Living Colour at Emos

Hard Proof

The openers were an Afrobeat band, from Austin, Hard Proof. I think I recognized some of the musicians in this band from Black Joe Lewis. They played all instrumental songs, with a big wall of sound, and a heavy Afro-Cuban beat, driven by a drummer and 2 percussionists.

Living Colour

My real reason for being at the club though, was to see Living Colour. Almost 4 years have passed, since I last saw the band. This was also my first trip to the new Emos location, next to Antones. The club had moved off of 6th Street about a year ago.

This tour is a celebration of the 25th anniversary of the band's first album, Vivid. Even though I had jotted the setlist down on my iPhone, it was already posted when I looked.

If you look at the setlist, you'll notice that they also played 2 songs from Time's Up, as well as covers.

The sound was good, and the audience receptive. A very good vibe floating around the room last night. The Muse was present, and she rewarded us with a gift.

Post Show

After the show, I got to speak to Will Calhoun and Doug Wimbish, while poor Corey was surrounded by fans. I couldn't find Vernon at first, but eventually spotted him talking to two other people. I got to reintroduced myself since we are connected by a mutual friend. We then had a little convo about the FNG Podcast. (You should listen to it, if you don't already).

Couldn't have asked for a better night.

The Protomen at Emos

Deja Vu - Twitter to the Rescue Again

After attending the Long Star Ruby Conference this past weekend, I was paying more attention to Twitter than normal. In an eerie replay of the events that led me to seeing the Protomen last year, a just in time tweet notified me that they were on tour.

Quickly checking their website, I discovered they were playing Emos in three days. I immediately bought a ticket.

The Openers

For The Most Part

Knowing that there were two openers, both from Austin, I didn't really bother to leave the house until 10PM. As a result, I missed the first opener, For the Most Part.

The Descendants of Erdrick

The other opening act, Descendants Of Erdrick, bills themselves as Austin's Premier Video Game Tribute band. They were a five piece, with two guitars, a flute, bass, and drums.

The band were all very good musicians, but since I am not a Gen-X'er who was weaned on Nintendo, I didn't find hearing covers as engaging, as the Protomen's more creative approach. The lack of vocals was also a bit of a deal killer for me.

The Protomen

While waiting around for main act, I went over to the Merch booth and bought a T-shirt. I was also able to talk to Protomen guitarist, Robert. After telling him that I had been at their show last year, we commiserated about the stifling heat, and conditions at Game Over Video games.

I was also able to find out, that they intend to do one more album along the Mega Man story arc, with producer, Alan Shacklock, and then something new is in the works. We'll have to wait and see what happens. I was also surprised to hear that they had trouble getting back into SxSW, last year.

The Protomen's show started with one of their members in a jump suit and robot mask, as K.I.L.R.O.Y.! His banter and come back lines were very well practiced, and raised the level of their showmanship.

The line-up for the band appeared to be the same as the last years, with one exception. The second female member was MIA. I believe she was the member that played trumpet, keyboards, and sang backing vocals.

I estimate that they played about 75 minutes, with a mix of songs from both of their albums. There was one encore, and this time around they did an excellent cover of Queen's, Princes of the Universe. Frankly, I was amazed by how close the Protomen's lead singer was able to sound like Freddie Mercury.

I really enjoyed the show once again, my only complaint was with the sound, which was muddy at times. But, that's really the fault of the crappy house P.A. at Emos.

I will continue to be a fan of this band, and I'm anxious to hear their new album, in the coming months.

Living Colour at Emos

Living Colour is back! For about 2.5 hours, I saw this incredible band rise like a Phoenix, from the ashes, outside at Emos. To be honest, Emos seemed almost like an inappropriate venue due to its size. However, in hindsight, it was just fine.

The band covered material from Vivid, Times Up, Stain, and the latest effort, The Chair in the Doorway. Realizing that I don't have a copy of Collideascope, I'm not sure if they played any material from the album. (I just remedied that problem via the Amazon music store).

A highlight of the night was the band's cover of Crosstown Traffic to commemorate Jimi Hendrix. Ironically, this show occurred on the 39th anniversary of his death, 9/18/1970. The other highlight for me was getting to talk to Vernon after the show, and talk about our mutual friends, all associated with the late, great, Arthur Rhames.

In closing, let me say this was a great show, and I hope to see them again. Hopefully, next year!!!

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A Thursday Night at Emos

I received an email from Graham Reynolds early last week, about his Golden Arm Trio show at Emos, on thursday night. Since I happened to be attending the Live Music Task Force meeting at City Hall, I decided to stay downtown and catch some music. After grabbing some food at Best Wurst, I headed over to Emos, for the first show I've seen there in probably 7 or 8 years. I arrived at around 10:15 and the first band was already playing:

Mr. Lewis and the Funeral Five ...

were already on stage. The Tom Waits influence was obvious. They were all good musicians, but this type of music just doesn't work for me for longer than about a set.

Golden Arm Trio

This is about 4th time I've seen Graham play this year, and this time he was using essentially the same lineup that he did at SxSW, and included an AMF friend, Wayne Myers on trombone. For this smaller show, Graham brought along his own console piano. He also opted not to play drums, and had a very exceptional drummer instead. Great job, Graham is quite demonic sometimes when he plays. The crowd was surprisingly into them, and expressed their enjoyment freely.

Firewater

Firewater finished up the night. I had missed them at SxSW, and it was obvious that this show was a result of their trip here in March, and they had a minor buzz. Their base sound is an offshoot of Ska and Dub with an injection of some other world music. I enjoyed the show, as did everyone present. The band played superbly.

Two individuals stood out in the band in addition to leader Tod A, Reut Regev on Trombone and Flugelhorn, and Dhol percussionist, Johnny Kalsi.

I had originally planned on cutting out early during their set, but decided to stay until closing time after I had heard them play. I'll be keeping an eye for them in the future.