Review #215: Daft Punk, Seattle 07/29/07 (or, Daft Punk and Me)
You know how as time goes by, you like things you used to not like, or you dislike things you used to enjoy? For instance, I used to not like asparagus but now I love the stuff. I used to not like almonds. When I was a kid The Brady Bunch came on right after He-Man and I used to despise it. By high school it had become my favorite show ever. What’s my point?..oh, yeah…
When Daft Punk released Homework, I made fun of them. A lot. Why, I’m not sure. Was it because Alex Bennet, the current morning DJ on Live 105.3 FM blasted them after they played in the studio because they just spun records the whole time? No, even then, knowing nothing of electronic music, I knew the difference between a band and…whatever you call Daft Punk. I think at the time I was getting into indie rock and home-recordings, so the idea of an overproduced DJ album just did not appeal to me. “Da Funk” was getting a lot of air play at the time and it seemed too repetitive. Of course at the time dancing was a completely foreign concept to me so having a catchy riff over a fat beat over and over made little or no sense to me. Add to that the fact that I only ever heard that song and “Around the World”, mostly on MTV’s Amp, which I did try to watch once or twice, and you can see why I wasn’t a big fan. Why did I make fun of them with my friends, though? Probably because I was an angsty teen with a chip on his shoulder who felt that the world owed him something and would therefore find anything to “hate”.
When “Discovery” came out, I saw the video for “One More Time” and actually thought the song catchy. The video was fun, too. Then I heard that they were going to make an anime video for every song on the album. I thought that was a cool concept, but when I heard that Daft Punk were robots, no, they insisted they were really robots, I thought “lame”. I never saw any of those other videos and forgot all about them. Fast forward to 2007.
Jeremy told me Daft Punk is coming and he is going. I don’t remember if this is before or after he told me that they did make a DVD of all the songs for “Discovery” and sent me to youtube to watch some. I was kind of digging on it. See, throughout my entire working life I have, save for that one year at the gas station, been subjected to Muzak and that, of course, means a healthy dose of disco music. Boogie Nights, I will Survive, Knock on Wood, and tons more. A veritable Time-Life collection of the stuff. I developed a fondness for a lot of it so when I started dating a guy who’s Bic was flicked by dance and electronic music I wasn’t surprised that I was turned on to some of it (Not a lot of it, mind you, but some of it).
So they were coming, it was a big deal, and I wanted to go. I was partly excited, partly scared both because I didn’t know what to expect. And I was also afraid I’d have to dance but not be in the mood. Ok, enough back story, let’s get to the concert. Or performance. Or set. Or whatever the hell Daft Punk would call it.
The first thing I noticed when we went in was just how massive it was. The show was at the WaMU Theater and I have NEVER been to any musical performance this big, ever. I don’t do arena shows. In fact I hardly do shows, but whatever. This wasn’t arena-big, but it was big. And sold out. So there were TONS of people there. You know how in the movie “Dazed and Confused” it’s like this big party with all these individual stories going around at once. I could totally see a movie set in this place with stuff happening at the merch booth, in the bathroom, at the beer table, in the audience. It was a little surreal and easy to lose yourself in the crowd. I welcomed it, but it got too crowded on the floor. The show was sold out and if you had any intention of dancing, well…forget it. Like sardines in a can, I tell you. During the show, there was one point where a good 2 feet of space opened up in front of me. I pulled Jeremy into my spot to give him the room if he wanted to try to dance. Naturally, the space closed up really quickly.
Before the show Jeremy, Bill and I puttered around, got a beer, and waited for it to start. Once it did, I was sort of blown away. It was so loud. It was so flashy. The bass was…my hair was vibrating…I could feel it in my chest, in my bowels…I wanted it to just consume me. I have developed a taste for beats and this show certainly delivered. I don’t so much like to dance to the beats as much as I like to stylishly walk to them with headphones on. As a result I ended up standing there, maybe trying to dance, but mostly letting the rhythm and music pound into me like a cannon ball. It’s sort of hard for me to explain, not having heard much of their music. Jeremy said it was really deconstructed. I know what he means because there were only small fragments of the songs I knew…none of them as a whole, from the album that is. The light show was great. See, the two musicians (?) were standing at a pyramid-shaped podium thingy that lit up, plus they had all the lights around them as well and a huge video screen.
I have since purchased a Daft Punk album, Discovery. I chose this one because I had to get the one that had “Face to Face” on it. When I listen to this album I feel a little ignorant for being so closed-minded as a youngster, and so long afterwards as well.
I did a piss-poor job of reviewing the actual concert, but whatever. Jeremy got some video of it, but the poor guy has been busy, has fallen ill, plus he seems to have some hurdles to deal with in the video-editing department. So here’s someone else’s: