A great year for shows and this list could've been doubled easily (LCD's Bowery Shows, Klaxons at Studio B, Amy Winehouse at Bowery, Hot Chip, Soundtrack of Our Lives, Cribs, Black Kids, etc...). I would've even been able to make a list of Best Shows I Didn't Actually Write Up. But it's much easier just to pull quotes from posts I did do. So, in descending order, my ten favorite shows of 2007:
Jarvis Cocker + Dirty Projectors | Webster Hall | 4.22.2007
"At 43, with a solo debut that is not only mature but mostly about
"maturing," some might have expected a toned-down the live show. But
I'm happy to report that Jarvis Cocker remains a total sex machine --
leaping around, standing on the monitors, swinging the mike, and that
elbow slide thing. Last night was his first NYC show in nearly ten
years, and from the opening notes of the roaring 'Fat Children' through
the final encore cover of Black Sabbath's 'Paranoid' (!!!), Jarvis had
the audience eating out of the palm of his hand the entire time --
without playing a single Pulp song."
Shout Out Louds | Speigeltent | 7.16.2007
"A truly magical show, one of those times where the setting, the crowd
and the performance came together to make something special."
Peter Bjorn & John | Union Hall | 1.28.2007
"'People think it's always winter in Sweden, but it's not this cold in Stockholm!' Peter Morén
was actually talking about Friday's barely-double-digit temperatures.
Cliche or not, it did seem fitting that the first real snowfall of the
season happened on the same night as Peter Bjorn and John's stateside debut at Union Hall in Park Slope, and their reception was anything but chilly."
Ida Maria | Galapagos | 10.19.2007
"Diminutive, and dressed in a mint green school marm top, a dark teal
leather skirt, purple tights and bright blue boots she looked pixie.
But when she strapped on the guitar and opened her mouth, she
transformed into a whirling, wailing little powerhouse that you could
almost compare to early PJ Harvey though her
voice definitely has a certain Bjork-esque quality that is hard to deny." She's going to be big in 2008, I think: the video I shot from this show is my most popular clip on YouTube.
Arthur & Yu | Sound Fix Cafe | 10.01.2007
"Arthur & Yu's sound -- twangy, kinda druggy, old school harmonies -- is perfect for Sound Fix's
back room which was full but not so packed as to warrant the removal of
the tables. You could sit back, drink your tea (or a PBR) and mellow
out to the warm vibes and melodies, man."
The Deathset + The Trucks + MM/DD/YYYY | Don Pedros | 6.23.2007
"...the shouting continued with The Deathset,
a punky duo who use laptop backing and the kind of drum machines that
were probably cutting edge in 1985, making for a sound not unlike Bis,
the first Pop Will Eat Itself album or (obscure reference alert) The Sicilian Vespers.
It was a seamless, if anarchic, 25 minute set with hip hop snippets
thrown in between the short, sharp songs. I thought they were great --
and the crowd was going absolutely bananas with even some goodhearted
crowd surfing, and absolutely no water balloons."
Caribou | Bowery Ballroom | 10.06.2007
"I have stated many times before that two things that push my buttons
are a) putting the drums at the front of the stage and b) two drummers.
So this was my kind of show, even if all this pounding turned some of
the tight, perfect songs on Andorra into longer, wilder
things... with false endings. Every single song had a point where at
least one person in the audience clapped before it kicked back in,
usually with another three minutes of double-drums and flashing,
seizure-inducing lights."
Euros Childs + David Kilgour + Peter Moren | Union Hall | 11.09.2007
"'This next song is 16 minutes long... and about every two minutes it
sounds like it's ending. But it's not, so please don't clap. It kind of
ruins the momentum.' That was pretty much the only thing Euros Childs
said all night I understood, apart from some of his lyrics, what with
his thick Welsh accent. Actually, for all I know he was speaking in
Welsh some of those times."
Franz Ferdinand | Bowery Ballroom | 6.13.2007
"Welcome to Franz Ferdinand: The Gay Disco Years. The have always been a
little flamboyant -- a good thing, I think -- but they've definitely
turned it up since I last saw them three years ago. Alex Kapranos,
decked out in some silk/poly-blend red and white cowboy shirt that was
not the most flattering thing I've ever seen him wear, was going crazy
with the eyebrow arching, spinning around on stage and generally and
generally camping it up. (Nick, meanwhile, was dressed in some sort of
bright red polyester suit -- not a leisure suit, it was more '60s-ish
looking -- that, gauging from the amount of sweat pouring off his brow,
was hot.) Not that there's anything wrong with that."
Sloan | Southpaw | 5.11.2007
"
I have written enough about Sloan in the past year so I will try to make this brief, but Sloan's show at Southpaw was probably the best I have seen them do for Never Hear the End of It. It was part location, part performance and mostly the setlist."
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