The days of live musical performances giving me a good aural rogering appear to be over. I can't discern the precise reason for this. I refuse to accept that it's because I'm an aging cynical asshole. Instead, I choose to believe that this last handful of shows has simply failed to wow me.
Cut Copy produces danceable, accessible, 80s throwback electropop goodness. Its members are easy on the eyes. The musical performance was superficially satisfactory at minimum. So why the hell would I rather crap glass shards than write a review on this show (3 weeks late)? Here are the only reasons I thought of so far:
1. The set was uninspired. Nothing was particularly wrong, I guess, but something just wasn't right. The crowd was there because it was trendy to know who Cut Copy was, and trendier to like 'em. Even if the band delivered some transcendent performance, it would have been totally lost on the whacked-out-on-ecstasy couple dry-humping next to me-- and I'm fairly confident that they were a microcosmic example of the audience at large.
2. There's just too many bands doing this thing, whatever it is. Nothing's standing out! I mean, come on. Really mushroom-stamp me with something. Set the drummer on fire! Throw ninja stars into the audience! I don't know. I guess I feel like I've seen this exact show a dozen times before.
3. The best 80s music is, was and will always be from the 80s. Everything else is just reinvented at best, and plagiarism at worst.
4. The frontman looked so smug that I wanted to cock punch him. You're not the Second Coming, dude. Keep that chin down, give Bono his Rock God stage stance back and connect with something bigger than your ego-- namely, the people who paid good money to have you show them a good time.
Enough. Now I'm just getting nasty. But what the hell else can I do? I had to punch it up. I was putting myself to sleep.
I will say that opener Matt & Kim were quite delightful.
They nailed the cardinal rule of Effective Stage Presence: Have. A. Good. Time. Matt delivered the goods, bouncing effusively on the equipment and gushing sincere gratitude on the doting crowd. The set was surprisingly uncomplicated, but with that kind of energy and enthusiasm, they could have been playing Richard Marx Dance Remixes for all I knew and I still would have enjoyed myself.
Good God, I finally did it. This must be what passing a stone is like.
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