This is my church (VNV)
Nov. 28th, 2018 03:42 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
drwexWe saw VNV again, this time at the Royale in Boston. It's a good venue for such a show - last time they overfilled the Sinclair in HSQ. This venue held a good crowd but always with room to dance.
Opening acts were forgettable. A DJ with a couple of cute tricks and not much repertoire and a quartet that reminded me of very early Sisters of Mercy. Not a bad comparison, just "hey, it's been done, what new are you bringing?"
VNV this time was a quartet with a different drummer. A good show, about two hours of music with about half from the new album (Noire) and half older favorites. Ronan was obviously in a good mood and energetic, but there was less of the idiosyncratic banter that usually highlights a VNV show. There was one moment where - in the middle of an elaborate interactive left-of-house versus right-of-house thing - some system died. I think it was the synth because Ronan made some comment about Ableton Live, but it was hard to tell from the audience what went wrong. They decided to abort that track and Ronan ad-libbed a bit while the techs rebooted things about imagining we'd just gone through this and that and now were back to seeing VNV, as the band started on the next song.
We got several favorites, but they did not do the end-encore Perpetual I'd been hoping for. Still, I managed to move and sweat and get out some of the emotional slush that had accumulated over the past couple weeks. Ronan remarked on the concert space being a kind of "temple" and a place where outside cares could be set down for a while. Yeah, I needed that.
As usual we bought the CD at the show (artists make a much higher percentage per disc when you buy direct from them) and I've been enjoying listening to it in the car. Also notable, we brought Thing 2 to the show. They knew more words to the songs than we did, I think.
Opening acts were forgettable. A DJ with a couple of cute tricks and not much repertoire and a quartet that reminded me of very early Sisters of Mercy. Not a bad comparison, just "hey, it's been done, what new are you bringing?"
VNV this time was a quartet with a different drummer. A good show, about two hours of music with about half from the new album (Noire) and half older favorites. Ronan was obviously in a good mood and energetic, but there was less of the idiosyncratic banter that usually highlights a VNV show. There was one moment where - in the middle of an elaborate interactive left-of-house versus right-of-house thing - some system died. I think it was the synth because Ronan made some comment about Ableton Live, but it was hard to tell from the audience what went wrong. They decided to abort that track and Ronan ad-libbed a bit while the techs rebooted things about imagining we'd just gone through this and that and now were back to seeing VNV, as the band started on the next song.
We got several favorites, but they did not do the end-encore Perpetual I'd been hoping for. Still, I managed to move and sweat and get out some of the emotional slush that had accumulated over the past couple weeks. Ronan remarked on the concert space being a kind of "temple" and a place where outside cares could be set down for a while. Yeah, I needed that.
As usual we bought the CD at the show (artists make a much higher percentage per disc when you buy direct from them) and I've been enjoying listening to it in the car. Also notable, we brought Thing 2 to the show. They knew more words to the songs than we did, I think.
no subject
Date: 2018-11-29 12:51 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2018-11-29 01:28 pm (UTC)They did end at 11 so we were home before 11:30 and managed to get to bed at a not-terrible hour.