All of a sudden there’s a market glut of great indie-dance coming not out of the U.S., Britain, or France… but Australia, of all places. This might have something to do with a cool little New South Wales label called Modular that most of these acts call home, but hey, keeping it in the family is cool, too.
Setlists! Video! Eddie Vedder and Johnny Marr!
(Sorry, I missed the National’s set, and I’m not sure where to find the setlist online…)
R.E.M. set list (with some commentary):
These Days
Living Well is the Best Revenge
What’s the Frequency, Kenneth?
Wolves, Lower (second time played on this tour…the band has been mixing in 4 of the 5 Chronic Town classics…)
Man-Sized Wreath
Turn You Inside-Out (first appearance from the second-hardest rocker on Green)
Imitation of Life
Staring Down the Barrel of the Middle Distance (unreleased song! It was played during the Dublin rehersal gigs last summer and possibly recorded for Accelerate, but didn’t make the cut…this was the first outing of it since then.)
Ignoreland (staple of the entire North American tour, after not having been played EVER, despite dating back to Automatic For The People)
Bad Day
Hollow Man
The Great Beyond
Houston
Electrolite
Walk Unafraid
The One I Love
Find the River
Let Me In (another ‘08 tour staple, totally redone as a campfire elegy instead of the mournful feedbacky song it originated as on Monster)
Departure
Life and How to Live It
Orange Crush
I’m Gonna DJ
encore:
Supernatural Superserious
Losing My Religion
Begin the Begin (with Eddie Vedder!! I had theorized for weeks that he’d make a cameo, since Pearl Jam play Camden tonight & tomorrow and the bands are longtime friends. Apparently all of PJ was in the house, Eddie came out in disguise with glasses and a baseball hat and danced around like a happy fool when not rocking out.)
Fall on Me (with Johnny Marr…he started joining the band for the end of the encore about halfway through the tour)
Man on the Moon (with Johnny Marr)
Modest Mouse set list:
The View
Satin In A Coffin
Dance Hall
Fire It Up
Dashboard
Bukowski
Trucker’s Atlas
Here It Comes
We’ve Got Everything
Paper Thin Walls
Spitting Venom
> I Came As A Rat
And as a bonus, some video of Vedder on stage during “Begin the Begin” (after the jump):
Gizmodo has a terrifying video up this morning - a cover of Radiohead’s “Nude”, created by a gentleman named James Houston. Mr. Houston assembled his robot chorus out of an old scanner, a dot matrix printer, and an array of hard-drive speakers to give you an idea of what music will sound like when all the humans are dead.
Resist the tempation to close your browser after the first 60 seconds of this turns out to be nothing but a squealing 56k modem. You will be rewarded for your patience when the spinning disks and clunky flatbed scanner sync up to make beautiful music together. Not since Beck’s Gameboy Variations has anyone tapped our nostalgia for obsolete technology so effectively.
Besides the awesome J.U.S.T.I.C.E. and Daft Punk,
I like to YELLE!!!!
Yrock Internacional - Saturdays - 5-7pm
We all have worked quite a few shows promoting Y-Rock on XPN over the years. Concerts, movies, street festivals, you name it. However, my day on Saturday at Festival Pier for the annual Jammn’ on The River was by far one of the craziest experiences I’ve ever had.
The day started off normally - we set up the tent and hung up our Y-Rock signs around noon. Then the gates opened and we signed people up to win tickets for The Roots Picnic. However, by 10 pm that evening fellow dj Andre and I would be dancing on stage with The Flaming Lips - dressed up, of course, as Iron Man. How did this happen, you ask? I’m still trying to figure that out, but check out this pic …
Andre deserves much of the credit for our Iron Man experience. He actually challenged various band members to rock paper scissor showdowns, too, but I’ll let him discuss that in another post.
We danced on stage for the entire show as The Flaming Lips rocked out and shot confetti in to the crowd. If you attended the concert, you know that there was also one other “unique” thing that happened involving four young women who danced on stage during a song. I won’t get in to that, either!
But what I WILL say is that The Flaming Lips are both a great band and a great group of guys. I ended the night by giving Wayne Coyne a big hug after the show, thinking about the day I had and how badly I probably danced in front of thousands of people. In the end, though, the dancing wasn’t the point, nor the confetti, inflatable Santa Claus, nor Iron Man … it was all about the communal experience and interaction the band shared with the fans - that’s what made it special, unique, and such an extraordinary day. Jam on. 
Just had a good chuckle over Weezer’s new video for Pork and Beans. As if Rivers’ cowboy mustache wasn’t enough, the video features =w= teaming up with a whole bunch of internet sensations including my fav…TAY ZONDAY!
UPDATE: Now we find out if the new Weezer CD will blend…
XPN’s Artist To Watch for May is an old friend of the Y-Rock world: Santogold aka Santi White. I’ve been a fan of her work for a long time. Back in 2003, Y100 ran a local band contest to pick a group to play the side stage at Lollapalooza. White’s old band Stiffed was one of the finalists, and though they didn’t win, I thought they should have and was really impressed by their ska-influenced hyper-punk rock. I dug their EP Sex Sells and their final release, 2005’s Burned Again. Santi visited the old Y100Rocks.com bunker 3.0 and recorded a really cool little acoustic session at the time, with Philly icon Chuck Treese on makeshift percussion. In fact, here is a treat for you: Stiffed - A Day With Andrew (live at Y100Rocks.com)
Last year, White resurfaced under the name Santogold. First on Mark Ronson’s awesome Version record, covering The Jam’s “Pretty Green.” Then the blogs starting hyping her new solo career, as she collaborated with Spank Rock, another artist with Philly roots. Her long-awaited debut landed in stores this week and it’s damn good. Santi jumps with ease from Strokes-ish guitar anthems (”L.E.S. Artistes”) to dub reggae (”Shove It”) to New Wave melodies (”Lights Out”). “Creator” draws obvious comparisons to M.I.A. (and ended up in a beer ad last month) while “You’ll Find A Way” and “Say Aha” defy classification. Santogold truly lives up to the hype and is one of the most energizing new releases in 2008. And it’s good to see Philly (via Brooklyn) represented nationally with such a unique talent.
Santogold will be a part of the Roots Picnic at Festival Pier in Philadelphia on June 7.
Would any of you good people care to win one of the year’s best electronic albums, before you can buy it?
This Saturday, April 26, I’ll be giving away copies of the new Portishead album Third throughout my 8pm-midnight shift (including The Circuit) online and on HD Radio. You can listen in and contact me during my shift via phone, IM, or email. You can also respond to me here, I’ll be picking names randomly all night.Check it out, and good luck. Oh, in the meantime, let me explain to you just how good this album is…
We’re at the B-52’s show at the Electric Factory. So far, we’ve seen three people with beehive hairdos and two people wearing glitter suits (and none of them were in the band!). If you’re on your way to the show, don’t forget to stop by the Y-Rock booth to sign up and win tickets to see DEVO and The Hold Steady this summer!!
Love,
Eric, Liam and Mary (and the B-52’s)
On Wednesday night, as part of NBC Universal’s corporate “Green is Universal” campaign (obviously instituted by Jack Donaghy and Greenzo!), Radiohead taped a performance of House of Cards for Conan O’Brien’s show at their London studio. Why didn’t they fly to NY to perform? For Eco-Friendly reasons which Thom Yorke explains here:
And like Conan said - Radiohead was the first musical guest on his show way back in 1993. Wanna see that performance too…
WOW! Not sure what was worse back then, Conan’s delivery or Thom Yorke’s hair!