Hi, guys. Today might be a short blog. I am battling unmotivation like a plague. Send music shit to my email [ fosterhildingmusic@gmail.com ] or DM me on Instagram.
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| photos stolen from the internet. |
I'll be honest, I'm not a Garden fan. I think I've listened to a song or two, but honestly never gave them a chance. I was really here for Iceage--a funky little band that blends more genres together than I really remembered them doing. We stood in a snaking line, sandwiched between the snow and shivering, security guards who hated their lives curling wristbands on us and waddling about under a million layers. Then we packed in, first like introvert kids and then like sweat-slicked sardines put to light with sour and naive faces at many of their first shows.
Iceage broke onto the stage with unmatched swagger, Elias like a young Jim Morrison performing acrobatics across the wide, empty stage. I think I had to stop myself multiple times from screaming at them to play Shelter Song or Gold City. It's clear they've moved past that phase, for better or worse. Dan's dance beats pulsed in our chests like a hive mind of pseudo-punk anarchy and some sloppy attempts at moshing. Jakob and Casper were stoic in comparison to Elias' anxious spontaneity.
I think I lied to myself and said I really enjoyed their set, but in all honesty I was a little disappointed. Of course, a touring band isn't gonna play their old stuff (and admittedly I hadn't listened to the new stuff at this point), but the new was so different, so much more beholden to pop ideology and some attempt at the mainstream that it felt unnatural. Not to say it was bad, but it was just... everything else almost. I wanted them to groundbreaking, and maybe that's a lot to expect from a band touring with The Garden--and for all intents and purposes "making it." Regardless, I had fun. Stream Shake the Feeling: Outtakes & Rarities 2015-2021.
I naturally compared Iceage and The Garden at this show, pitting them against each other and almost needing to prove that the more "underground" of the two was better. But, they were incredibly different from each other and I couldn't say whether I liked one more than the other. There was a soft spot in my heart for Iceage, but I was, and always have been enamored by the feeling of a crowded, over-capacity show. It's cathartic and renewing, just bodies to bodies in blissful camaraderie and platonic musical ecstasy. I don't have the authority to speak on shit like this, but there's an effect it has that maybe makes me fall in love with the music itself far more than I would have under different circumstances.
The Garden put on a fucking show. Fletcher somersaulted across the stage an absurd amount of times and they looked like a MTV punk parody with their suits and eye-covering hair. 808s blared through the room as it breathed and squeezed and pulsed, TikTok kids forcing their way as close to the front as possible among sweat clouds and white face paint. Wyatt's hoarse yells were anthems for the weird and disenfranchised, and I could barely hear the both of them over the chanting, memorized love from the audience. A giant jester roamed ominously against the will of noise.
I think I went into their set with the wrong mindset, hoping to be let down or therefore proven "right," but it was neither here nor there. It was fun, ridiculous, and high energy. It really was just punk. And whatever spiritual war I had in my head was put to rest. It's just music. Maybe I'm getting way too pretentious and shitty (this blog included). Sorry, guys. I promise I do enjoy music. And maybe there's something to be said about the actual experience of the live music as opposed to whatever "product" is there. Of course, maybe then that discredits so much of what I write on this blog, but that's okay. Stream Six Desperate Ballads.
Long story short: I had fun. Nothing groundbreaking, but fun and ridiculously well-performed all around. I'm trying to learn to just enjoy it all. Running into most people I know, drunken professors and friends of friends, I got home with a white paint stain on my shoulder.
-Foster
Continuing Dead Mothers Collective's live series, check out My Friend My Urn's new video on YouTube.
See Iceage at København for et Frit Palæstina on April 18th (I think in Denmark?).
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