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Saw Gramatik at House of Blues. A couple new-to-me things:
- saw it with DJ Purple. We've been at shows together before but rarely had time to talk or whatnot
- saw it from the upper balcony seating. Usually I get seats on the lower balcony sides which have great view, good sound, and ample room to dance. Unfortunately, HoB has caught on to how desirable these seats are and they now sell at premium prices and often are available only on special offers.
So we saw the show from cheaper seats and the sound was loud but generally not unbearable. The sight lines were occasionally blocked by some conventionally attractive Millenial ass (*) but that turned out to be something of a blessing in disguise as the Gramatik lighting design involved the flashing strobes and lights-in-the-eyes-of-the-audience thing that annoys me. Why do DJ shows particularly do this? Is it because they're trying to hide how little actually is happening on stage? Cut it the hell out already.
The opening acts were both individual performers who played one instrument well and who should just go do that thing and not try also to be DJs. The first one was a trumpeter who very much wanted to be Timmy Trumpet and who was a fine horn player but really not very good with the turntables. The second was a guitarist who had the shred down pat but seemed really lost when it came to basic DJ duties like beat matching.
Fun of being at a show with a real DJ: she hears things like I do but has a way better vocabulary for describing them.
Eventually Gramatik came on and so did the BLIND THE AUDIENCE lights. Seriously, cut that shit out. If I wanted to listen and not watch I'd pull up a DJ set on Soundcloud. It wasn't quite bad enough for me to say "never again" as I have with other acts but it's a serious deterrent
Gramatik's stuff divides into two parts - there's older stuff that I call electro-funk, and then there's newer more glitchy stuff that's starting to be called "funkstep" (as in funk + dubstep). I have a preference for the former and that was about half the show. The other half was more glitch and wub than I typically like; however, it was moderated by bringing out the trumpet opening dude. Remember when I said that this guy should just stick to playing his horn and let someone else handle the board? Yeah, that combo worked extremely well, leading to some of the most interesting and danceable parts of the evening.
Some samples, as I expect most people haven't heard of let alone heard Gramatik:
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8KnTyqki-o - From a few years ago, very much the electro-funk sound that first got me interested in them
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8KnTyqki-o - a long funkstep set. Interestingly, this goes back to some of the even older rockabilly and soul influences they were doing around 2012
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARtw9-W7vhQ - a bit from last year's RE|COIL EP that they were touring to support this time around
(*) I definitely was the oldest person in the building, which happens sometimes at shows I go to. Pygment confessed afterward that she was afraid I'd be mistaken for Purple's dad, which didn't happen, but I did have two people tell me I looked like Jerry Garcia. So, white dude with glasses and white hair/beard... yeah, OK. Not really but it's not an unflattering comparison. Of course then I had to explain to Purple who Garcia was - she knows bands much more than musicians.
- saw it with DJ Purple. We've been at shows together before but rarely had time to talk or whatnot
- saw it from the upper balcony seating. Usually I get seats on the lower balcony sides which have great view, good sound, and ample room to dance. Unfortunately, HoB has caught on to how desirable these seats are and they now sell at premium prices and often are available only on special offers.
So we saw the show from cheaper seats and the sound was loud but generally not unbearable. The sight lines were occasionally blocked by some conventionally attractive Millenial ass (*) but that turned out to be something of a blessing in disguise as the Gramatik lighting design involved the flashing strobes and lights-in-the-eyes-of-the-audience thing that annoys me. Why do DJ shows particularly do this? Is it because they're trying to hide how little actually is happening on stage? Cut it the hell out already.
The opening acts were both individual performers who played one instrument well and who should just go do that thing and not try also to be DJs. The first one was a trumpeter who very much wanted to be Timmy Trumpet and who was a fine horn player but really not very good with the turntables. The second was a guitarist who had the shred down pat but seemed really lost when it came to basic DJ duties like beat matching.
Fun of being at a show with a real DJ: she hears things like I do but has a way better vocabulary for describing them.
Eventually Gramatik came on and so did the BLIND THE AUDIENCE lights. Seriously, cut that shit out. If I wanted to listen and not watch I'd pull up a DJ set on Soundcloud. It wasn't quite bad enough for me to say "never again" as I have with other acts but it's a serious deterrent
Gramatik's stuff divides into two parts - there's older stuff that I call electro-funk, and then there's newer more glitchy stuff that's starting to be called "funkstep" (as in funk + dubstep). I have a preference for the former and that was about half the show. The other half was more glitch and wub than I typically like; however, it was moderated by bringing out the trumpet opening dude. Remember when I said that this guy should just stick to playing his horn and let someone else handle the board? Yeah, that combo worked extremely well, leading to some of the most interesting and danceable parts of the evening.
Some samples, as I expect most people haven't heard of let alone heard Gramatik:
1. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8KnTyqki-o - From a few years ago, very much the electro-funk sound that first got me interested in them
2. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h8KnTyqki-o - a long funkstep set. Interestingly, this goes back to some of the even older rockabilly and soul influences they were doing around 2012
3. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARtw9-W7vhQ - a bit from last year's RE|COIL EP that they were touring to support this time around
(*) I definitely was the oldest person in the building, which happens sometimes at shows I go to. Pygment confessed afterward that she was afraid I'd be mistaken for Purple's dad, which didn't happen, but I did have two people tell me I looked like Jerry Garcia. So, white dude with glasses and white hair/beard... yeah, OK. Not really but it's not an unflattering comparison. Of course then I had to explain to Purple who Garcia was - she knows bands much more than musicians.
