Mp3s: New Pornographers in Boston
Posted on April 18, 2006 at 6:37 am | No Comments
The New Pornographers came to town last week for a strange little show at the Paradise, a night whose primary purpose was to extol the virtues of Jack Daniels to a bunch of random contest winners. Whatever the reason, I’m just glad I got a chance to see ’em after having missed their shows with Belle & Sebastian a couple months back. The New Porno’s last two albums both wound up in my year-end top ten, but this show took me to a slightly higher level of fan-love.
The songs from ‘Twin Cinema‘ sounded great, but it was the improved energy of the older stuff that really struck me. In a live setting, I dug the stuff from ‘Mass Romantic‘ and ‘Electric Version‘ even more. Just a great set start to finish, excepting a very rough mix during the first song (and despite a lack of ‘All For Swinging You Around‘, my favorite NP song for a long while). Anyone who worried about a lack of Neko Case (out promoting her own solo album) on recent tours had absolutely nothing to fear… Kathryn Calder (A.C. Newman’s neice, and she also appears on ‘Twin Cinema’) is an excellent replacement on vocals and keyboard.
Here’s their set, and as I mentioned, don’t let the dodgy, keyboard-heavy mix of the first song scare you off, the soundguy fixes it soon enough. If you look at the setlist photo below, they skipped ‘Stacked Crooked‘, and the encore was made up of requests…
Live at The Paradise
Boston, MA
Monday, April 10th, 2006
(note: mp3 files removed on 10/1/2006)
01. Twin Cinema
02. Use It
03. banter 1
04. July Jones
05. The Laws Have Changed
06. Jackie, Dressed In Cobras
07. The Bleeding Heart Show
08. Testament To Youth In Verse
09. The Jessica Numbers
10. banter 2
11. Mass Romantic
12. From Blown Speakers
13. The Body Says No
14. The Bones Of An Idol
15. It’s Only Divine Right
16. The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism
17. Sing Me Spanich Techno
encore…
18. The Fake Headlines
19. Jackie
20. Miss Teen Wordpower
The inherent cheeziness of the promotional event was not lost on Mr. Newman, who dedicated ‘The Slow Descent Into Alcoholism‘ to Jack Daniels (“both the cause and the solution to man’s problems“), and set up his guitars while donning full promo-gear, decked out in a cheap black J.D. hat and t-shirt combo. Apparently couldn’t bring himself to wear it during the set, maybe realizing there was a chance many in the possibly unfamiliar crowd would think he was as serious as all the JD girls working the room.
A comment to the JD marketing team: If you’re holding an event to promote a particular brand of alcohol, it might be a good idea to actually provide those in attendance with said beverage. Don’t know if it’s a legal thing, but discounted shots, samples, or even coupons would make more some kind of sense. I’m not sure the free hors d’ouevres (all meat, ‘boo‘ said Amie) and the iTunes coupons made me wanna drink more Jack. I suppose they figure that putting a ton of banners and a great band in front of us might secure our purchasing allegiance. Or maybe it’s not about the people there, but all about the advertising and tie-ins (with both WBCN and the Weekly Dig) leading up to the event. I mean, hell, how many times have I mentioned Jack Daniels in this post already? Feeling thirsty yet?
Footnotes: If anyone has an issue with this live set being made available, just lemme know (email link on left). Recorded with a Sony Sony ECM-719 mic and a Sony MZ-RH10 minidisc, converted to .wav and then edited to 192kbps mp3s. And keep in mind, sets are made available for a few weeks, and are not reposted once removed.
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