The show was amazing last night…. James and I left my work around 6ish, and showed up at the Middle East about 20 minutes later. Since we were so early, we decided to grab something to eat, but as we were walking away, Jon Whitney and friends (Jessica and Ed) popped out of the club and said Hi. After some chit-chatting, we went to the (terrible, terrible, almost as bad as California) pizza shop and grabbed some chow. We then wandered down to this coffee house (1369, I believe) down the street. Jon must have bumped into like 20 people he knew on the way, and it took us like 30 minutes to walk 2 blocks. :)

We chilled outside the coffee shop for a while (I didn’t get anything, however), and we made our way back. When we returned to the club, the line was already around the side of the building, but Jon saw someone he knew and we cut into line.. :) This show sold out weeks ago, and there were lots of people trying to get in… I am glad I picked up the tickets when I did. We descended into the club and as we arrived the warm-up DJ (Rob Hall, I believe) was spinning, obscured by Matmos‘ equipment. This DJ was only ok, a few notches above annoying. :) Around 9pm, Matmos took the stage, and they were amazing. They did a cool thing: Facing their equipment towards the audience, and (sometimes) sitting with their backs to the audience. While this would be considered travesty at a normal rock show, it was cool being able to see them at work. They turned around and aside quite a bit, so you could tell that they were doing this for the show. Their new album is entitled “A Chance to Cut is a Chance to Cure”, and it is riddled with lots of disgusting medical samples and visions. Their opening number had Drew (i believe that is his name) pressing some kind of biofeedback probe into his skin (not breaking the skin or anything), and another guy followed the probe with a video camera, projecting it onto a screen. Their set was amazing, and they were the first people I have ever seen to use a metal rat cage as a musical instrument (and it sounded really cool too).

After Matmos left the stage, Russell Haswell took the stage, with his laptop and little other gear. His wall of sound lasted longer than any of the other artists… He was only OK, but he needs to learn some control. He had some really interesting stuff, and some terrible stuff, but in either case, he stretched it out way too long…

Finally, Autechre took the stage, and by this point, my heels were killing me. I was right up towards the stage, and my boots were starting to really hurt my feet (Note to self: buy some Dr. Scholl’s). Fortunately, Autechre has a stage presence that doesn’t really command viewing… I made my way to the back of the club (the bar, actually, where I obtained a Margarita) and met up with James.. We were both taken aback by what Autechre had to offer, they were simply mind blowing. They amaze me with their ability to come up with music that is completely alien yet still sounds great. They wrapped up their set around 12:10, which gave us little time to catch the last train. We didn’t have a chance to hang around, say goodbye to Jon and friends, etc. I wish the subway ran later, especially on weekends… Oh well, it was still a great night, and I am looking forward to more great concerts in the near future. In fact, Other Music was handing out flyers to a free in-store show next week… Free music is always a good thing. :)

James left around 7 this morning, and while in theory I was going to go back to bed for an hour or two, I decided to just come into work and get it done with. Today will probably be a long day, but after it is done, I can go home, get some sleep, and be normal for the rest of the week. :)