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Black Mountain & Bon Iver @ Glasslands
The Saturday night show was, as expected, an industry-heavy, inside-baseball showcase. In attendance was a veritable who’s who of online self-publishers, a digital layercake of hangers-on, the Flickr mafia, and other internet celebrities. It was sold-out, but i made it in rather easily by becoming a “friend” of the bouncer. Shocking.
Like many, I came for Black Mountain, but was stunned by the band known as Bon Iver. Justin Vernon is a man unadulterated. Powerful is a decent way to describe his music. suckapants wrote that he refrained from photographing lest the shutter noise interfere with the intensely quiet, intimate Justin Vernon.
Bon Iver (via suckapants.com)
Black Mountain took a while to come on stage, as if a marc jacobs fashion show. A crowd neighbor said Amber was “freaking out because they didnt have any water.” Stage preparation curiously also involved testing the fog machine extensively but they never made use of it. But Black Mountain put on a great show, despite a predication made by another crowd neighbor that the show would positively be “stoopid.”
black mountain (via suckapants.com)
One of the more salient moments came 3/4 into the set when guitarist Stephen McBean suggested that the gaggle of rocktographers and filmmakers “stop filming and start dancing.”
NYCTaperA crew of 4 DV cameras were trained on the stage: two in the balcony and two in the front row. The cameraman directly in front of McBean sheepishly released his front row access following the comment. No one likes to get called out. I do look fwd to their cut. (And NYCTaper recorded the audio only, available for download).Personal consumption resulting from show: I bought Bon Iver. But may also get Black Mountain.
