Ahhh.
Now I can finally update my blog and tell you all who haven’t gleaned everything already from Larson or Justin or Mike.
I had the immense privilege of seeing The Notwist at The Magic Stick in Detroit, MI last night. They were amazing and so much more. I rank it as the most satisfying concert that I have ever been to. They played everything I would have hoped and they were so tight as a band, even when they made mistakes nobody would have noticed because they were just too darn good. They all used some crazy equipment and displayed a concentrated knowledge of how these things worked. I was preparing for it, but when it came I was just amazed by the lead singer’s voice, it is a really good voice. The Notwist possess perhaps the most distinctive sound I’ve heard in a long time, maybe since SDRE. They are equal parts rock, metal and electronic. They really enjoy rocking out and also really enjoy doing different things with their instruments to create good sounding discord and amazing drum sfx.
Here was the order of songs at the concert, and my impressions of each:
One With The Freaks – Yes! Definitely one of the best songs to open with, and ten times as satisfying live as on the CD when the guitar starts jamming!
Pick Up The Phone – Definitely a solid song… came out flawlessly in performance. Just seeing the drummer go at it and hearing all of those cool sounds come from the speakers was awesome.
Neon Golden – This was a good segue into more electronic stuff. It was much better in concer than on the CD, I kind of got tired of it on CD, but they freshened it up for this performance.
No Encores – Ahhhh, one of my all time faves from the Shrink LP. Every bit as awesome in concert and ever so much more satisfying.
This Room – They returned to the newest album with this one, which is one of Mike E.’s favorites.
(a song I don’t know) – All I know is that they took a cool melody and took it into outerspace by building up in intensity more and more and more and yes MORE.
Trashing Days – A good quieter song, at least when compared to the previous one.
(another song I don’t know) – didn’t pick up a whole lot from these songs, but by now I didn’t care, it’s all amazing and really good, I just want to own all of the CDs now.
(another song I don’t know) – Still amazing, oh yeah.
Pilot – This song was fantastic, they went into this long electronic interlude of stuff, and then, don’t ask me how the drummer kept time so well, they all came back together all at once in perfect unison and did the chorus again… it was fabulous.
At this point, they told us that this was the end, “good bye!”
Then we cheered and they came back and did these THREE more songs:
Chemicals – Yes, the definite first hook from Shrink, also amazing in concert… oh yeah.
Solitaire – one of my faves from Neon Golden, I really digged this one live.
Consequence – the mother of all concert ending songs… made me want to close my eyes and worship God… it’s a song for cripes sake Joel, get a hold of yourself, but- oh, so good.
That’s about it, my honies!
Oh yeah, our muffler fell off on the way back, heh, it sucked ‘cuz it was below twenty. The good news was that a hot female cop came over to check us out- er, I mean help us out.
Byebye for now.
Joel Manahan 