Saturday I saw of Montreal and stuck around for Tomas Ford at Beck's Music Box. of Montreal started off pretty shit, vocals lacking, sound stage misconfigurd. Thankfully after a couple of songs everything got going. Got up to the front, danced around, laughed at crazy dancing kids, smiled at everyone having fun, rocked to the music, and laughed again at the onstage theatrics. Tomas Ford was fun as always, but he seems to have mellowed, not nearly as much assaulting the audience as previous performances. Great night.
On Sunday I went back to Beck's Music Box. I was on my own but bumped into Sarah and Scott and tagged along with them. I don't know too much about Black Mountain, but I rocked out! I can only describe them as post-rock with the rock put back in, with a dash of 70s rock to boot. Didn't stick around for Tame Impala, walked home. Great night.
Monday I went to Soundwave (after work), and caught Alice in Chains and Nine Inch Nails. Alice in Chains were excellent, but as always with festivals, would have been better in the dark. Nine Inch Nails: divine! 9 years since I last saw them, and Trent still has me captivated. Played a lot off Broken (YES!), not much off Year Zero (boo), and didn't have their elaborate fog touch screen stage show (boo). However they did have the energy and power, and put it to great use. The crowd was mostly made of fanbois and sung along (best singalong moment was 'gotta listen to your big time hard line bad luck fist fuck' to most of the songs. However, overhead clapping did give me the shits. I was about 4 people from the front for March of the Pigs, riotous, then eventually shifted around to get a better view before ending up in the middle of a circle pit. WTF? Eventually got out of that and hung back around 20 people from the front enjoying myself and disgusting adjacent girls with my sweaty, sweaty tshirt (I think it was about 10% my own sweat). NIN ended with Wish, with Dillinger Escape Plan leading. A chaotic and perfect end to the set. Walking away I evaluated the destruction of the moshpit on my trousers: both legs ripped to shit. FUCKING FANTASTIC NIGHT.
Interspersed with all this I did some lab work, mostly finished off a chapter of my thesis and worked.
If I had enough money life would always be thus.