birthday the first time we saw Pink Floyd in RFK Stadium, “We might as well be flying in a spaceship right now.” * On that night, we could see the cloudy sky hurtling over the giant open air stadium, giving us the illusion of moving at great speed. On this night, the sky was not visible, but our robot navigators certainly were, and the streaming starscapes completed the vision. And it was at that point that I was convinced that the concert was at least as good as last year’s Coachella set.

By the time DP left to recharge their spacesuits and gulp down some freeze-dried ice cream during the break before their encore, we were soaked in sweat and our cheeks sore from hoisting grins for 2 hours straight. What happened next words can’t really do justice. Frankly, I wrote most of this review within the next day or two after the show. Since then, I’ve been looking for footage that got both good audio and a good view (much of those willing to record are either being obscured and /or buffeted by the frenzied crowd around them). It really just doesn’t work to say how cool red and black looked at that moment. If you’re patient enough, this is the best video I’ve found that shows the entire encore to the end, which I won’t give away, but when the two Frenchmen turn their back to the crowd it sealed the deal in everyone’s minds that they had made the right choice that night to do nothing but see Daft Punk rocket their fuckin’ home town arena to the stratosphere.

* Not coincidentally, the first time I shroomed

Rage Against The Machine