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goldfrapp @ the warfield 04-26-08
So my first concert for Fuzz.com was Goldfrapp at the Warfield. I'm a little late with this one as it is my first (and I have two more in the queue) but I promise that once I'm through these three I will be much more timely. I swear. Really. Ok, moving on.
Goldfrapp had come over to the US for a short 3-stop tour beginning with an appearance at Coachella. From friends that were fortunate enough to catch the show down south in the desert, I understand they put on quite the performance. Unfortunately, Alison Goldfrapp came down with a cold prior to the SF show and consequently the SF performance was somewhat more mellow and laid-back. But mellow isn't bad, and all told I enjoyed their performance. To begin with, the instrumentation and production elements were very cool and added a lot to the experience.
In addition to the typical instruments, Goldfrapp layered-in harp, violin and at times what I thought might be an electronic harpsichord Harp to create rolling waves of dissonant & atmospheric sound. The lighting was also excellent. The backdrop was a grid of 12 massive squares of some unknown material that seemed to be woven or possibly made of hay. They used a powerful movie-grade projector to splash a range of colors, textures, and images across the backdrop that in combination with the lighting helped generate a variety of different visual atmospheres throughout the set. The lighting also illuminated the band in eery glows of green, red, blue, etc.
After a mellow start to the show, Goldfrapp dove into Satin Chic with increased energy and the crowd responded in kind. At this point I ran into my friends Dave Han and Scott from Astral. Next up was a song with a very different style, You Never Know. In fact, throughout the show they moved between poppy electro with dark overtimes built around synth and heavy beats to music that was mostly instrumental, slow, dreamy, and atmospheric - and then back again. To this point, the next song in the show was Eat Yourself and it was dark, moody, intense, and excellent. At this point, she apologized to the crowd for feeling under the weather and dove into Little Bird and the crowd exploded. To be honest I'm not sure why - the song started off with atmospheric music and though it did explode a little as it moved along it was fairly mellow throughout. The visuals reminded me of a Kaleidoscope and overall it felt very psychedelic. Oh well - we'll just have to chalk this one up with preferences... or possibly drugs that I was not on. Actually, I'm suspicious it was more the latter than the former. Next up was Number 1. They actually rocked out on a keytar for this one and Alison was dancing around the stage - goldstar material for sure. After this was Train which was the best song of the night for sure and the crowd really got into it and clapped along with the music.
At this point they exited the stage but quickly came back for a pretty rocking encore that consisted of Ooh La La which was just as seductive as I imagined and then Black Cherry that was dark and broody but almost had a country sound with great walking bass lines. The violin sounded especially good in this one and added to the country sound. Next up was what I believe was a cover song that I couldn't place with a very different, bright and poppy sound. The next one reminded me a lot of the Beatles called Happiness. The vocals were very melodic and the instrumentation was thin with the band playing chords in unison and in repetition along with the beat. The melody continually shifted between major and minor. Not a very complex song, I'm afraid, and unfortunately it was also the last. All in all, a good 75 minute set that left me satisified as she left the stage apologizing that she couldn't sing any more!
In general, Alison Goldfrapp has a lovely voice and when she's into the music, puts on a great performance. The band worked very well together and very did an excellent job complimenting the vocals. The visuals were also outstanding and contributed significantly to the overall mood. The songs didn't really flow together though - I would have liked to see more fluid transitions from the band and the constantly changing moods from mellow to electro stopped me from really getting into it. The sold-out show was packed with fans that were definitely into it, and clearly enjoyed the performance though I suspect they like me tended to prefer songs that fit into one of the two moods more than others so it was almost as if they were playing two concerts intertwined to two audiences. Oh and also there were a lot of dudes at the show - with a lot of other dudes - I'll let you figure that one out. I think it was about half-way through the show that I noticed and it reminded me of the scene in Chasing Amy where Banky (Jason Lee) figures out that he's in a lesbian bar - suddenly every where he looked were chicks making out. Yeah, it was kind of like that except with dudes. There were lots of characters there as well, in particular there was this one guy near us that was dressed in a sparkly jumpsuit with a big white clown wig and sunglasses and tons others I can't remember any more! All in all, a good show, not the best I've seen, but I'd love to see her again when she's in her health for sure.
