At 11:28 PM 8/5/2003 -0400, Mark Eichelberger wrote:
>I remember reading that a few Audities posters were going to see Sparks in
NYC this past weekend.  Since I could not make it, I would be very
interested in reading a report on the show.  Anyone out there see the
brother Mael?

Indeed we did, and it was utterly magnificent.  The opening act was current
flavor of the month Junior Senior, whom I liked much more than I expected
to.  Although I really liked their increasingly ubiquitous single "Move
Your Body," I didn't think their music would come across live.  But they
had a live rhythm section and backing musicians that gave the songs more
whomp than I expected, and they had good stage presence.  I bought the
album this afternoon.  ($7.99 at Newbury Comics: take the hint, majors --
we'll take fliers on new bands when the CDs are a reasonable price.)

So then the MC -- who really annoyingly kept referring to them as "The
Sparks" -- announced that they were coming on to play their new album, L'IL
BEETHOVEN.  This disturbed me slightly because I hadn't heard the new
record and at least two people whose taste I tend to trust had said it was
godawful.  Well, what the hell do they know: based on the performance I
saw, this is at least the best Sparks album since ANGST IN MY PANTS, and
once I live with the album a few days (bought it this afternoon too), I may
change that to "best since PROPAGANDA."  The album's overall sonic concept
might bug some people -- Charity pointed out that it sounds kind of like
they recorded one multi-part suite that's about half again longer than
"Bohemian Rhapsody" and then sliced and diced that into a 45-minute album,
which is a fair cop but not necessarily a bad thing.  We thought that the
repetition (something they've done to smaller degrees throughout their
career) actually helps the songs quite a bit.  It's not a coincidence that
the song we both liked best was the one that's five words repeated non-stop
for about five minutes.

The multimedia aspect of the show was a lot of fun -- just basic video
stuff that enhanced the stage show without overpowering it -- and Ron did a
lot of very funny stuff that had some of us discussing whether he reminded
us more of Buster Keaton, Jacques Tati or Harry Langdon.  And then for the
second half, they came back out and did a slightly too-short set of various
classics.  I would have preferred a little more '70s vintage stuff (only
"This Town" made it from that era) and the only one of my all-time
favorites they played was "When Do I Get To Sing 'My Way'," which was just
the perfect set closer, but it was still a decent overview.  Russell looked
like he was just having the best time throughout -- and as fellow Auditeer
Rick Gagnon pointed out, the man is freakin' Dorian Gray -- and he and Ron
both came out after the set and very sincerely thanked the crowd and
promised that they were going to be doing more actual US dates soon.

So thumbs up all the way around, really.

S