Rotorglow

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Originally uploaded by rotorglow at 13 Oct '05, 12.54am PST.

Cynthia and I headed over to see Fiery Furnaces and Man Man at the MFA tonight. We had what were termed "front of house" tix, which meant that the first 3 rows were reserved for us (and everyone else who ponyed ("ponied?") up an extra $5. Ordinarily, this would have been great, but we were a little off-center, and getting a little bit too much of the left main.

One tends to forget one's earplugs when one goes to a show at the MFA. But one should try harder to remember them.

The show was actually pretty great. Man Man was quite astounding. The drummer was ferocious, and rocked HARD, and though much of his drumset seemed to be a toy, he had tremendous chops. The set sounded great and he was incredibly funky, in a math-rock, noise-metal kind of way.

They were all dressed in white (drummer had white paint or makeup on his face), and everyone had ancillary percussion they could bang on. Bass, guitar, trumpet, various xylophones, chunks missing from cymbals.....ah...the things you can do with ecclecticism these days. Good stuff.

Fiery Furnaces was pretty super. One of the better times I've seen them, and though Eleanor was fighting a cold, they sounded great. Musically, they rocked a little harder than the last time (at the Paradise, maybe?)--but that was partially because we were 3 feet from the bass crates. On guitar, it seemed Matt was a little more....wide-ranging than sometimes. Rhythm section was extra-tight, and (naturally) rather more intense than on most of the records.

But again, having your face up against the PA helps with that.

Got home just in time to see the umpire hand game 2 of the ALCS to Chicago. The Angels were ripped off.