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Sunday, May 22, 2005

DAFT PUNK IS PLAYING AT MY OPERA HOUSE

Whew. I sweated myself sober tonight at the Opera House after a day of hard drinking in the sun. A capacity crowd rocked to MIA and LCD Soundsystem for a three hour tour that we almost never escaped from. The show had all the conductive potential of a three hundred foot tall lightning rod, and by the end of the night we'd been sufficiently eletrified.

Though I'll always stick up for the quality of the MIA show in February at the Drake that left some critics disappointed, I'd say that no one has any excuse to question Maya's stage talents after tonight's spectacle. Gone were all the between song fuck ups, along with Maya's earlier performance anxieties. Her rhymes were sharp, clearly poking through the wall-slap reverb of the Opera House's acoustic effect, and her poise as a dancer and vocalist was steady and focused. Diplo, however, was the hero of the opening set, holding the rhythms together in a virtually endless concussion of thumps and blips. One wonders how MIA keeps up with Diplo, as he barely leaves her time to breathe, but it might be Diplo who will have to keep up with Maya and her spirited backup MC as they raise the bar with each new show.

LCD Soundsystem was, by all accounts, nuts. James Murphy and his band of gadet junkies blasted the night away in a tightly packaged hour of anthemic carnage. With his eyes closed, the chubby cheeked Murphy is every inch the man he is on his albums. He means every word he says. He's the right man for the job and there's no question about it.

After the closing seconds of Nilsson's "Jump Into the Fire", he and his band left the stage quickly, as if to say, "the night is young, keep having fun." My brother-in-arms Mike Sallot tapped out rhythms on one of Murphy's auxilliary kits, while John Caffrey from the Kids on TV joined him by laying into the cowbell with his signature "chung chung chung".

On we went to the 56 where DJs dropped "mind control" eurotechno on us, gradually building to a more New York electro vibe. In the bathroom, I met a nice couple. on two separate occasions. Dylan and Susanna, both really fine lookin' lovebirds with a swell sense of fashion, turned me on to their lovely band, The Ever Nevers, and then invited me into a group hug. "We're showering you with our love dust". It's been a while since I've been shown affection from strangers, especially in this city where few people really have the inclination to welcome others into their circles, so it was nice to make their acquaintances. I hope to run into them again..at one of their shows, perhaps?

PHOTOS from FORNICATE.ORG


Maya lookin' so confident and sexy. Can she pleeease come and get me?


LCD Soundsystem's latest member, repeatedly introduced by James Murphy as "Phil".


Phil and Nancy Wang do the synth can-can while Murphy hovers in the background.


Guy Stevos claps while John from Kids on TV and king of the Kingston scene Mike Sallot plot their show stealing guerilla drum takeover.

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