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Unlimited
Sunshine Tour
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Featuring:
Kinky, Modest Mouse, De La Soul, The Flaming Lips, and Cake
Chicago, IL
venue: Aragon Ballroom
show date: 08.30.02
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Once In
a While, the Sun Shines On Me
by:
bill
aicher
Let me start
this out with an apology: for those of you looking for a review
of the Cake or Kinky parts of this show, it's not here. Unfortunately
we were a bit too late to see Kinky (damn Chicago and its rush
hour traffic) and due to a nasty cold that attacked one of our
staff, we were unable to stay for the Cake performance. But we
encourage you to read on, because it was still a damned good show.
As stated
above, we were unable to catch the Kinky performance. Instead
we got to the Aragon just as Modest Mouse began their set. Now
I haven't heard much from Modest Mouse before the show, but I
was assured by friends that they're an excellent band. Whether
or not this is true, I can't say. What I can say however is that
they're live show left much to be desired. Maybe it was the somewhat
poor acoustics of the venue, but my overall impression was that
Modest Mouse is a great band musically - they just need to drop
the lead singer - and that's all I'm saying about their set.
Next up were
the legends of hip-hop, De La Soul. After over a decade of producing
notoriously good hip-hop, their inclusion in Unlimited Sunshine
was a wise choice. Unfortunately for crowd-goers, De La didn't
seem to have a grasp on who they were playing for. The majority
of the set revolved around encouraging audience participation,
and at times seemed to even attack the audience for their lack
of enthusiasm. Sorry guys, but you have to keep in mind that Unlimited
Sunshine is really a tour for the music geek / hippy crowd and
they're just not going to get into it like your regular crowd.
Rather than focus such time and energy (especially for the limited
time of a 45 or so minute set), the De La show seemed to lack
in performance. That being said, it was still a decent show, and
an opportunity to see these masters perform live.
The real treat
of the evening, however, were The Flaming Lips. Hot off the release
of Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robota, the band and their
entourage appeared in full barnyard-creature attire amidst a backdrop
of four immense disco balls, a huge video screen, and enough confetti
to put your high-school prom to shame.
The set opened
with "Do You Realize??," the first single from Yoshimi,
which sent the crowd of Lips fans into utter hysteria. The set
continued with esquisite renditions of past and present Lips favorites,
"Race for the Prize," "The Spark that Bled"
(complete with Wayne Coyne's disgustingly bloody head), "The
Test," "Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots pt. 1"
(get a load of the Japanese girl murder-spree video that played
during that one!), and of course "She Don't Use Jelly."
The most interesting song, however, was the heartwrenching cover
of Kylie Minogue's "Can't Get You Out of My Head." (Who
ever knew that song could be emotional?)
The Lips'
set was proof again they're the best band in America right now,
and it was obvious they were loving the hell out of it Never before
have a I seen a band so damned happy to be there. They're touring
with Beck this fall, so go see them if you haven't.
As stated
before, due to illness we were unable to see Cake's performance.
But from what we could tell, not many people did. Unfortunately
for the band who put this wonderful tour together nearly 1/3 of
the crowd had left by the time they took the stage. Oh well...
perhaps it's time to rethink putting yourself as the headliner
on a tour simply because you put it together.
08-Sep-2002
8:00 PM
If you
liked The Unlimited Sunshine Tour...
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