From noze Sent Tue, May 11th 1999, 01:39
From noze Sent Tue, May 11th 1999, 01:39
I caught the tour down in Austin last Friday night, and I was very impressed. I got to interview Mika and Ilpo of Pan Sonic that night, but it didn't go too well. They gave me the shortest possible answers to my questions and seemed very disinterested. Trans Am on the other hand were very responsive and fun to talk to. The venue, Emo's, was pretty small, but it suited the bands quite well. The crowd was very into the music and the overall vibe was excellent. Pan Sonic took to the stage around 10:00 or so and delivered their blend of repetitive beats with tone frequencies, etc. The visual consisted of this cool oscilloscope that gave a real time representation of the speaker output. Many of the sounds had very interesting shapes to go along with them on the screen. The crowd reaction ranged from "What the fuck?" to "Holy fuck, this is great." Their set lasted around 45 minutes which was followed by the Champions. We shall skip over this band who my friend quite accurately described as "Wild Stallions" from the movie "Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure." The fact that their drummer was wearing a cool Dr. Octagon T-shirt didn't make up for the fact of how cheesy they were. Trans Am completely blew me and the crowd away. They came on pretty late, and started off with some tracks from Futureworld. Their setup is really cool and fluid, much like their cohorts Tortoise live. The bass player dressed in a silver athletic outfit changed from bass to keyboards and did most of the vocoder duties as well. The drummer was phenomenal in his playing and intensity. The other guy had some pretty amazing guitar work and keyboard stuff as well. My favorite by far was the live version of "Futureworld." It seemed to really take shape live in a way that the cd can't display. Another highlight is the all electronic interlude midway through the set where they try and shake the building with their beat machine. Someone else on the list described this part, so I'm sure they do it at every show. My only gripe was the lack of good lighting and some sort of movie screen. I think visuals would have augmented the show considerably, but oh well. In the last review, someone was complaining about the sound levels being way to high. Portions of Pan Sonic's set were near-deafening, but Trans Am's levels were quite nice. All in all, a very cool concert. Try and catch it if you can. --futureboy ___________________________________________________________________ You don't need to buy Internet access to use free Internet e-mail. Get completely free e-mail from Juno at http://www.juno.com/getjuno.html or call Juno at (800) 654-JUNO [654-5866]