BLONDE REDHEAD + Fields @ Club Soda

By Jackson Macintosh - Track Marks - 05/16/2007

Blonde Redhead do not attract a particularly respectful audience at this point in their career. Their sold-out show May 12  at Club Soda was filled with pushers, shovers, in-the-crowd joint-smokers, and horse-whistlers. There was a startling lack of show-going tact.

Beyond that, though, how was the music? The openers, Fields, a five piece from London, did not exactly get things started on the right foot. They were highly competent and deeply dull. Nothing they did seemed to really go anywhere--they definitely seemed like the sort of band that will get a 7.5 or whatever from Pitchfork when their debut album finally drops on Warner or whatever, and then they’ll go on a poorly-attended headlining tour, break up and be forgotten, and the whole thing will be deeply whatever for everyone who isn’t in the band. If we’re lucky, that is. 

Blonde Redhead were on next. The Paces, who are Italian twin brothers, and Kazu, who is reputedly an ex-art school student from Japan, stepped out onto the stage. Everything was backlit and mysterious. They started to play. They seemed to be making a lot of sound for three people. I was wondering to myself what kinds of effects and processing they were using on the vocals and guitars to make them sound like there was more than one singer and more than one guitar track. And then Kazu, the singer, stepped away from the microphone and started talking to Amadeo Pace, the guitar player. But the singing didn’t stop! And Amadeo stopped playing guitar, but the sound of guitar playing didn’t stop! Shocking, I know. Of course, they were using backing tracks to reproduce their latest album 23 (no connection to the Jim Carrey film of the same name) as faithfully as possible.

It certainly sounded lush, but I don’t like their new album very much, and I’d rather hear them play with each other rather than play along to a recording of themselves. There was no speaking between songs, except before the last track in the encore. Anyways, I didn’t find the whole thing very interesting, but I think I learned a few lessons that might be helpful.

Here they are:

1. Do not go to rock shows that are attended by more than 600 people

2. Do not tap the large Québecois man on the shoulder while he is busy horse-whistling and waving his arms at the pretty Japanese girl on stage. He will NOT LIKE YOU.

3. Horse-whistling looks like a really effective, respectful way to get the attention of pretty girls.

4. Let short people stand in front of you at rock shows that are attended by more than 600 people if you are tall and you like to think of yourself as considerate.

5. Do not tell strangers that you attend and enjoy amateur female wrestling events. They will also NOT LIKE YOU.

6. Don’t go to see a band’s show if you don’t think they’ve put out a good record since you were in high school.

So there we have it. Seeing Blonde Redhead has clearly enriched my life by teaching me these valuable lessons. Thank you Blonde Redhead.