Goldfrapp had come over to the US for a short 3-stop tour beginning with an appearance at Coachella. From friends that were fortunate enough to catch the show down south in the desert, I understand they put on quite the performance. Unfortunately, Alison Goldfrapp came down with a cold prior to the SF show and consequently the SF performance was somewhat more mellow and laid-back. But mellow isn't bad, and all told I enjoyed their performance. To begin with, the instrumentation and production elements were very cool and added a lot to the experience.
In addition to the typical instruments, Goldfrapp layered-in harp, violin and at times what I thought might be an electronic harpsichord Harp to create rolling waves of dissonant & atmospheric sound. The lighting was also excellent. The backdrop was a grid of 12 massive squares of some unknown material that seemed to be woven or possibly made of hay. They used a powerful movie-grade projector to splash a range of colors, textures, and images across the backdrop that in combination with the lighting helped generate a variety of different visual atmospheres throughout the set. The lighting also illuminated the band in eery glows of green, red, blue, etc.
After a mellow start to the show, Goldfrapp dove into Satin Chic with increased energy and the crowd responded in kind. At this point I ran into my friends Dave Han and Scott from Astral. Next up was a song with a very different style, You Never Know. In fact, throughout the show they moved between poppy electro with dark overtimes built around synth and heavy beats to music that was mostly instrumental, slow, dreamy, and atmospheric - and then back again. To this point, the next song in the show was Eat Yourself and it was dark, moody, intense, and excellent. At this point, she apologized to the crowd for feeling under the weather and dove into Little Bird and the crowd exploded. To be honest I'm not sure why - the song started off with atmospheric music and though it did explode a little as it moved along it was fairly mellow throughout. The visuals reminded me of a Kaleidoscope and overall it felt very psychedelic. Oh well - we'll just have to chalk this one up with preferences... or possibly drugs that I was not on. Actually, I'm suspicious it was more the latter than the former. Next up was Number 1. They actually rocked out on a keytar for this one and Alison was dancing around the stage - goldstar material for sure. After this was Train which was the best song of the night for sure and the crowd really got into it and clapped along with the music.
At this point they exited the stage but quickly came back for a pretty rocking encore that consisted of Ooh La La which was just as seductive as I imagined and then Black Cherry that was dark and broody but almost had a country sound with great walking bass lines. The violin sounded especially good in this one and added to the country sound. Next up was what I believe was a cover song that I couldn't place with a very different, bright and poppy sound. The next one reminded me a lot of the Beatles called Happiness. The vocals were very melodic and the instrumentation was thin with the band playing chords in unison and in repetition along with the beat. The melody continually shifted between major and minor. Not a very complex song, I'm afraid, and unfortunately it was also the last. All in all, a good 75 minute set that left me satisified as she left the stage apologizing that she couldn't sing any more!
In general, Alison Goldfrapp has a lovely voice and when she's into the music, puts on a great performance. The band worked very well together and very did an excellent job complimenting the vocals. The visuals were also outstanding and contributed significantly to the overall mood. The songs didn't really flow together though - I would have liked to see more fluid transitions from the band and the constantly changing moods from mellow to electro stopped me from really getting into it. The sold-out show was packed with fans that were definitely into it, and clearly enjoyed the performance though I suspect they like me tended to prefer songs that fit into one of the two moods more than others so it was almost as if they were playing two concerts intertwined to two audiences. Oh and also there were a lot of dudes at the show - with a lot of other dudes - I'll let you figure that one out. I think it was about half-way through the show that I noticed and it reminded me of the scene in Chasing Amy where Banky (Jason Lee) figures out that he's in a lesbian bar - suddenly every where he looked were chicks making out. Yeah, it was kind of like that except with dudes. There were lots of characters there as well, in particular there was this one guy near us that was dressed in a sparkly jumpsuit with a big white clown wig and sunglasses and tons others I can't remember any more! All in all, a good show, not the best I've seen, but I'd love to see her again when she's in her health for sure.
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