The Flaming Lips!

Went to my first Flaming Lips show on the 19th at Roy Wilkins with my mom.  Excellent! 

It really lived up to all the hype you hear about F'Lips shows.  It was absolutely awesome, in the real sense of the word. 

We got there, and the crowd was really pretty young and friendly.  Ariel Pink's Haunted Graffiti opened, and although I commend them for trying, I can't say I really liked them at all.  Too much synth, too much awful, if you ask me.  But that didn't matter; they kept the set fairly short.  Wayne kept peeping out during it, too, just to make us more antsy.
So then they set up the elaborate F'Lips stage, what with nets full of large balloons swelling up from behind and confetti guns and aliens and everything.  Wayne kept coming out, smiling, assuring us that he loves us too, and being an all-around coolguy.  Finally everything was ready, and he announced a sort of disclaimer thing regarding the strobe lights, and shortly then after the show began! Whee!

So, the balloons and confetti were released, and they came out from behind the screen with the yellow dancing woman (whee!) and got in their places and Wayne got in his bubble.  And then he rolled out onto us.  It's such a strange feeling, to be looking above, and seeing the soles of Wayne's shoes, and realizing that he's standing on top of you, in a bloody plastic bubble.  It's rather insane, I'd say.  Brilliant though. We pushed him back to stage, and they started playing some songs.  A lot of their newer ones, but they also played "She Don't Use Jelly," to which everyone sang/yelled along.  I enjoyed the theatrics, what with the strobes and bear-costumed man giving Wayne a piggy-back ride, the green laser hands, the wonderful use of darkness, Woo Hoo!, the video backdrop, everything.  It was really quite a trip.   Everything was so fun, the jumping the dancing and singing.  Good stuff.  For encore, they played the Yeah Yeah Yeah Song and Do You Realize?, both of which were extended and very good for the singing along.  When it was all said and done, the place was a huge mess, and people were lingering around, dancing amongst the garbage all over the floor.  It was great!

Nirmala Rajasekar and Co.

Last Sunday I sort of spontaneously decided to go to an IMSOM hosted concert featuring Ms. Nirmala Rajasekar.  I met Nirmala back in May and aside from being super-nice and talented, she mentioned how she'd be playing in September, and so I looked up the show, and day-of I decided to go. 
It was in a little room inside an auditorium at St. Catherine's that was really very intimate and filled with orange-upholstered seats.  When I got there, it was already pretty crowded, and I recognized a few players that were with her last time sitting in the audience.  Honestly I felt a bit out of place for different reasons, but I enjoyed it nonetheless.  Nirmala is extremely talented, and the ensemble playing with her were great as well.  During the first half of the show, she recognized her "mentor, and guru," and elderly woman in the front row, whom she invited up on stage.  Nirmala stooped to touch the woman's feet in great respect, and presented her with a gift and her new "Into the Raga" album.  Then, we took a 10 minute break of cookies and coffee.
When we returned, we got right back into the music, playing some really long compositions.  I honestly am not that knowledgable with the ways of keeping rhythm for this style of music and everyone else did, but after some time, I fell into it, and it was a lovely atmosphere.  It was a nice familiar feeling with almost everyone in the room patting their hands in the same rhythm, right along with the players, dropping our palms on the dominant beat.  It was really fun, and very long.  After everything was said and done, it had been just about 4 hours.  We split pretty soon after it ended, and were thoroughly impressed.