URSUS Evolution, Cluj Napoca

The URSUS Evolution concert took place in Piaţa Unirii (Unirii Square) in central Cluj Napoca, Romania. A two-day event, stage preparations started happening days before. I only attended the first day which consisted of Cargo, Paraziţii, and Zdob & Zdub, among others. I couldn’t stay for the second day, but it didn’t interest me too much either as it was more focused on house music. (And you know how I feel about house.) A big concern early in the day was the weather, which was terrible and the rain was coming down in buckets. I knew that the show will go on, despite if there would be rain. I have a 6^th sense about concerts, so when I arrived and nothing was starting, I was right in thinking it would be operating on a delay. To my cynical and very sleepy cousin’s surprise, an hour later the show started. I missed a some of the openers, but no matter, I was able to see exactly who I wanted to see!

Cargo was a crowd favorite, with their rock ballads, inspiring everyone to sing along in the spirit of rock’n’roll. It was very moving, inspirational, classic rock atmosphere, including the hit “Nu Mai Am Ţigari” (I’m out of cigarettes). The spectators did not suffer this misfortune, and it was pretty obvious from the big cloud of cigarette smoke that hovered above us during the duration of this song.

Cargo’s transition evolved with Paraziţii (Parasites) who are a Romanian rap group, singing about corruption, poverty, life on the bloc, smoking drugs, and obscenely blatant messages of adoration for the Romanian police (and actually everyone else too). They were quite obviously stoned all day, but they didn’t miss a beat from their performance. They censored themselves onstage, but to no use, because where they didn’t say it, the crowd filled in.

Paraziţii evolved into ZDOB si ZDUB, who are a mix of Moldavian traditional music and punk. Can you guess which performance was my favorite? They are strongly resonant of Gogol Bordello’s gypsy punk style, starting happy mosh pits every which way you looked. They appeared on EuroVision some time ago, and that’s when the infatuation with this style took Balkans by storm. Singing about nice wholesome things, like life in the countryside, celebrations, weddings, and making bread! The punk renditions of traditional “muzica populară” songs and dances like the horas, or sârba, makes people go crazy!

Foxy Shazam, Fun, Panic at the Disco

First I would like to say a few laudatory words about The Fillmore and its fantastic management. It’s probably the classiest, if not the only classiest venue in Charlotte. If you want to experience a great concert the Fillmore won’t let you down, with its nice acoustics, lights, stage, two or three tier viewing levels. But it’s no smoking, and make sure you pre-game or else you’ll be dishing out 8$ for a tallboy. And one tallboy is never truly enough. It’s a sharp contrast to Charlotte’s usual grimy hole-in-the-wall venues which are the top choices for Charlotte’s musician elites. I think The Fillmore offers a cleaner, bigger space, a nicer atmosphere… which makes sense in correlation with its expensive admissions and dranks.  

Moving on, this is where I got to see the concert, and I was really blown away by the entourage of bands that performed as openers. Foxy Shazam were so full of energy! I especially adored the keyboardist, who I could only picture as an energetically bouncy Tribal Ryze come to life and getting as close as he could to making love to his keyboard with his clothes still on, beating it up, and riding it like he was taming a wild animal. He definitely rune prisoned the audience with his charisma. 

I can only describe the band Fun in the following way: music for a Gray’s Anatomy Seattle atmosphere. It’s that whole reminiscent key and tone that makes you feel reflective, happy, sad, and a lot of other emotions all at once. 

Panic at the Disco! Put on an amazing show as well. The song lineup was well mixed between new-old-new-old-old-new-new-old-new-etc so they did a great job at keeping the crowd on their feet with what’s coming next! Between humorous anecdotes, their performance was fantastic, and it took me all the way back to angsty high school times.

Orange Summer Party

Where I'll be in a couple of weeks:

Scapegoat Pre-release // Snug Harbor

Scapegoat's recent show at Snug Harbor, May 14th 2011, was amazing to say the least.  It was part of a string of shows to promote their new album, with creepy rock tracks like I am Alien and Transylvania that contain some grim lyrics alongside perfected harmonies. Their live shows keep coming harder every time, and the new stuff is chocked full of angsty yet reflective weirdness. Hold tight for its release, it will blow your mind. Also, expect a new music video that may rival Zombies.

09.03.11 - NEW RECORD

Photos by Lidz soon.

Everclear // Speed Street

I just don't know what to say about Speed Street other than it managed to bring out many people who were rather obviously not from the city. As a NASCAR event of a series of concerts and events that happen all weekend long and it reminded me of those crappy state fairs but with more terrible food and boozers. But seriously, why does this happen uptown of all places? The street washing vehicles were hard at work after the concert, going up and down the streets repeatedly to wash away the stench of beer, drunkies, terrible concession foods, and restore it back to its business-professional uptown area.  Luckily I was able to escape the crowd, including hard-to-miss cop involved drama consisting of a redneck-cat-fight, by entering the great mead-hall of VALHALLA! (Formerly the beloved Eggheads, wherein many a great time was had alongside the owners and servers. Them fishbowls were real, Eggheads.)

I would like to address some of the negative reviews and feedback I've received from friends, fans, and various internet sources: What were you people expecting from a band that peaked in the late 90's? The show was nearly rained-out, not to mention these guys are older now, playing at a free event, with terrible outdoor acoustics, on the Miller Lite stage, to a crowd 2x smaller than usual for Speed Street, who were half drunk, and half disinterested, yet all somewhat disappointed. Whatever the reasons, their performance received low ratings all around. Many mentioned that if they would have been really disappointed if they would have have had to pay - but that's the point, you didn't. You can only hope that in such a case the band may have exhibited a greater desire to put on a better show. All those angsty-daddy-issue songs of your childhood were probably ruined, because it became apparent that the band was not too sober themselves. As my first experience with Speed Street, I don't really think that many bands would put forth their best effort for this type of event. Given the conditions, why should they?