Mojave 3 @ Bowery Ballroom, NYC [10/20/06]
Mojave 3, "Breaking the Ice" (from the new Puzzles Like You)
Mojave 3, "In Love With a View" (from Excuses for Travelers)
Before last night, I'd never been a huge fan of Mojave 3. Although several of my friends had raved about them for years, nothing I'd heard had ever impressed me that much. I'd even picked up their album, Excuses for Travelers, a few years back, and found it to be pretty boring.
My opinion of the band started to change a bit with the release of their new album, Puzzles Like You, earlier this year. I heard several songs from the album on WOXY.com that I really liked, and I ended up downloading the album from eMusic. It's a much more upbeat album than Excuses for Travelers, and I liked it quite a bit. Still, though, I probably only listened to it three or four times, as I'd been getting a lot of other CDs that I liked even more.
Anyway, even though I'd come to like them, I hadn't initially planned on going to see the band while they're in NYC for two nights. However, a friend was going, and it turned out there were still tickets available, so I made a last-minute decision and went.
I'm really glad I did. The songs that sounded boring to me on disc really come alive on stage. Even though most of their recent output doesn't fit the "shoegaze" category that their predecessor band (Slowdive) did, their live show adds a layer of loud swirling guitars and keyboards, as well as excellent, driving drumming, which make the songs much more sonically interesting and compelling. For a band who I had found boring for so long, I wasn't bored once last night. I walked out of the Bowery having decided to go buy anything from Mojave 3 and Slowdive I could find.
The band are playing Bowery again tonight. I'm not going, but you definitely should.
posted by Steve @ 5:19 PM
1 comments
1 Comments:
Glad you liked the show. I thought they were inredible on Saturday night (as were the Clemson Tigers, thank you very much). Two-plus hours, lots of great chesnuts from all their records, and a much bigger crowd than I'd expected (think two nights at the Bowery was a little ambitious). Even better was that they had that same girl filling in for Rachel on backing vocals, and she did an excellent job. It goes without saying of course that Rachel was very much missed, as she adds a critical dimension to the band, but they were great nonetheless. Was suprised that Neil did so much from his solo record (absolutely worth buying) and only three tunes from Puzzles Like You. Hope they make it back soon. (And if you want a good Slowdive starting point, there's a great two-CD comp called Catch the Breeze.)
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