{"id":1326,"date":"2008-03-30T01:03:12","date_gmt":"2008-03-30T05:03:12","guid":{"rendered":""},"modified":"2008-03-30T01:03:12","modified_gmt":"2008-03-30T01:03:12","slug":"stephen-malkmus-show-makes-me-appreciate","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/stephen-malkmus-show-makes-me-appreciate\/","title":{"rendered":"Stephen Malkmus Show Makes Me Appreciate Jon Anderson"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/SkX8IafsnBM?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nAdmittedly this is one of the most out of touch things I&#8217;ll ever share, but <strong>Stephen Malkmus<\/strong>&#8216; show at the Philadelphia&#8217;s TGIF of &#8220;legendary&#8221; rock clubs, the Fillmore at the TLA, furthered my appreciation of <strong>Yes<\/strong> frontman <strong>Jon Anderson<\/strong>.  After a grandiose musical introduction, Anderson&#8217;s vocals would set up some 9-minute cosmic musiical excursion by the rest of the band. While Steve Howe, Rick Wakeman, Chris Squire, et al noodled away, Anderson would shake a tambourine, walk about the stage, cheer on his bandmates, but never turn his back on the audience. When things settled down long enough for Anderson to rattle off a few more spacey couplets, he was one more Boss. He was always the anchor for the audience.<br \/>\n<!--more--><br \/>\nAs much as singing is key to the role of a frontman, that role of focal point for the audience may be more important. Around a frontperson who&#8217;s willing to be larger than life, all sorts of nonsense can take place on stage. All night, as Malkmus and his equally detached, introverted band, <strong>The Jicks<\/strong>, jammed away on song after song (mostly from the new album, <em>Real Emotional Trash<\/em>) until devolving into an embarrassed, self-consciously feeble parody of a big rock song ending, I kept trying to imagine how much better this generally good, musically interesting show would have been with some extroverted clown like Jon Anderson, Ian Anderson, <strong>Damon Albarn<\/strong>, or Thom Yorke fronting the affair. Malkmus sang the entire set hunched over his angled-too-low boom stand, which was turned away from the crowd. As he sang &#8220;side-saddle,&#8221; with bangs covering his closed eyes, the woman playing bass would often roll her eyes to no one in particular. The multi-tasker across from her, a guy in a <em>Lost in Space<\/em> jacket, who promised to add a little flare to the set yet rarely delivered it as he ably played guitar, two sets of synths, cowbell, and assorted percussion &#8211; wouldn&#8217;t bite on the bassist&#8217;s bad attitude. He readily joined Malkmus on a string of dual leads, which made me and many other dudes in the audience grin and bob our heads but seemed to have little-to-no effect on the grinning, head-bobbing muscles of either guitarist. How can two guitarists play dual leads without looking at each other with either a fierce bonding face or an ironic grin? Drummer Janet Weiss bashed away enthusiastically and added some welcome vocal support, but without a drum riser on a too-low stage for the theater, I had to stand on my tippy-toes just to get a peak at her black bangs and nice cheekbones. There was much to enjoy about the music being played, but little to get out of seeing this band in person. Weird.<\/p>\n<p><iframe class='youtube-player youtuber' type='text\/html' width='425' height='355' src='http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/pMNMIlHtPwE?rel=0&amp;fs=1&amp;ap=%252526fmt%253D18' webkitAllowFullScreen mozallowfullscreen allowFullScreen frameborder='0'><\/iframe><br \/>\nThe audience, however, seemed pleased as punch. Although there was not that one moment of eruption from the crowd over the start of a beloved song (he skipped many of my favorite solo songs, and I didn&#8217;t recognize any of the <strong>Pavement<\/strong> songs that I know [I&#8221;ve become a fan of Malkmus&#8217; solo albums much more than I ever liked Pavement]), they applauded wildly at the end of each dissolving jam. Honestly, there was much to like from the sounds on stage, even as the mix got increasingly muddy, but I couldn&#8217;t shake the thought that Malkmus is a <strong>lousy frontman<\/strong>. With a sold-out house of satisfied customers, I&#8217;ve got a lot of nerve criticizing Malkmus&#8217; skills as a frontman, but what&#8217;s the point of going to a show if the focal point of the band is too shy to engage in the audience? He &#8220;got into&#8221; some of his solos, but all in all he made <strong>Tom Verlaine<\/strong>, another introverted musician&#8217;s musician I&#8217;ve seen, look like <strong>Ted Nugent<\/strong>. God bless you, frontpeople of rock. Even if all you do is sing a few couplets in a ridiculously high voice and then bang a tambourine that no one hears, you help me focus on The Show.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Admittedly this is one of the most out of touch things I&#8217;ll ever share, but Stephen Malkmus&#8216; show at the Philadelphia&#8217;s TGIF of &#8220;legendary&#8221; rock clubs, the Fillmore at the TLA, furthered my appreciation of Yes frontman Jon Anderson. After a grandiose musical introduction, Anderson&#8217;s vocals would set up some 9-minute cosmic musiical excursion by <a href='https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/stephen-malkmus-show-makes-me-appreciate\/' class='excerpt-more'>[&#8230;]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":5,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[342],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/5"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1326"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1326\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1326"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1326"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.rocktownhall.com\/blogs\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1326"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}