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Top Ten Concerts of the 2000-2009

The fourth installment of my decade ending in lists brings me back to the dark, dank clubs of Boston, Florence, Los Angeles and New York. It’s fitting that the 2000s spanned my 20s and 30s. It also saw my taste in music go from punk rock to rockabilly to post hardcore to post punk to indie rock to electronica. You’re supposed to experiment in your 20s, right? All dates are approximations from memory, I’m not a stub collector.

Top Ten

• Iggy Pop and the Stooges/The Mooney Suzuki/Sexy Magazines (2004)
  Little Stevie’s Garage Rock Festival - New York, NY
  The Stooges are one of my favorite bands of all time, Iggy is god (2nd to Bowie). I met my wife backstage and was side stage for The Strokes and The Stooges. Me and a couple guys went onstage during 1969 and locked arms around Iggy. He saw that I was extremely inebriated and screaming every word. Before I knew what was happening, the mic was in my hand and I was singing gang vocals with Iggy (I have witnesses).
• Elliot Smith/Grandaddy (2000)
  Avalon Rock Club - Boston, MA
  I saw Elliott the year prior with a a few buddies at a smaller club before Figure 8 came out, they all left early bitching. He was strung out and sounded terrible. This was the night before Halloween, I went to the show by myself. It was a big production put on by Rolling Stone Live. I hadn’t heard Grandaddy before and they totally blew me away. Elliott was on, bigtime, every song sounded magical and I remember Angeles giving me the chills. The cherry on top was his cover of (Don’t Fear) The Reaper with Grandaddy parading around in Grim Reaper costumes. When I got home, my car was gone… I found out the next day that it had been towed.
• Spoon/Rilo Kiley/Bloc Party/M83/Radio 4/The Sexy Magazines (2005)
  Coachella Music Festival - Indio, CA
  Growing up on the East Coast, Coachella seemed like this utopian indie rock party, the best bands in a crazy desert setting. We had just moved to LA when we got word that Lauren’s brother’s band, The Sexy Magazine was playing it. Brion left us tickets at will call and we shared a hotel room with a friend at work I didn’t really know well. Traffic was nuts (2 hours in and 2 hours out of the parking lot), but the lineup was amazing. The Sexy Magazine were great, Radio 4 was great (although their new guitarist wasn’t as good), Bloc Party talked through most of their set in amateur egomaniac style (they’re hype was at it’s peak), Rilo Kiley was adorable, M83 was epic and Spoon was solid gold.
• Broken Social Scene/Stars/Dios Malos (2003)
  Middle East Downstairs - Cambridge, MA
  I was obsessed with You Forgot it in People when it came out a few months prior, I couldn’t stop listening to it and recommended it to everyone I knew. They played the whole album, 2 drummers, 4 guitarists, horn players, keys…totally indulgent indie…magic. I hadn’t heard Stars or Dios (later Malos) before that night, but they were both really good too.
• Radiohead/Animal Collective/The Black Angels/Chromeo/Metric (2008)
  All Points West Music Festival - Jersey City, NJ
  The ferry ride to Liberty State Park was pretty epic, it was a perfect summer day. We missed most of Chromeo and Metric between our late arrival and the beer garden. Animal Collective went on right as we reached our beer voucher limit and they were indescribable. Somehow I figured they’d be more of a live band than a DJ set, but it was perfectly primal. Radiohead’s set was unparalleled, the songs from In Rainbows were untouchable.
• Built to Spill (2007)
  The Troubadour - W Hollywood, CA
  Built to Spill was pretty much my doorway to indie rock in 1999. This mail order CD trade in company was really big called Swapit (I think) and I traded all my crappy grunge records for the BTS discography on a recommendation from a classmate at NU. He was a huge Fugazi fan so I trusted him. After I heard There’s Nothing Wrong With Love I was hooked. The Troubadour is a small rock club in W Hollywood that’s been a staple since the early 70s, it holds about 300 people. The set list was great, they jammed out every song with precision, no talking, no bullshit, just 4 seasoned musicians totally in sync.
• AIR (2003)
  Florence, IT
  I’m a huge AIR fan now, but in 2003 the only album I’d heard was The Virgin Suicides soundtrack and some of Moon Safari. I had no idea what to expect and I can honestly say I haven’t seen any live show remotely similar since. There must have been 5 synth players, a drummer, a guitarist and a bassist. They were all wearing black Dracula capes, the bass was shaking the floors and the light show was making me dizzy. It was a sensory overload, a truly artful performance. Another french guy opened and I have a feeling it was Sebastien Tellier (I’m not terribly familiar with his early work).   
  
• Death Cab For Cutie (2000)
  Middle East Downstairs - Cambridge, MA
  I fell hard for Something About Airplanes and We Have The Facts, this show was before the The Photo Album came out. They sounded great, were super tight and played all the early stuff that I love most about them. Who knew they’d become indie rock poster boys.
• Modest Mouse (2003)
  Club Avalon - Boston, MA
  I was disappointed to see Modest Mouse so late in the game, Avalon is a pretty big club with a awkward standing room. I was pretty far away from the stage, but Isaac was super intense and they played all the classics. I just remember singing along to everything and getting full body chills for Interstate 8.
• Pinback (2002)
  Middle East Downstairs - Boston, MA
  Pinback is one of those rare acts that everybody loves, but somehow manages to fly under the radar of mainstream success. My roommate in Italy turned me on to them and I killed their 2 records for 4 months straight. I was surprised to hear them speedup a lot of their songs live, whatever work, absolutely no one was complaining. I was also in awe of Armistead Burwell Smith IV bass skills, strumming chords that I assumed were guitar riffs. They are one of those bands that even when you see them playing live, the sound and motion of playing doesn’t make sense (I guess that’s math rock).

Honorable Mention (chronologic order)

Burning Airlines/Dismemberment Plan (2000)
Middle East Downstairs - Cambridge, MA

Jets to Brazil/Cave In (2001)
Middle East Downstairs - Cambridge, MA

Stereolab/Blonde Redhead (2001)
Ensime - Rome, IT

The Pixies (2006)
The Wiltern Theater - Los Angeles, CA

Cut Copy/The Presets (2009)
Webster Hall - New York, NY

Happy New Year,
Craig