Xiu Xiu
So last night I went downtown to check out the band Xiu Xiu, who was playing at Backspace. I went there expecting many things. I expected some really dark, to a level of being frightening, music. I expected to see some really weird people (This is Portland after all). There is no way that I could have know what I was in for at this show though. I’ll just say this, ya know what day dreaming is. Well during this show I think I had a day nightmare.
Pruriet
The part of this show that was by far the most haunting was one of the opening acts, Prurient. It is just this one guy who goes up on stage, never facing the audience, and does all of his work on a small card table with a few pedals, some amps, and probably something else I couldn’t quite see, on it. It started off ok, he was just setting up this really ambient, almost white noise sounding song. Then, everything just got louder and louder to the point where most people in the audience were just covering there ears to save them for later that night. He proceeded to yell as loud as he could into a couple mics which were being heavily distorted to the point that he was just yelling for the sake of yelling. He ended by running off the stage, still carrying the mic, still yelling into it. And he just ran away into the night.
I don’t know how many of you go to concerts very often, but every once in a while you get stuck behind that one person who is REALLY tall, and also kinda wide. Yeah, it sucks. The final band came on, and I had to spend the first few minutes just trying to get around this guy. Eventually I got off to his side, but then there was this big haired lady blocking my view of the percussionist. I mean come on, why would you make your hair so big then go stand in the front at a concert. I decided to settle here though, since this was about the best view I was going to get. Other then that, the show was all around pretty good. They played some songs I knew, but mostly ones that I did not. And I even got to go talk to the lead singer after the show. Overall, two trembling thumbs up.
Xiu Xiu
